BRY_BRY’S BLOG: Introducing A New Blogger!

I am Bryony AKA Bry_Bry_ZA. I work for Magazine as the Deputy Editor. I am a keen mountain biker. I like to go far, push my mind and my body. More to the point, I like adventuring on my bike. You see new places from such a novel perspective when you’re in the saddle. I like that. I’m also into enduro, and throwing my bike down a hill as fast as my brain allows me to. Which, it turns out, isn’t actually that fast at all. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and unlike endurance sport, the high after a DH section is instantaneous, and addictive. Most recently, I traded in my car for a cruiser. So I commute too. In short, bicycles have become a part of my life. I live the brand I work for, I spend spare cash on upgrades, I have even grown to like helmet hair.

Bicycles haven’t always been a part of my life, well in such a concentrated sense, and I’m still very much a beginner. I wear the wrong socks and mismatched cycle gear. I can’t label every bike part and my fondness for red wine is such that I probably can’t ever consider a career as a pro. That said, I am enthusiastic, genuine, and glad to be adapting to life on two wheels.

It started back in 2009, when I took part in my very first cycling event. I was living in London at the time, and my entire exercise regime was restricted to the four walls of a gym I belonged to. When someone suggested the London to Brighton Cycle Race, I jumped at the opportunity.

I did the ridiculous race on a borrowed mountain bike, that I rode up and down the passage the night before the ride to see if it fitted. I rode in my skating helmet, with my running tekkies, some borrowed Adidas gym pant from my male housemate, the first vest on the top of the pile, and some lumo sunnies I picked up for a quid in Camden. I was far from athletic. I was very far from looking anything like a cyclist in fact.

I did the ride, got a medal, and well, had my first taste of riding.

Time travel forwards to 2011. I moved back to South Africa, and my Dad and uncle were into mountain biking. One night, over a few beers, they started talking about a race in KZN, the Hill 2 Hill, and we all agreed to enter the 40km. They were newbies, I was an embryo to the sport. Together, we had no clue. I had a bike lying around from high school (the late nineties) and was convinced it would be fine. It was a Peugeot. It was blue and yellow and had this big chunky spring coil suspension thing at the back and some springy forks at the front. They were pretty rusted though, so it was a harsh ride. It weighed about 80 kilos. I borrowed some cycle pants from a girl who was very obviously six sizes smaller than me, dug out my skating helmet and tekkies, and committed to the event. 20km in I thought I had just made it halfway of the Cape Epic. I had NEVER done anything like this on a bike. It was crazy. The three of us finished the race and cheers-ed our beers like heroes. I will never forget finishing that Hill 2 Hill, and the momentous feeling of awesome that flowed through my body. Right there and then, the bug hit.

I spent the next several months saving and scratching my pennies together for a bike. Remember I had just moved back to SA after travelling, so I arrived home with a negative bank balance and no job. It wasn’t until about May the following year (2012) that I had scraped R6000 together. Without a clue, but very excited, I drove to my nearest bike shop.

Several hours later, I had spent all my money on my first ever, post-‘99 mountain bike. It was an entry level hardtail Momsen 26er. It cost R5000. The helmet and cleats cost extra, but my Dad chipped in the balance. 29-years-old and still claiming freebies from the Ballie. It was matt black. I loved that thing. I called it Dave. It weighed a lot, but I was still too much of a beginner to know that weight was a factor. I didn’t care. I was a mountain biking machine. I had cleats. I had an actual cycling helmet, which meant I could retire the skating helmet. I had a fancy looking bike. I had arrived.

In the past two and a half years I have slowly but surely been riding and learning, sometimes from the deep end without armbands, sometimes with the help of my experienced Boyfriend and fellow riders. I still label myself a beginner though, and aim to document my trials and tribulations through this blog, for any other kind-of-beginners to follow. Best read with wine, or where you can laugh out loud, as I plan on over sharing and telling it like it is.

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