Tania is going to race ...

Tania is leaving for Belgium tomorrow for the World Marathon Champs. 105 km and 3800 m of climbing!!! Good luck T.

You will be able to follow her escapades on the blog .... follow the link from the maverickworld website.

Cowan House

Jip, this year's Cowan House Classic is going to be like no other ... ever. The reason for this is simple ... Maverick is involved. We are responsible for a portion of the route and Gordon's imagination has run away with him ... Have a look at this "wall-ride" (Don't worry there are another way as well). There will be many more "man-made" obstacles on the route. Those of you who want to get to the end first will most probably miss out on most of this, but for those of us who want to maximize our Cowan House experience, something tells me we will be out there for much longer than last year...

Gordon, we are all waiting for you to let us know when you are going to ride this monster so that we can come and get tips fom you ...

Cheers

Johann

Hilton outride 28 July '07

About 25 Mavericks met at the Crossways Hotel for the outride. We split into 2 groups with Kim leading the faster bunch. Kim has not been on his bike for a couple of weeks and was in a "woes" mood so he took us waaaaayyyyy into Cedara. Of the 14 that started the ride with him, only 9 finished together. But man we had an interesting ride. We rode some of the new singletrack that has been cut for the Cowan House Classic and it is sweeeeetttt. Maverick Hilton has taken responsibility for a certain section of the trail for Cowan House and if you go past the shop you will start to get an idea what Gordon has install for you. Part of our ride on Saturday was through a section of the forest where Kim said there were a trail, but .... This photo of him is exiting his "trail" ... not bad for a ballie.

On our way back, we crossed a dam wall. Some of us rode it, some attempted to ride it an fell into the dam (Andrew) and had a very, very cold and wet ride to his car, and them China, got such a big skrik when Andrew fell into the dam, he stepped of the wall on the high side and slid all the way to the bottom with his bike in his hand ... he managed to get back to the top without to much damage ... a very shaken China ... with some scratches. Here is China before he tried to surf the dam wall:

Boulder - White Range 2007

The last ride of our trip! We were sad and happy at the same time ... started to miss our families. White Range is about 10km from Golden, a very small town where the Yeti bike comes from. When Aletta and I was in the US last we also rode here and quit enjoyed the trails ... they have a Maverick loop! This year, 10 min into the ride, where we had to choose which direction at a T-junction, I made the wrong call and we rode White Range anti-clockwise. For 1h45 min we climbed/pushed our bikes uphill. Until we reached the top of the mountain. Once there we had many options to choose from, but I thought ... no ways ... I know the route we have taken up and it is the perfect downhill ... not going to go down an easier downhill on one of the other trails. So around we turned and shot strait down the mountain ... down an awesome downhill ... a 40 minute run of pure adrenaline!

At White Range the often have Mountain Lion sigthings ... have a look at the words on the sign.

That was it for the USA. After this ride we went to visit Maverick America and learnt about all the exiting stuff they have install for us for the next 18 months, but more about this another time. The next morning our 2-day long journey back home started ... and man was it a long journey!!

Untill our next adventure.... Cheers from Johann & Malan

Boulder - Nederlands - 2008

Sorry for being away for so long. I found a way of messing my pc up and could not update anymore blogs until I got back home.

Well, after leaving Fruita, we thought of staying a day in Vail to ride a bit of downhill with the ski-lifts. Vail is a beautiful little town about 100 miles from Denver and about halfway between Fruita and Boulder. After finding bikes to rent (Specialized Big Hits) we tried to find accommodation ... the cheapest we could find, about 30 miles away was $175 per person ... you do the sum, its a crazy amount. So we said goodbye to this idea and set off for Boulder.

The next morning we made contact with Maverick America and got ourselves 2 Maverick ML8's. Man, what a relieve to get of those bloody Rocky Mountains.

Our first ride in Boulder was at Nederland, high up into the mountain above Boulder. The trail is a bit limited, but has huge potential. Herewith some picks of Nederland. We also had our only flat tyre of the entire trip at this ride. Nederlands is above 10000 feet...Oxygen was scarce.

The next morning was the last ride of our US holiday ... White Range ...

Fruita - Bookcliffs

This morning we got up at 5h00 to get to Bookcliffs before the sun got up. Of all the trails we have done on this journey, Bookcliffs is most probably the easiest. But it is still huge fun with Km's of singletrack. Kessel Run must be one of my favourite trails... its a looooong slight downhill with many right and left berms through a dry river bed. Its huge fun!

Have a look at this:

After leaving Fruita we thought we will stop at Vail and ride some of the downhill runs at this famous site. We walked Vail "plat" ...it is an unbelievable little town and likes like a town in Switzerland. I booked our bikes for the next morning, got all the detail as to what time the ski lift start and what it cost, all we had to do was to find a place to stay .... and this was the problem. The cheapest accommodation was about 20 km from Vail and cost R1200 per night. We said goodbye to Vail and drove on to Boulder .... where we also battled to find accommodation .... Tomorrow we will try to get hold of the guys at Maverick to find out where we will be staying for the next 2 nights as well as trying to secure Mavericks to ride. Please we don't want to ride any more Rocky Mountains ....

Fruita - Mary's Loop 2008

Over The Edge Sport in Fruita had great bikes to rent. Maverick, Elsworth & Yeti, but alas they were all to expensive ... so guess what ... Malan and I found ourselves on Rocky Mountains again ... and they were in a shocking state. Fruita has miles and miles of trails mostly designed and built by mountainbikers. Our first trip we rode Mary's Loop. There are many other loops that make up this section of the trail. Mary's is very scenic and runs next to the Colorado River. Have a look at this:

Tomorrow we are riding Bookcliffs ....

Cheers

Johann