intern

This is a serious discussion, please treat it as such. Have corrected your slack grammar...

Nobody ever went broke overestimating the intelligence of the buying public.

Nope, a doper should not be anywhere near the young ones. And preferably nowhere near 'the sport', either...

Heh - Max was chowing down on thyroid hormones to lose weight, and claimed it was his right to do so to aid weight loss, as these drugs were not on the banned list. Tertroxin...nasty side effects, but hey, makes you lean, brah.

Reading the pdf posted by dangerdassie brings back memories of a top KZN racer with whom I am good friends and raced with on a number of occasions. This racer told me that BE and MK and multiple others were micro-dosing EPO...the rumours eh, the rumours.

Rogues gallery all right. With his physique, I always did wonder how it was that Ben Melt, as exceptional an athlete as he is, wasn't 'top top'. Spose that's the difference between 'natty' and 'juiced', right?

It only 'harms the sport' where 'the sport' is tied to incomes. When I see riders banned and sponsors walking away, I think 'outstanding'. Then I go and do 'the sport'

Well, I'm afraid, if that sort of thing worries you, you are going to be worried....cheats gonna cheat, and so on.

Hell of a guy, hell of a bike rider - one of the real gents of the sport.

Heh. No surprises. I remember clearly the Barberton MTN race in, or must have been 2009 or so, maybe 08, I was doing the marathon and there was an Ultra. Caught up with a gasping Sean Mackenzie, who was on the Ultra...now if you know Sean Mac, you know he is a seriously good bike rider and he was properly fit at the time. Anyway, the Ultra guys had 120km of hard riding and the pace of the Max, Kevin, David etc guys had him wide eyed and buggered, I remember him just saying 'there's no way, man, there is just no way'. He knew, as well as I did, that there are certain limits to human performance and those limits had been long surpassed. Also remember the inaugural Cape Pioneer, where Christoph Sauser was racing with Brendan Behan and dueling it out with the slobs like me and Roan Exelby; the next year, all the 'pros' showed up and once again it was a race of two speeds. CS said to me 'not the same speed as last year', jokingly, but I knew what he meant. 'The Pros' race differently to us mere mortals with our 'pane a agua'. Best thing to remember in all of this. MTB is a race against yourself. Forget about what the other okes are doing, that's their business.

When I was training for the 2010 Epic and went for the medical, my doctor with whom I had a very open/transparent relationship (which is what you should have with a doctor, no secrets, so s/he can treat you properly), asked if I wanted any 'help' with preparation. I said no thanks. S/he works with a lot of athletes in many sports. I wonder how many say 'yes' or request 'help' in the first place. Point being, you can get 'professional help' pretty readily if you want it. We think it's bad, a lot of people consider it perfectly normal. Especially those in the 'anti ageing' industry...

Back in the day when I showed up here, the high cost of housing was an easy way to make serious money through leverage. If you could get a mortgage at 4.5 percent or whatever, and with house prices rising fast, the leverage meant that if you bought a 'R10-million' house, you effectively had maybe R9-million of that earning your 10, 15 or 20 percent, while you lived in it and paid less than 5 percent. Situation has changed now, of course, with the flattening prices and every possibility that prices will go down. Unless you have a place with a lot of equity in it, ie you haven't bought with a small deposit or opted for that most dangerous of things, an interest-only loan, you could be looking at negative equity in the coming months or years. Right now, I am scared about leveraging up, although I am keen to find a nice house in a state of disrepair and do it up, while keeping our existing home. But it has to be the right one because of the risk of price decline (which can be mitigated in two ways, beeg deposit and longer-term view)...

Yep,sounds familiar. 8 years on and my career is still nothing like it used to be. And I still have a mortgage, took less than 6 years to pay off my SA house!

Cheers Brosef - I have my full motorcycle license, so I am sweet from that perspective...checking out the links. There goes work for the day...

Man I wish I were you. That looks A for awesome. I've been checking out a Suzuki DRZ (I think) 250 or 400 at the local dealer, around $10k...kinda tempting, but I am not in a position to do adventures like that just yet...

When I wanted to close my FNB accounts, they just said leave it empty for a few months and it will close itself...

Was able to wear the springbok supporters shirt a good mate gave me recently...without being embarrassed. Rare footage!

I do remember that one, but nah, this one definitely had Terence Hill in also

First movie I saw at the drive in was Dirty Harry, must have been late 1970s or early 80s (the movie was made in '71). And some Bud Spencer and Terence Hill thing where they were on an island or something (must have been A Friend is a Treasure). That was at the Merrivale Heights drive in. Then I remember going to the movies at Ster Kinekor Capital Towers and watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gremlins at some stage of the game too. And maybe a Star Wars, although I didn't really get the point of Star Wars and still don't.

Swak...

Awesome Wayne, team looking good bud!

I remember some oke commenting about how going up Hekpoort back in the 90s and fit as he could be, he was left panting and sukkeling like a little girl while the likes of Sean van Zyl were sprinting the living sheet out of the hill...and how he now knows he never stood a chance. Also remember Jonty Goldin, after SA champs down in PE, must have been 1991 maybe and JG had finished in the medals, stressing about the possibility of a test. Wondered why he was so nervous, in those days us laaities from KZN literally had bread, water, a banana and a third hand Hansom,Alpina or Exocet with a Frankenstein groupset which featured everything from Exage to Dura Ace hand-me-downs....

The whispers one hears are routinely confirmed. Back in the day, I heard whispers about a lot of people - Brandon Stewart, Shan, Kevin Evans, David George among them. There's a few more which I am sure we will see exposed as time goes on. Whispers of smoke...I always used to laugh at Brandon's wife Brigitte who was vociferous about how talking openly about dopers was 'bad for the sport'. Nah love, doping is 'bad for the sport', although I'm not quite sure how. Spose if you have a livelihood depending on it, maybe, but for the rest of us, we ride our bikes regardless.

Heh one of my fond SA band memories was This is This at some jol in Durban in 1993 after finishing matric. Can't remember the name of the place, but This is This was a pretty good covers band.

Ugh the accidental prime minister, and one with an awfully slim CV. Can't stand her.