A cyclist in a cooking environment!

Across the ally from the apartment I stay at in Switzerland is a small restaurant called ‘The Bärli’. Now Eric and I live on the second floor and from our balcony you can look straight into the kitchen where the famous Bärli Flammkuchen (sort of pizza with a crème fresh base) is being made.

Eric, who occasionally helps the restaurant out by washing up, managed to twist the manager’s arm in some way to get me into the kitchen Wednesday night to help them on this busy evening. 

Personally I love to cook and was thus extremely excited to have an evening to check out closely what was going on in the kitchen as I have been doing regularly from our balcony.

In the morning, while building bikes at the Fischer bike shop, I could hardly wait to strap on an apron and head over the Eisengasse into the kitchen. I got there at about six, while it was still empty, and Eric gave me the tour of how everything works and where to put away the clean dishes.

Slowly the restaurant started filling up and the orders were flying in. I came prepared to do dishes all night long, but in no time I was peeling ginger, cutting the Flammkuchen, covering the pizza base with crème fresh and sprinkling on the cheese and toppings. Suba, the lead chef that night, got me making Ice coffees and ringing the bell for the waiters to pick up the order. I was loving the

pressure and could feel the smile on my face appearing as Suba, Bala and I where rushing through the orders.

A mechanic in the morning, working with grease, dirt and tools, and a chef in the evening, handling food and completing orders. Maybe not the best combination, but I was in my element that evening and hope that it won’t be the last time.

Muraho from RWANDA, land of the lakes and a thousand hills!

The African Mountain Bike Champs have long been awaiting us in the tropical hills of Muzanse, Rwanda. This year though wasn’t just any continental championship; it was the qualifying race for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Being situated in Switzerland this year meant that I would be traveling and arriving in this foreign country alone only to survive two days and nights without the rest of the Namibian Team; I was nervous.

Before I could even set foot in the continent the African experience started. My flight went Zurich-Brussels, Brussels-Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) so I checked my luggage through hoping it would arrive on the other side. Needless to say, I stood at the conveyer belt for quite a while before giving up and walking to the ‘Lost and Found’ office only to hear: “Oh yea, your bag is still in Brussels, you can come fetch it on Monday night”… (It was Saturday night and thoughts of how to survive for two days without my bag were flashing through my head). With much relief I did find my bike bag and knew that at least that was safe.  Thankfully the Rwandan Cycling Federation (with some influence by my organized mother) had a taxi ready to take me to the race location in Muzanse, about two hours away from Kigali.

Awaking the next morning, with no tooth brush, old underwear and a smelly pair of socks I decided to have breakfast and think things through. I managed to track down a number of the Rwandan Cycling centre and like a knight in shining armour Jonathan “Jock” Boyer came to rescue me. Jock, the first American to have ridden the Tour de France in 1981, is a permanent coach in Rwanda and helps grow the program to develop local cyclists. He gave me cycling shoes, clothes and a workshop to assemble my bike as well as offering me lunch and supper in those two days as a lonely Namibian.

The rest of the Namibian team arrived on Monday afternoon. They consisted of 12 people with 7

riders (including me, Heiko Redecker, Xavier Papo, Michael Pretorius, Michelle Voster and the two Juniors Tristan de Lange and Brandon Plaatjies), Hans du Toit (coach, dietician, doctor, physio, masseuse), Mannie Heymans (Mechanic and entertainer), Aidan de Lange (Manager), Annette de Lange (admin) and Johan Foster (Mental coach and supporter). That evening my bag also arrived at the Hotel, I’ve never been so happy to see my socks and underwear…

We spent the rest of the week recce the track that we would race come Sunday. These few days I learnt and saw so much of Rwanda, even though we stayed within a 20km radius of the Hotel. The culture, cuisine, and manner of the locals were so interesting and a drastic opposite to what I have gotten used to in Switzerland. Unlike the Swiss, here people rode or drove according to the situation, not according to the rules. If there was a corner to the left (here they drive on the right), why stay in your lane if you can cut the corner and move onto the opposite lane, it makes sense.

Avocadoes are something that they definitely had enough of. We ended up eating avoe’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner; with porridge, steak or chips. The fruit made sure to remind us we were in the tropical region: Papaya, mango, passion fruit, pineapple and bananas were part of breakfast every morning.

The people ended up being the biggest experience of all. During the first two days that I was alone the staff of the Muhabura Hotel, noticing the absence of company and my team, made a big effort to help me. The English was a little of a challenge to them, but they always approached me with a smile and I couldn’t resist, even though frustrated about the situation, to smile back and try to express the words with motion. On the track the local children were so enthusiastic and excited to see us ride through their villages and partly through their front yard. On the steep climbs all you could hear was a bunch of children running behind you trying to keep up while shouting out “goode moning, goode moning” (that was about it for their English vocabulary). Occasionally you would have an advanced student who would remember to say the whole sentence he learnt in school (“goode morning teacha” and “howe are you?”). I truly had a wonderful experience and the thought will probably stay for ever and pop up every time someone greets me with “good morning”.

The two days before the race Heiko and I enjoyed a motor taxi ride up to the cycling centre for a massage. It was my first time and I enjoyed every meter of it; I might even start something like this in Switzerland.

Come race day I had the warm up of my life. Not necessarily what I did, but the audience we had. I felt like a Pro tour rider warming up before a time trial with the crowd watching my every move. Seconds before the start of my biggest goal this year flashes of lying on the beach in Rio next year went through my mind and I was confident to deliver. My strategy was to go out a little easier than normal, as I’m a fast starter but then need time to recover, and gradually reel in rider after rider. This would also be better mentally as I would be more motivated to catch the next rider, rather than being overtaken by the slow starters later.

The gun went and we were off. I managed to get a good spot behind the Mauritian rider and tried to keep the pace. Heiko was quite a few places ahead of me battling it out with the top South Africans while the other two Namibian elite riders were right next to me.

The criteria for qualifying for the Olympics are that the first two countries over the finish line get a ticket. But now, because South Africa has quite a high world ranking they fall out of the list, so the next two countries over the line would qualify. Our teams goal was thus to be within the first three countries (including RSA). Going up the start hill, which takes you up 100m in altitude and lasts 5min, I was struggling to keep up with riders from the other countries, so I eased off a little. The fact of Muzanse being at 2000m altitude, and maybe lack of fitness, crawled deep into my lungs to start the burning in my rhythmic breathing pattern. There was a distinct sense of déjà vu as riders overtook me, except that this time it wasn’t European professionals, but African riders that probably came to Rwanda to see the country rather than to suffer through 7 laps. This clearly shows how mountain biking in Africa has developed and how the domination of southern Africa is starting to fade.

At that moment I noticed that something had to be wrong. I suffered on, got a few punctures, and was overlapped in my fourth lap. During these four laps I had the worst feeling that I’ve ever experienced on the bike. Unlike in Switzerland where the spectators cheer you on like you are leading the race (even though you’re last), here the locals where laughing at me as I dragged my suffering body position and face expression up the climbs.

It felt like all the ingredients of a cake mixture where ready in a baking tray. The training, funding, support, equipment was all at 100% but the oven didn’t switch on. It was like an Eskom situation in my body as the power failures have been haunting me for the past five weeks. Here in Switzerland I was avoiding the fact, blaming in on mechanicals and the strong competition, but now I figured out that I wasn’t functioning properly (I’m sure South Africans wish that Eskom could figure it out as fast as I).

Now that I was out of the race the fate of Olympic qualification lay in the hands of the other three riders. Sadly Mauritius and Rwanda both had very strong riders that ended up taking the tickets. Our strongest rider, Heiko, came in 10^th, battling it out alone in front between a pack of Rwandans, South Africans and one Mauritian. It was disappointed not to be there to help him out.

The other two categories where Namibia was represented were partly dominated by our juniors and strongly finished by our one Elite lady. Tristan and Brandon took first and second respectively in the juniors while Michelle held on tight to a bronze medal between a very competitive South African Elite women’s field. I could see the Elite men from South Africa enjoying their last African Champs before our juniors join the fight for the title next year.

After the race I had quite a long chat with my coach and we have decided, as we can’t figure out what has been causing the power failures, to take a week off to clear my mind. So this coming Sunday I am travelling to Holland to visit my brother and niece and have decided to leave the bike behind.

From my side, murakoze, and till next time

Martin

   

Mud, sweat and tears!

Mud, sweat and tears could sum up this weekend’s activity down in Lugano, Switzerland.

Early Saturday morning Stephan (the logistics manager) and I set out into the sunrise on a long drive back down to Tesserete/Lugano where I spent my training camp two weeks ago. We arrived at the rather wet race location and set up the Fischer team camp ready for the youngsters that were to race today. I didn't spend much time going over the route as we already did this in the training camp, so Eric and I abandoned the rest in the rain and headed to the 50’s  Original style Hotel in Lugano.

 Much to my surprise we noticed that the BMC Racing Team was booked into the same hotel and that the World Champion, Julian Absalon, was staying only a couple of rooms away (I didn't end up knocking on his door asking for an autograph if you were wondering). At supper and breakfast I made sure to order the exact same meal as Absalon (except for a milkshake, I wasn't sure if it was for his child or himself) in order to get the same nutritional values as the world champ for the race start at 14:00.

Everything went as planned and I was ready to pull on my one-piece racing suit and give the others a run for their money. Now before I explain the actual race there was one big factor that played a huge role in Sunday’s race: It was raining cats and dogs.... and none of the riders seemed overly motivated to head out into the wet/cold to race. Unlike the others, coming from Namibia, I embraced the rain and was really excited to finally start a race in real European weather.

On my warm up I reminded myself about the 'Absalon breakfast' I had (surely that would give me an advantage over the others) and the preparation I have done until now to get some extra motivation into the system.

Standing on the start line (in my blue Fischer kit I stand out like a sore thumb) all focused, still clean and freezing the gun went and we were off. I once again had a brilliant start and settled into a steady pace slipping, sliding and partly swimming through the really fun but muddy track.

During the first few hundred meters of muddy singletrack all my laws of mountain bike skills went into the bin together with the advantage of having practiced the route two weeks ago in absolutely stunning, dry weather. I couldn't stop myself from laughing mid race as I and several other riders just suddenly lost control, sliding down the hill into the wrong direction, it was total chaos. My vision was halved partly by all the mud shooting up into the eyes as well as the glasses that were fogged up, so in the second tech zone already I decided to abandoned them. No more than 300m after this tech zone, still on my first lap, my chain had the last word (apart from my swearing) and broke, together with my hopes of completing my first European race. Not being allowed to turn around I rolled/pushed/ran back down to the finish. On the way down Absalon also rolled past me with chain problem to quit the race, so I wasn't the only one (although I’m starting to think it had something to do with our joined breakfast).  

Even though I only did a fifth of the race, I still learnt a lot about new weather conditions and the intense, but amusing, racing in them. I think this will help me in two weeks’ time for the African Champs in Rwanda as the weather forecast looks like another cats and dogs situation. Luckily with the great support from Shimano and Fischer I've already got a new chain and fully serviced bike ready for the flight on Saturday towards Kigali, Rwanda.

Once again the support at the race was absolutely incredible. So I want to give a big thanks to all the parents and team mates that stood next to the route, at the tech zones and in this weather to support me, it makes racing so much more exciting and enjoyable.

From my side all the best and till next time,

Martin

P.S. Congrats to the Namibian team that spent the weekend in Mankele, South Africa, competing in the SA-Cup series and giving the locals a run for their money. I think it’s great that the Namibian Cycling Federation is giving the opportunity and supporting our riders to race internationally; as this is the only way we can gain real experience. Thank you NCF, and well done on those podium places. 

Buongiorno! Here is my race and training camp report.

Buongiorno from a warm and sunny Tesserete!

Close to the Italian border I am sitting high up in the mountains on a terrace overlooking the beautiful lake of Lugano.

It all started with a long drive to Schaan for the opening Swiss BMC-Cup race that was to be held over the weekend. We arrived in the Furstentums Lichtenstein on Saturday and I spent the day testing and getting familiar with the 3.6km rout. The rout didn’t really suit me as all the climbing was done in the first half of the race and all the descending in the second. But I was super excited and was really looking forward in giving a good impression to my sponsors and people that have helped me  in my first real race in Europe.

Things didn’t really turn out the way I hoped they would in the week leading up to the race, so I was a little nervous and worried. A tumble the week before caused my left leg to be quite swollen and effected my blood circulation through both legs which made recovery from my training difficult.

This race was to be my first on the awesome new Fischer bike that I received a week earlier. I struggled to find someone who could do a proper set-up with my bike so that the measurements would fit my body. This influences my power-output as well as how I felt on the bike which sadly had a negative effect on my performance on Sunday.

I was surprised with my great starting position and this gave me some extra motivation on the start line. My start was thus exceptional and I spent the first few hundred meters in a top ten position (this is quite impressive considering the line-up of world class riders).  After this my legs started feeling blocked and I dropped back places until there weren’t really many more places to drop back to. I spent the next three laps suffering through a physically challenging track. Mentally it was also a challenge as I felt quite lonely and humiliated to have shown such poor performance and being close to the last rider. Due to my incorrect bike set-up (which I only noticed then) my back was in terrible pain and I decided to throw in the towel and call it a day to be forgotten.

Straight after the race I packed my things and drove south towards Italy. The drive took us over the Alps and the scenery definitely made up for a bad day on the bike. I then spent the week in the south of Switzerland on a trainings camp with some of my Fischer team mates and others from a different team.

All in all the start to my racing season has been disappointing and started on a downward slope. I’m hoping to improve this with this week’s training camp which is in the same location as the next BMC-Cup series race. Hopefully I will have some advantage, being able to ride the rout now already and getting familiar with the surroundings.

Muchas gracias and till next time,

Martin

P.S. This picture is from one of my training rides up into the Italian mountains (I just couldn't resist riding towards the snow...).

Grüezi us dr Schwiiz!

Grüezi us dr Schwiiz!

It has been one week since I arrived in Switzerland and I am loving it more and more by the day. My “hoch Deutsch” is slowly modifying into a very beautiful dialect of the Lenzburger schwiizerdüütsch while my body and skin is adapting to the extreme weather conditions that have challenged my survival skills over the past few training rides.

I arrived in Zürich last week Tuesday and went straight to the FISCHER Zweiradsport Seon/Buchs bike shop of Roland Fischer to receive my goodies. I was generously provided with amazing products from Fischer Bikes, Shimano, cycling clothes from Fuchs-Movesa, a Met helmet and some proper Vittoria tires.

The first three day’s showed weather that I would only find in my deepest nightmares. I rushed back to Fischer to ask for some more layers and bike gear as every ride ended in a struggle to try and get the feeling back in my toes and fingers.

The Fischer bike is performing absolutely incredible. It is much lighter than my previous mountain bikes and the new XTR rims give it a very fast responsiveness. I decided to go for a 1x11 (32tooth) which has been as smooth as silk. The Vittoria Pcyotc have luckily given me some sense of confidence in the wet, slippery and unknown trails.

Over the last week I got to ride with two different club rides in their technical training. The level that the youngers are at here in Switzerland amazes me. These ‘lighties’ that are probably over two head smaller than I have balls of steel, flying down these tricky single-tracks close behind me. With only two groups I have already seen so much potential in a great number of them and finally understand how countries like Switzerland manage to produce such world class cross-country riders. I was quite surprised to see Matt Lombabi coming to one of the group rides; it was nice not being the only southern hemisphere rider battling it out amongst the Swiss. Good luck to him in Italy this weekend.

The Easter weekend was spent in Lörrach with my aunt and uncle, who were kind enough to drive me up to the Bällchen (a mountain top at 1400m) which had snow on it. Since I haven’t seen snow since my visit to Germany in 2005 I was childishly excited when I saw the tip of the Bällchen covered in it while doing one of my rides through the Schwarzwald. I couldn’t resist but to ask them if we could go up there the following day.

Other than that, my diet has hopelessly crumbled to the delight of Swiss chocolate, cheese and the ever so delicious rusks of Eric’s. Hopefully once the temperatures start to rise again I can resume my normal eating habits and return to my racing weight. The Namibian flag is also flying high in in the LCC (Lenzburg Country Club) and the weather is slowly starting to improve; I’m starting to feel at home here.

I’ll be driving to Schaan this weekend for my first race, the BMC-Cup series opener, so wish me luck and you will hear from me next week.

Adieu, and till next time,

Martin

From rider to spectator in no more than 1.78km!

So, before I tell you my tale of how my racing changed suddenly  to cheering I would like to put some points out there to make this story a little more understandable.

(If you don’t feel like reading, just scroll down to the last picture, it pretty much sums up my race)

1^st: Most of you already know that I am known for not having all the necessary tools with me during racing. Well, this might clarify that reputation a little.

2^nd: I did some trail running over the Christmas season for some cross training which my coach thought was unnecessary. I quote his words after I told him about my running session: “Why? Are you planning on running with your bike?” (Well I think this race proved him wrong)

3^rd: Some info on my race: It was the second round of the SA-Cup XCO series which I participated in to get a feeling of more competitive racing before I head to Switzerland for proper world class racing. I also wanted to compare myself the other South African riders to see where my form is at. 

The race was at the Voortrecker monument in Pretoria which brought us a track that really suited me (or so I thought).

The track was really rocky and quite the terrain I should be used to coming from Namibia. Our start was at 14:00 and the weather was a little overcast, so perfect for racing.

My warm up was good and I felt ready and strong for the suffer fest that was staring me straight in the face while I was waiting to be called up.

So here it comes:

My starting position wasn’t too bad; I was standing in fourth line and confident that I could move up some positions during the start, as this is one of my strengths. The gun went and we were off. Unlucky for me the rider in front of me nearly wiped out after ten meters only to stop dead, forcing me to go around him (this sounds easier than done if there is a huge bunch rushing past you eager to do exactly what I planned, to move up places in the start).

So after a bad start I thought, well, I still have six laps to go, I’ll be fine if I pace myself and slowly move up the ranks.

Up the first climb and approaching the ‘lekker’ downhill I managed to pass quite a number of riders. 200 meters into the decent I hear a ding and right afterwards a low, but increasing sound of someone’s tire deflating. Not having felt anything or noticed any rocks I hit I was silently pleased that someone got a puncture. Sadly for me the bad start was followed by an even worse ending to my racing. After stopping and looking furiously for a thorn to plug the hole in my front tire I checked if I had a pump or bomb with me and noticed with devastation that I forgot to take one along (this is not the first time this happens and clearly I didn’t learn from my mistake).

Going through my options of what to do next I checked my Garmin and realised that it was another 3.5km to the second tech zone. I felt my back pockets to check if maybe I had packed any running shoes and started on one of the longest runs I have ever done in a Cross-Country race. While running, the rest of the Elites, Junior and Youth men passed me and I ended up cheering on the other Namibian riders (Heiko Redecker and Tristan De Lange).

Before even reaching the tech zone James Reid (the current leader) and the rest of the field managed to overlap me which only meant one thing (apart from that I didn’t run fast enough), my race was over before I could even finish my first lap.

The second tech zone didn't end up having a spear wheel for me, so I thought now that my legs are warm from running anyway; I might as well run till the finish. So that’s what I did, handed in my number and got to change into clothes that would make me look more like a supporter than a rider.

During my practice in the days before the race I did a fast lap of 16min which I then used as comparison after the race. The top few riders had an average of around that time which gave me a rough indication of where I could have finished (this isn’t a comparison that should be taken too seriously as doing one fast lap is different to doing 6). 

The other two Namibians did really well compared to my performance. Heiko finished well within an extremely competitive Elite bunch even though he just came back from a cold. I take my hat off to Tristan who had an incredible performance coming second in the junior category. Now second is never satisfying enough if you’ve been first before, but in Tristan’s case the winner of his category 

was in fact the Junior Mountain Bike World Champ, so Kudus to you Tristan.

This whole trip in Pretoria and the race would not have been possible without my coach Deon Carstens. He managed to find friends of his, Nadine and Casper Badenhorst, that were kind enough to accommodate me over the week, feed me, bring me to the course every day and even feed me on race day (I didn’t end up riding far enough to reach a feeding zone, but I’m still grateful they were prepared to do it). They both won the second prize in their category, Nadine in the sub-vet and Casper in the vet cat. So kudus to both of them. Huge thanks to Deon who came out all the way to Pretoria to see me race, organised my accommodation and managed to get me into awesome form for the season to start. Sorry that it didn’t end up like we hoped it would, but it was nice chatting to you and getting to know you better.

So to round it off, I am disappointed to not have been able to finish my race, but I did have a really nice time here and got to chat with some of my old competition. I am confident for what is to come and amped to arrive in Switzerland to get together with my new team. And lastly, I did (hopefully) learn from my mistakes and hope to come out of it wiser.

From my side, keep the wheels turning,

Till next time

Martin

Off to Switzerland!

I am currently spending my last week at  home before I leave to Switzerland

 to race for my new team for the 2015 racing season.

It is crazy to think how fast everything has gone this year, from not really knowing what I will be doing to booking flights and arranging things in Switzerland. 

My plan for this year was to visit and race in Europe for a couple of weeks just to experience some world class racing. One of the races was the BMC Racing-Cup in Gränichen where a ex-boyfriend of my mothers, Eric de Boor lives. 

We asked him if it was fine to stay with him over a couple of days. His response took me by surprise as he asked me if I would be interested to ride for a small mountain bike team. You can imagine what my answer was. As he is the treasurer for the team he had some contacts and knew Roland Fischer quite well, the owner of Fischer Bikes. After translating my CV into German and sending it back and forth to Eric and Roland they offered me a spot as a guest rider for the year. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity that was thrown right in front of me.

I will be racing all the BMC Racing-Cup series this year as well as a smaller series, the Argovia Vittoria-Fischer Cup. This will have me riding in Switzerland until middle September.

On my trip to Zürich I will have a small stop-over in Pretoria where I will be racing the second SA-Cup series. I am quite excited for this because it has been a while since I've raced my Mountain Bike in South Africa and it will be the first time racing there in good form and with confidence. Hopefully I will be able to pick up some UCI points which will help a lot in Europe.

Other than that I am currently glued to the internet and social media following the ABSA Cape Epic. Some of my best friends are racing, one of them Jason van't Slot, the first ever cyclist with Cystic Fibrosis to attempt the Epic. I'm really proud of him and wish him all the best.

Till next time, and keep those wheels turning

Martin

P.S. Here is the teams website with a rider profile of myself: http://www.fischer-junior.ch/teamfahrer/gastfahrer/martin_freyer/index.php