Ladies and gents, Its not usually my style to drop into a new forum in a far away country foot first but, such is life sometimes. I woke up at 8am Tuesday morning to 2 whattsapp messages. 1. was from Sandra " I need to speak to you urgently, when is a good time?". Thats weird I thought, Sandra never messages me directly. Has Johann chopped a finger off with his grinder or something stupid? I wondered... 2. was from Johanns brother in law John who started in the same RASA batch as me, but I also don't have that much contact with him. " Has Sandra phoned you yet?" **** I thought, the silly bugger has fallen off the roof or something stupid. Just hours before we were messaging about my rental road bike with its square tyres and my concerns about crashing downhill from El Teide. "Life is too short for that" was almost the last message I read from him. To hear the cheeky bastard had checked out during the night and abandoned the rest of us to finish life without him broke my heart. Johann is one of those people that probably has a dozen friends that call him their best friend, I'm one of them. From almost daily contact, banter, chatting, tip swapping, him being my boxes bitch for RASA, ranting, brainstorming, planning my next race together to instant silence is indescribable. Under the moto of writing heals I quickly wrote a post about Johann that has already been shared here. And yes, it did help a lot, as did the preparation for a hangover. It is no suprise to me that so many people have great stories to share about this humble, generous and kind farmer boy. But at the same time its very heart warming to read them all. Thanks every for your contribution here, on FB and Twitter. Only 2 questions remain: 1. When is the DWK kommando ride? 2. When will the Sishen Saldanha ride be suitably renamed to Rissik rail ride (copyright Leon) Or the Rissik memorial route (Compulsory Singlespeed route of course). Regards Sgt. Khaki aka. Shane
