AS I REMEMBER YOU

I have been fortunate to walk where I have walked, to race with whom I have raced and to have met and known all of you.

David Cloete, this dude was large, 6foot tall and few could descend like him, David and I would argue frequently. He was older so he thought he knew more, I was young, black and talented and I “gave him a piece of mind” time and time again but, we were fond of each other in our own way.

One day it was storming, we had just slipped over Constantia neck and we had been dropped just on the cusp of the climb. David said to me’  “sit on my wheel ‘China’"

And so I did, he dragged me down the climb along the flats and I paced him on the climb of Chapman’s Peak, we would do this often as needs be, as I was no good at descending.

Then there is my long standing friend, Ian Gallard, what a great buddy, this was the master descender par excellence. He was lean, mean, hard and relentless on the bike.

David Cloete once said, long steady miles is the answer, spin, be supple and when you are older you will not regret it.

That advice I never forgot, it would make me a superior le grimpeur, much to the disadvantage of others.

Ian Gallard, Mark Blewitt, David McGinley and Kevin Green of Paarl belonged to a semi-pro outfit called Sopex. The professional teams in South Africa feared these guys; they were simply magic on their bikes.

I would spot them each time as I was training putting in the miles each day.  During those days there were two groups of cycling in my country.  The whites and the coloureds.  Coloured were generally excellent track racers and never mingled with the whites.

I thought to myself, if I am to be good I will train with the best. The whites had the money and the sponsorships, I had the talent and I sure as hell didn’t care about skin colour. I would train hard and beat them at their own game. Those were the thoughts going through my head.  So one day I stopped the Sopex Cycling Team.

Ian as always was friendly, always eager to help. Mark was a gentleman, David was aloof and Kevin, well he was coloured like me and he needed to protect his place with the ‘white boys’ so, all in all I would race and train with all of them over the years. We would have great fun.

Kevin was their track man; he was really good especially as he hailed from Paarl area, in the Boland.  I always wondered why these guys did so well on the track. Maybe it was all the jungle oats….

As the years went by Mark Blewitt would be one of the first ones to go and ride professionally in France. He had a European passport so he exploited it. France, beautiful France, the place where all our cycling dreams lie.

I also remember Marwaan, I forget his surname but he was Muslim. This guy, he could ride for hours on end.  No matter where you went, no matter how hot, you would find this skinny guy frequenting the mountains; burned dark from the sun looking like a little Columbian.

He always used to ride for the advertising company that employed him.  If there ever was a ‘long distance professor’ he was it.  He would be surprised that I remember him today, but hey that’s me, a memory like an elephant.

And then there was Freddie, he was always happy and laughing or smiling. 

We would get up at 5am to be at the races at 5:30 and 6:00. I hated this early morning starts in South African racing. Really hated it.

There was this middle aged woman with a bum like a drum, curly blonde hair and a long cigarette in the mouth;  Jasmine, she was the race convener, she was a real pain in the butt, no pun intended.

One time we raced this long 250Km race in Franchhoek. After 7 hours of racing, in sweltering heat of 50 degrees and a fire along the mountain side she decided to disqualify my whole team. My team mates were demoralized. Ian Gallard and Idecided, to hell with it, we are going to race on till the end. Once we got over the last climb of the day she re-instated us into the race, by this time most of the race lie in the gutter from heat exhaustion and hungry.

Ian and I finished the race and collected our medals. Those were the days, sweet like summer wine, happy caressing the corners of my mind.

One day we were to gather a team for an all star event. It would be a like a relay event starting with the best runners in the country then a cycling section of 100kms, paddle skiing, wind surfing and swimming.

I was invited to enter a team.

Willie Engelbrecht, the then King of South African Cycling, was also taking part amongst other great riders.

Our team ended up in a very good position within the top 20, we were over the moon as most of the guys competing were pros.

If it wasn’t for our marathon runner and my cycling, we would have come last as our swimmer, swam in the wrong direction. What an ass!  He was this macho swimmer dude; I will not mention his name here today.

Neil (the marathon runner and my sister’s ex) started cycling too, but the wind and rain would always nail him, he had no body fat whatsoever and he crashed a lot. He reminded me of Alex Zuller, some guys just have so much Karma, they are more off the bike than on.

In the end Neil gave it all up.

At that time there were no women cycling but I do remember fondly this one girl who always trained with us. It was comforting to look at her rear end, this German babe Bragidda. Hmmmm, we were fond of each other.  Ian Gallard might have had other ideas and exploits with her…..

One time we were racings down the back side of Cape Town, a place called Scarborough. Cathy Carstens was just a little way off to the rear of my wheel. At the time it was one of my first races, I was racing League. That was for those who were really, really good, the pros and the pro-ams. What on earth was I doing, what on earth was I thinking?

I was falling back and hampering her progress, but she gave me a long push to get back into the front.  If she ever reads this, I wonder if she will remember.

I appreciated it although, I think she loved my firm black bum.

Then there was this tomboy Beverly Adams whose brother was the world famous cricketer Paul ‘Gogga’ Adams.

She and David Cloete worked together for many years in a bicycle shop called Soloped run by a long haired hippie called Richard Prowse.  This dude was a seasoned veteran but also a real good cyclist. He reminded me a bit of Andy Hampsten always complaining and always out of form. There was this really sexy red haired that was always pleasant and would go on training rides with us sometimes. Gosh! I can’t remember her name for the life of me but I am sure David Cloete knows of whom I write. 

Do you guys remember that little German Tyson Unger?

He had all the talent, young, lots of money but sadly faded as time went by.

Shame. Do you remember how we use to go training in summer after work, you, me, Richard and Tyson?

And then there is Sean Batty ‘the animal’ this dude crunched big gears; he would go training even if it was snowing outside.  He was another tall lanky cyclist.

So as the days went on, my cycling became better and soon I was to leave this steal frame behind, I let my father know that I would need a lighter and more professional frame soon.

From my old blue Carlton I progressed to Hansen 501 Reynolds tubing; my father bought me a Hansom from Gotti Hansom Cycles on the Foreshore.

When this was no longer good enough I went to David Cloete who had acquired his own shop, it was called ‘Cycle Logic’ befittingly.

I searched many shops and I wanted something really light, when I walked into David’s shop and told him my problem he took one look at me and pointed me to a carbon bonded frame of alluminium and said; “I have raced with you and know how you climb no bike is better suited for your build than this one.”

There hanging in the shop was a silver bullet, clean without any fancy stickers and devoid of any colour, it was perfect.

It was nothing European but boy; it was light as a feather. The Litage “light age” was something put together by the Americans and the Japanese. The mechanics had it sorted in no time.

In the afternoon that David called me to fetch my bike,  I remember Victor Johnston accompanying me home on a test ride. It was everything I dreamed off.

When winter settled in and all the pretenders hid from the cold, John Cupido, Mark Florence and I would pack our bags and slide on our mountain boots, we would drive to Jongkers Hoek and do 8 hour cross training hikes on foot, through the mountains.

We had a ball of a time. Wayne Stevens would call me on Tuesday evenings and we would watch the latest movies on the now world famous Cape Town Water Front.

This is what we would do for leisure but mostly it was racing, training, cycling, more racing, more training and more cycling not necessarily in that order.  And on a good night I would listen to Ian Gallard give me tips on becoming a more superior climber and stories of bodies that go humping in the night.

Saturdays, Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were our main racing days, then the odd ‘Contre le Montre’ (Time Trial) in between and some Hill Premiums in the evenings.

But it was the Europeans who always stole my heart, they had such class and finesse on the bicycle.  One year, a tall lanky German, skin burned brown from hours in the sun appeared in Cape Town. His name was Marc Weishaupt and I think he stayed with Davie Cloete for a while while training in the Mother City.

One day he asked David to give him a really long route to train on, something arduous.  David directed him to the four passes about 250kms of long stretches of flat and over high mountains.

This was on a Wednesday, Marc did it all by himself in record time, then came to race with us at Killarney and still finished in the front bunch, then got on his bike and cycled another 30kms home.

Wow! Awesomeness! Magik! What more can I say?

I also remember Russell Clarence, it is amazing the idiosyncrasies of us all, when Russell was on his bike he reminded me of a specific rider in the Tour de France, though I can’t remember his name, Russell had this strange position on the bike, yet he raced pretty well.

And last but not least, Russell Palm, a really good cyclist whom I had met through Mark Florence, he was a man of few words, but had great talent and represented South Africa at the Australia Olympic Games. I am grateful for him for putting up with me when I went to Cape Town to race and also savoured his wife’s great cooking.

One of my uncles, a man from Durban always use to say after a really good time, or really fun party; “all good things must come to an end” so too this article: ‘As I remember you’.

I got an email from Ian Gallard the other day and he spoke to me about nostalgia…

There are few things in this world that can change a man, spiritually, and if there was no other way, I can safely say that cycling could perhaps do that if one gave careful thought to it.

I know my blog is about nostalgia to a certain degree, ok, maybe to a large degree but in the final analysis it too will come to an end  as all things do that are material.

But I know you all will always be a part of my memory……