KZN High Peformance Mountain Bike Workshop

(we were having a wheelie competition of one of the nights, I'm useless at it!)

With all the excitement and hype around the XC nationals at Jonkershoek, I almost forgot to write a little about the High Performance Camp that was held on the 5th and 6th of January, at a stunning venue called African Enterprises high up in Pietermaritzburg mountains. The brains behind the whole idea were Johann and Allegra Wykerd, who are also the main people behind the sponsorship of our team (Life in Motion). 

The purpose of the workshop was help young (14-25) mountain bikers specifically from KZN to reach their true potential by having a number of professionals come in and share their vast knowledge in different areas. It was a large amount of information in quite a short time, but this camp was the 'test run' for a possible national high performance camp, and it was a big success. We had talks from sports psychologists, nutritionists, physiotherapists, doctors, lap experts, event managers etc. I learnt that there is so much more to riding a bike fast on some weekends a month, and there were a lot of areas that I could improve in to help create a much more rounded athlete. I particularly enjoyed a talk by Max Cluer, of Max Cluer Event Management about presenting yourself more professionally at events. 

 We also had a chance to ride the world cup course at Cascades, which was just down the road. All I can say is that it is very steep, and still needs a lot of world before it is world class, but most of the single-track is unbelievably sweet. All in all the weekend was a great one for learning, and a valuable eye-opener. The food was great, and it was awesome to bond with guys that ride bikes in you province... Well done Johann and Allegra!