Massive weekend of Watt Bikes and Suffering for Savage

Coming down toward Constania

 Once we had argued over whose ride to Bike Plus was tougher and who had dropped the hammer the most on the ride we climbed into the pain cave. While setting up the Watt bike, logging into our profiles on the big screen and trying to sound like we know what we are talking about when it comes to training with power, we were asked what kind of session we wanted. Of course our fearless leader Szymon demands a “Savage one” where we can drop the hammer. After a little more clarification and back and forth it was decided on a threshold something or other, I was not listening as I was trying to connect my heart rate monitor to the Watt Bike. 


The Bike Plus altitude training centre is as far removed from a spin class as Lance Armstrong is from Professional cycling. There is no loud music, there is no instructor on a bike shouting at you, there are only 8 of you in the room and there is no hiding! All there is the sound of the watt bike fans, the aircon sucking out valuable oxygen and suffering from those in the class. When we say there is no hiding, there is zero hiding, everyones power, cadence and heart rate are plastered on the massive screens at the front of the cave.

Travis klapped after maximum efforts!

After the warm up was over, we were in for a whole lot of suffering, I can not recall exactly what we ended up doing but I recall the 30 second breaks in between intervals feeling more like 5 seconds. We ended up with some maximum efforts, this is perfect for a bunch of guys, max power for 30 seconds, wham, bam thank you mam. Was pretty sweet to be able to see everyone’s power instantly on the screens up front. Travis was able to crunch out some massive numbers with the rest of the boys keeping him honest.


After the ride some of us crawled to our cars while the others had to climb back on their bikes and head back over Constania Nek and back to town.

Monstrous Sunday


Sunday was an early start for many of Team Pure Savage, as everyone rode into the start at Shell, some had to ride a little further than others. We rolled out from Shell on our normal route out through Hout Bay and towards Fish Hoek, at this point not everyone was on the same page about how far we were going, only on the way down to Fish Hoek did the question get asked if we were doing, 140km, 160km or 180km. In another great moment of dictatorship it was decided that the team was doing 160km. 


The team headed through Simons Town and round Smits Winkel, where we started passing runners from the Red Hill 30km, which one of our riders was running, we had expected him at least in the top ten. Once we had not seen him in the top 15 we started to get worried that he may have had to retire due to injury during his run. Eventually he ran by us in 32nd place, maybe he should have ridden with us that morning instead of running. Granted he had ridden from Town to Simons Town and was going to ride back the run. 


The team then cruised past the hordes of runners at Cape Point and cruised into Ocean View. One of the boys was taking a little strain on the climb from Misty Cliffs so we dropped the hammer to see if that would help his cause. He did rejoin us on the way back to Simons town. 


On the second loop around the peninsula we put in the climb of Red Hill. Klyde, one of the Team Pure Savage squad riders put in a great surge at the start of Red Hill but then was not seen again until the top. Two groups formed up Red hill and the team climbed well finishing at the top with a bunch of PB’s on Strava.

Delano on the switch backs of Red Hill

The team cruised through to Noordhoek were we refueled for the last 40km home. There were some interesting purchases of supplements at the Shell, no quite as interesting as Syzmon’s KFC burger and fries. We think he may be onto something, as after that slapper of a meal he managed to haul himself up Chapmans peak in a personal best time with 120 odd km’s in the legs. 


The team decided to take the final climb up Suikerbosie “Easy”, this was done by Brendon and Delano tapping out an easy but decent speed up most of the way. Szymon was not having any of this taking it easy, with Delano explaining to him that he is in fact a 3 year old child, Szymon put it in the big ring and sprinted off for the last 200m of the climb. 


The cruise into Town felt glorious having racked up some proper mileage in the legs. El boet put in an impressive ride after coming back from a badly damaged ankle only a few weeks ago. It was also impressive to see Klyde after 30km of riding. The team put in some massive mileage with Delano managing to rack up an impressive 437 km in the week! Follow the progress of the team on Strava here. 


Was an awesome weekend of riding and got some awesome photos of us getting out there with our sponsor Mithcum and having some #Greatmoments 


The team will be cruising around the peninsula this weekend on both Saturday and Sunday, look out for the pain train!