A brief introduction

pregoroll (25)in #cycling • 6 years ago (edited)

Hi, my name is George
(Group exclaims) "Hi George"
And I'm a Shredaholic....

This story starts with a young South African boy, living in the madness that is the city of Johannesburg,

I was 12, my parents bought me my first "Real" Mountain Bike. Front and rear elastomer shocks, 6x3 speed resistance shifters, Vee-Brakes, the sketchiest gooseneck stem I have ever seen and a good old gel seat cover. Well this was it, my Canary Yellow Dunlop Speed 6 MTB... What a machine... Or so I thought.

The area I grew up in, on the West side of Johannesburg (insert gang sign here) is a stunning place, right at the bottom of the West Ridge mountain line, giving you 3 monster climbs to choose from.
These climbs range from 95m to 140m of elevation gain, with the climbs being 1 and 2.2km long respectively.

Now, the West is rather rocky, with majority of the mountains being made of shale, this made any riding seem more like skating about on a frozen lake.

This would be no stopping my R650 Makro Special MTB.

So I decided that on day 2 of owning this shiny new steed that I am more than capable of handling such a Brute...

Well, I rode to the top of the mountain, where some of the local older kids had built a short Downhill course, now, this Dunlop of mine only had about 60mm of "suspension", a steel frame and literally no brakes at all. I decided to drop in.

The first 100m or so went fine, lots of chattering from the chain as my lack of suspension attempted to soak up a bump there and there, after a small set of whippets I heard a loud bang, and suddenly the back of the bike felt slightly off.

What I found was alarming. I had managed to snap the lower linkage that connects the rear to the front of the bike. The only thing holding my bike together was the brake and gear cables, as well as the chain.

I had no idea the damage was so sevier until I reached the bottom of the hill, stopped and felt my bike fold underneath me.

And then I knew.... This Mountain biking thing... I need to make it my life. And now, 14 years later I am about to open my first trail park. With trail building work flooding in from land owners in my area. What a blessing!

This page is going to be used to document my story. In the stunning Umkhomaas Valley, Kwazulu-Natal South Africa.