South Africa

On our ride on Sunday we found an abandoned building with a polished concrete floor... there was only one thing for it really ... slides and wheelies! Thanks to Luke Goller for the photos, always handy having someone take photos on an outride.

Some photos from Sundays coaching trail ride in Hilton. It was really nice to ride with a good group of dudes and to play silly buggers with Will. I'm very lucky to have riding this good on my door step!

Fun ride time! Please come along to the Kamberg Spring Burn fun ride on 18 September.

18 September, 10am start. Kids loop as well. Should be great fun!

Raising funds for Nottingham Road Pre-Primary (near where we are living at the moment). I will be there, Mon will be there, her famous cupcakes will be there ...

Starts at Spotted Horse Country Inn, Kamberg.

Visit www.kambergspringburn.co.za for more info.

In other news in the Birch house, Mon has decided that she will race in the last Enduro World race in October. She nearly chickened out when went to the last one, and saw how fast the other ladies were, but I have convinced her that she can do it...

So she is back on the bike again, and doing well! Watch out ladies ... (or not, says Mon!)

Being part of the Comsol Alfie Cox team is fantastic - we have a great team, great support, and we get on really well. Recently we all went to Red Bull Romaniacs and had a ball - we know we are pretty lucky.

Something you may not yet know about our team though - Comsol also pledges to support a very worthwhile charity, Miles for Smiles. If you don't know about them, this is what they do:

What an awesome day we had today. First we filmed a few bits and pieces for the Red Bull guys, then we headed off to the lion park. It cost the equivalent of $20nzd for all five of us, and we all got an opportunity to feed an elephant! Very cool, Mon got very slimy elephant hands!

We also drove into the lion enclosure, it was so amazing to see them right up close.

On Saturday me and Mon went on her first proper ride. This was supposed to go from Bulwer back to Will's house in Howick, a casual 100k's or so. We had friends come down from Jo'burg too, Mark (who really is the man who brought me to SA in the first place, way back in 2008!) and his 11 year old son, Dayne. Dayne was VERY excited at the thought of a full day out with his dad and us!

Me and Mon tagged along with Wild Will on his trail ride lesson yesterday. Mon really enjoyed it, she is even getting faster. The not so cool part of the ride was when the other girl got a lift down the hill with Will, and when we went to go get her bike - it was gone! We asked the farm boy and a couple of locals if they had seen anything and they were adamant that they hadn't...

I am off the motorbike for a couple of weeks allowing my wrist to heal up before the next national enduro middle of May, but a couple of guys from the Liquorland team came up to Iain's and had a play on the tracks. Even Mon tried some of the enduro x track (she did a stage dive landing on all fours at one stage but was fine!)

Last camp, this time we were based in Cato Ridge at Alfie Cox's place. We had a group of 20 this time, the biggest of the 4 camps. I think I have my talks pretty well memorised now! Really cool to see lots of guys travelling from PE and Jo'burg etc.

The second day we went on the out ride and got caught in a massive downpour, but everyone still went home happy. Mon was doing the food for this camp and it was great to have her as chef and cheif organiser (Mon also types the blog sometimes heh heh)