Yesterday I took to the road once again, riding a ride I’ve probably ridden more times than I have the Argus, the Mushroom ride, or as it’s more officially known the Medallion Tour de Stellenbosch . I’ve also just realised that blogging from my phone isn’t as eaay as I’d hoped, thus the hanging link.

In any case, I always enjoy the ride, and yesterday was great besides one or two concerns. Firstly being the start time. The 100km started at 6.30, which is great. Then the short route started at 8, also fine. But only starting the medium (62km) ride at 8:30 is ridiculous. I, being unseeded, ended up only starting at 9, as its getting warm, and, slightly dishearteningly, as a large proportion of the long riders are returning.

The other issue being that as we arrive to start, we’re told our ride is being cut short by 5kms due to roadworks. How difficult would it have been to just add a small loop around there to keep the distance up. The roads outside of Stellenbosch wind and crisscross so often, they could easily have got around the roadworks.

I won’t even go into what the rides cost these days compared to a couple years back. I’m just glad i pre-entered and didn’t have to pay the effective R195 late entry fee.

This was also the first race that I rode without my transponder :) so it wasn’t even timed after all that.