Easter weekend

I spend my Easter weekend with my family in a charming little town called Parys.
Being a professional athlete most weekends include racing and luckily for me my race for that weekend took place in the same little town.

On Saturday the 3rd of April I participated in the Parys Dirt Max MTB series. The owners of the event are truly passionate about their sport which is very noticeable once you’ve ridden on their trails.

That morning the town woke up under a cloud of mist. This made it quite difficult for me to get out of bed, but as I made my way outside I was very pleased to witness such a beautiful morning.

Due to the mist, the start was postponed for about 15min, making it a bit safer for the riders to be able see a tad more than just a white cloud in front of them. My father and sister kept the family spirit high and decided to also participate in the event. Both of them don’t even own mountain bikes and had to borrow some for the weekend. So I don’t think I have to say anything more about their mountainbiking skills…
Still they were up for the challenge and I am sure they actually enjoyed it a lot at the end.

It was nice to be at a race with my family again. Funny enough I didn’t even stress about my event as I was using the time before the start to catch up on family things.

The event is always quite challenging as you finish the race on a 10km cross country like circuit which one have to do 2 times. This year the circuit was quite muddy and slippery making it a bit more technical then usual. I really felt good on my bike that day and enjoyed racing my heart out.
I also managed to win the race, it’s always nice to end once race with a good result.

My dad also had a good ride and as he crossed the finish line and stopped next to me his first words were quite different to the usual “ how was your race/where did you finish.”
This time he looked very pleased in asking me “so how many times did you crash? “ My dad was very proud to have fallen 9 times.
As for my little sister’s race, she just kept quite and shook her head.

I was barely back on Monday night and off I went again early Tuesday morning to a training camp in George with my Mountain bike team mates (Ischen Stopforth and Lise Oliver).
We have actually been out on 3 rides already here in George and the routes together with the scenery are breathtaking. You literally ride 200m then you are in the forest on single track. We really have amazing places to ride in South Africa.