This Rider Diary has been provided by Stuart Spies – who will be riding for the UK based MarathonMTB.com-Repaack Team in 2012
Our sport is strange, I left Johannesburg roughly 10 years ago in no small part to chasing a bit of, well I guess you’d call it a dream. More maybe chasing the romance of European road racing. All that history, all the drama, Phil Liggett making some amazing assessments of the unfolding action (even if that action was basically 5 men, on a road, flat as you like, boring as sin, he made it sound incredible). For years these thoughts bubbled away with the once yearly recharge of Le Tour coverage while I happily raced my MTB over scorched veld and thorny ‘koppies’ the length and breadth of South Africa.
One day I was going to get there, one day I was going to fly down some Alpine tarmac at Pantani lunatic speed, I was going to stand in the mud at Flanders on the very hill where Jasper Skippy got run over but by a team car and I was going to emulate every super human effort of the giants of the sport, Indurain, Kelly, Roche, Delgado and the like – and at some point I was DEFINITELY going to learn how to race a track bike, the fundamental basis of our sport in my possibly misguided opinion!
All this was ticking through my head as I swore at those bastard race killing ‘devil thorns’, bled from ‘Acacia thorns’ (essentially 13 times the size, make a great weapon), woke up to ‘Bobbejaan’ spiders on my sleeping bag (think Tarantula with a South African accent) and dehydrated my way from one rock filled lunar landing to another chasing some hallowed National points and swearing I could handle ANY crappy winter Europe could chuck at me, bring it!
Aah yes, ever the dreamer. Bags packed, life re-started and I guess I have to admit road cycling took hold, the depth of racing is incredible. The talent is phenomenal, here in Europe it’s cultured and nurtured and eventually bears fruit in the form of big stonking national teams, equipped, meaningful and unashamably dominant. It’s frankly, a headf$%k. You learn quite rapidly that age is your enemy and just because you turn up to a local chipper event doesn’t mean an Olympian, a National Champion or hell the World Champion won’t turn up and pulverise all into dust (cheerfully the later hasn’t graced us with his presence yet)! Thankfully I bore no plans for world domination, merely that chance to ride in the wheel tracks of the big boys. Oh yes, and that ‘track’ issue…
So as it turns out, track terrifies the bejesus out of me.
I love it: fast and furious, but better watched than raced I think. I live near enough to a fantastic outdoor track, Hillingdon Velodrome, but somewhere along the line the Tuesday and Thursday night criteriums sandwiching the Wednesday track league became religion. To go utterly tits off, eyeballs out for an hour was JUST the antidote to a day in the office, (mainly spent ordering and pouring over bike parts). So I raced, I paced, I attacked, sprinted and echeloned and did all a good roadie does and can honestly say it was EVERYTHING and so much more. Just a few months back I got to cycle with none other than Mr Sean Hardman Kelly himself, now that’s a pretty special thing!
Funny thing is I can’t have one without the other now, dirt that is and road, I need both, my yin and yang. I feel guilty if I miss a club run, bad if I miss a mid week off road sesh and basically terrible if I don’t do either. Currently there are 14 machines hiding in every nook, cranny and corner of our little London flat. I can honestly say I cherish every one. To choose one over the other? Hell no!
One of the many lunar landscapes awaiting Mr Spies. Photo by Greg Beadle/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
So the wheels turn and time marches on and I find myself obsessing again. Thorns, blood, dust, heat, hardship, friendship, beer, braai and MTB, this little pale expat is heading home. A two and a half month ‘work related’ *cough* trip back to my roots. And as it happens the same ones that sent me ass over tit on my first foray into off road! Its been too long, those endless searing jeep tracks that broke my heart on more than one occasion and that feeling you actually belong really, I can’t wait. Where would I be without road cycling, who knows, who cares I wouldn’t trade it for anything. They’re bikes, they all have a personality and I want to meet them all. In 10 days time I get to see most importantly my family and then see how dark evenings, frozen roads and cyclocross racing stack up against the weight that is South African MTB marathon racing…this is going to be interesting!
‘Sien jou nou Joeys sien jou nou’, goodtimes!