in 2009, Toyota was one of the Cape Epic  Mountain Bike Race sponsors and I was fortunate to attend the finish event in Cape Towns Lourensford wine estate. Some of us decided to participate in the one day mountain  bike ride on that morning, including The Dr.

Henry, myself and Johan had planned to ride together. So on the morning we all organized our bikes and equipment to be ready for the start. We asked Johan if everything was ok with the 'yellow peril' , which is what he called his mountain bike. You can imagine this bright yellow bicycle not really suitable for real off road riding. He replied the Peril is in top condition. We didn't argue, but knew that the Peril hadn't received to much TLC for a while. So Henry and I gave it a once over check. 

Anyway we started the race with the other couple of hundred contestants. And things were going really well until about halfway, when we noticed Johan was struggling a bit on the hill climbs. We asked if all ok and he said  his bikes gears weren't functioning properly, Henry and I volunteered to look at it. We got stuck in, did some Bush repairs and we were on our way. About 10 minutes later Johan mentioned our repair work didn't work so well and the bike seems worse. It wouldn't change gears at all. 

So once again Henry and I got stuck in to fix the Peril. This time we found the derailleur had failed. So we had to set the bike in single gear mode only and ride to the finish like that.

Now riding in the off road with only one gear is really tough. We all knew it would be a hard slog to the finish. Johan, never scared of a challenge was still in good spirits and seemingly unperturbed by the task ahead said 'ok well let's get going 

Henry started to offer switching bikes. He had hardly finished the offer and Johan had already accepted and proceeded to handover the Peril. Johan rode Henry's fancy mountain bike to the finish and Henry brought the Peril home. We had a good laugh about it all at the end, while watching the main race finishers come home.

In years to come we often joked about the Yellow Peril and this story always came up, in different variations, audience dependant. But always got a good laugh.

A great man with a big heart. RIP Johan