ccc2

We had to scenes like this behind. Sedgefield Lagoon

Monday morning dawned grey but dry. Breakfast was at the coffee shop in Myoli Hotel.<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> We loaded the kombi said our farewells to the others that were not going to make the trip back with us and then we were off. 14 riders on the way down to CT via the N2 and the R62 , 590 kms to go. We safely negotiated the <?: prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Kaaimans River Pass and then it was onto the back road Hartenbos. The road from George is punctuated by rolling hills and we experienced our first flat tyre halfway to Glentana. The weather was cold with a threat of rain but it held out until we were safely in a warm shower at the ATKV chalets in Hartenbos. 83 k?s for day 1. Some of us enjoyed tea, coffee or beer while peering out onto Mossel Bay from the restaurant.

i went to Tim Noakes's talk on doping in sport last night. his stated outright that professional sport performances are either doped or fixed. he is of the opinion that Landis won his Tour because the race was fixed (someone high up in the Tour organisation commented in public that the influence of the Mafia was destroying the tour). he also stated that all/most TdF riders are on PED's but ride below the radar of detection and he supported his argument, not with his own findings but from a host of books that he has read on doping in sport in general. his argument was furhter supported by various graphs depicting the improvement in times wrt to athletics and cycling with the advent of EPO. the big culprits (countries) were / are USA, Australia, the old CCCP and East Germany.