Gavin! Genius. Just out of nowhere the dude decides to send out a mail inviting all of us to a race around the Bremner Building at the UCT Campus.
Yesterday was one of the hottest yet this summer, and as the sun set behind the mountain, the temperature dropped just enough to make it one of those balmy perfect summer evenings.
I met up with Flagg in Woodstock before the race, and we rode down to the campus together. Really nice long, straight roll along Main Road.
The turnout was really good, about 15 of us in all, 10 of us riding. It’s really fun to see more numbers at these little events. Keep it up, and who knows what might happen… 
So the Bremner Building is where all the boring admin happens at UCT. Perfect. Because the adminny folks are always the first to go home, so the building, situated on its own block of land, and completely circled by a wide tarmac road, becomes completely void of any human activity after 5pm. Except of course for the two freshmen learning how to parallel park in the back parking lot, and mister security dude, who is not quite sure what to make of a group of cyclists charging around in the dark on bikes with no brakes.
It was my first time racing, so as with my first experience during high school of running the u/15 800m, as I came around the first turn and realised I was in second, I figured I’d make a go of it.
The format for the race is 5mins around the building, and then one lap to decide the winner. 5 minutes may seem a short time, and peddling around an admin building might not seem such a big ask, but believe me, it BURNS.
Dave Mackay set off at a blinding pace. Toby was heading up the front pack on his BMX (Hard as nails!), which was a bit of a surprise, but that didn’t last much longer than the second corner. So it was Mackay, myself, and… well I wasn’t exactly keeping tabs on what was going on behind me.
As I said before, Dave was rocketing around the course, and I was torn between keeping up with him for the whole 5mins or hanging back with the rest of the pack and making a strong final sprint.
Steve was right on my back wheel, so I decided to open up and catch up to Dave a bit. Somewhere in the last two laps, Steve and James both came flying past on the back straight like demons on a mission, and heading into the last lap, it was all between the two of them. I was still leading Mackay into the last lap, but he found some legs along the back straight again, and coming into the last turn I was pushing as hard as I could, but just couldn’t get my wheel ahead of his.
James had his ladyfriend there, so of course he had to impress, but a deserved winner nevertheless. I’ve got no idea how close it was between him and Steve, but the two of them had mad speed to pull away from us the way they did.
DFL goes to either Flagg or Toby (on his BMX, did I mention that?). Big up to Flagg anyway, she tuck it out against a bunch of mad boys and held her own!
Next we had a “very tightly contested” skid comp, between myself, James (I think) and a one-armed-Gavin. I only mention this, cos I managed to win the round (yippee for me) but I think under normal circumstances Gavin might’ve owned it, if he had full use of both arms. Anyway. We take our victories when they come. I won. Suck it up!
Drinks at Champs bar down the road was good fun and good chat. I really can’t wait for the next one, I’ve got a score to settle with you Mackay!
Mega thanks to Gavin for putting it all together and keeping time. And Mackay for the photos. (and some from my cam 
We’ve been bouncing around the idea of heading out to Belville for a proper little burn around the velodrome. Although I do think we’d get totally roasted by the local track riders, it could be a really fun day out. Watch this space for more…
