...hitting the wall...

After many years of absence some of us have decided to return to the brilliant sport of rock climbing.  For us, not having done this for a number of years, it was excellent to see that most of the technique that has been built over years and years of playing, climbing and having fun has not ended up in the trash can.  Only the strength and endurance components are vastly reduced.

Reminiscing about some good old days driving back from the Barn, the mind dug out a few classical memories from over the years.

The most profound of these that came back were not the absolutely, mind blowing awesome high grade and technically advanced routes we have all done over the years for your own level that you were pushing.  It was not raising the bar from a 22 to a 23 or a 24 to a 25 or any of those.  The most profound memories that stuck were exactly the ones where things went very wrong - in the sense of having to take a wipe-out.

Having to let go of the rock is never the best of experiences.  Having a slack belay doubles this raw fear.  Having to let go on a lead climb multiplies this fear by 10.  Having to let go on a lead climb with a decent amount of rope out from the last quickdraw multiplies this by another five and having to take a fall (any fall) on a natural climb multiplies the last number by another 10 (cause this is not only about trusting that a cockroach did not gnaw on the fibers of the kit overnight but also about having faith that you knew what you were doing when you placed the camelot and friend protection in the rock in the first place.

Over all the weekends in Waterval Boven one sticks out tremendously on a route that was still being bolted.  The total climb was about 25m long with a slight overhang pretty much all the way up.  Seeing the route was not yet fully bolted this meant that if you had to take a fall, you may have sufficient time to light up a smoke and call a few relatives on the way down.  This we knew, but seeing the grade was lower than any of us were capable of, it should really have been just a last decent fun climb in the crag where we were hanging around all day.

Very close to the top is where things started going horribly wrong.  The problem with the route was that the grading was rated at about 3 to 4 grades too low and the crux was about five meters from the end.  Having worked the crux for about ten minutes there was just no way out of it.  This is where you start looking for the alternative cop-out.  This also did not arrive.  And then panic sets in.  Left traverse, right traverse, revisit the crux, right traverse, down left traverse, down right traverse, down climb, rework the crux - if you have been there you know this absurdity.  In essence you are buying time.  As the grade goes up, so the potential to retrace your steps or moves diminishes quickly and you cannot down climb from a certain point.  This is the exact point where you know the inevitable wipe out is coming your way - by courier.  Once you realize this point has arrived you look at the last quickdraw.  A simple calculation on this particular day gave an estimate of about seven to eight meters from the quickdraw - hence a 15m fall stared up at me.  So the pattern repeats itself.  Traverse left, retrace down, traverse right, retry crux.  This is also the point where those that did climb will know you are sapping energy so quickly by holding on within an overhang that the legs start to go into a fast shiver of fatigue.  Once this point it with you it is time to let go, but the mind will not allow this.  You are completely poked, with no options but to take the fall. 

At this point you start to try and make an estimate where you are going hit the rock face on the way down.  Also your belay partner from this point on cannot do anything right.  The belay will be either too tight or too slack and he will hear this from you in elevated tones - even though in truth it is perfect as your belay partner knows exactly where you are and has got the right hand ready to take up any available slack at the point of departure to assist in reducing your economy class travel time to the lowest airfare possible.  Even the ATC device (still not sure where the name really comes from) has given you the all clear for an emergency landing and all runways are cleared. 

Yet there is just no way.  A 15m fall on a 25m route is very close to a category one fall (something the rope manufacturers seriously recommend you do not do at home, and if you insist they kindly request you cut the front part of the rope off after the incident and use this as a washing line moving forwards if the rope held).

With all traffic cleared you are now so pumped up you can barely hold a can in your hands, yet somehow you still manage to hold yourself plastered in a compromising position against the rock face.  And this is where the lesser experienced moments in rock climbing hits you - the slow shivers.  What this quite honestly means is that the body is telling you in no uncertain terms that it is now so pumped up and wasted that is does not even have the energy to shake itself fast any more.  All spectators love this moment as it means that action photography opportunities are now so imminent that you must switch over to sport mode on the dial and keep the finger on the trigger as well as make sure it is set in multi shot mode.

Yet the mind refuses.  Is clings on and the shakes get slower and slower.  At this point you are completely past the point of looking for options.  You heard the doorbell and your know the courier is standing at the door.  Yet you still hope that he will just leave it under the door mat so that someone else can collect it.

But no - luck is out, options are finished, you are finished, paparazzi have got the cameras ready, your partner is just waiting for you to get past denial.

And then irrevocably, unexpectedly your hands let go and you are airborne. 

Over all the years I cannot remember any images from a less that 3 meter fall - it is over to quickly and I think the mind shuts the eyes all by itself.  On a 6 meter fall you remember things - mostly you remember "when does this end".  But on a 15 meter fall you remember things, mull them over in your mind, sift them, turn them over and make resolutions about their future.  Once you have finished doing this you realise where you are and proper fear hits you; as in your mind this would have been over quicker.  And then even the toughest males start to sound like a girl.  And a very upset little girl that is throwing that tantrum from way in the back of the throat.

By the time you are out of breath, the rope started tightening and you start to feel that you may actually make this and then it gets tighter still and all of a sudden you get jerked violently forward and the slack in the rope disappears.  You have hit the runway and came to a standstill right in front of the passenger terminal.

Relief sinks over you and you let out a man size scream (in a much lower voice this time) as you feel so strong from the real stuff that was just pumped into your bloodstream, you feel like you can now do this exact route without a rope - you are just so high it is impossible to deal with you for the next ten minutes.

And that - in that moment right there - that is why we climb; that is why we return to it when you misplaced the sport; and that is why regardless of ability, your never stop dreaming of the next crag.

All beers taste better after a day like this.

...shake of remembrance...

Most people love a road trip.  Just pointing the car in a direction with a few things in the back and heading out.  Whether the trip is planned or whether the trip is an impulsive ride does not matter.  The idea of new places, new environment, new experiences, new people and new memories is just too impossible to resist.

For every person the reasons for the trip is different, with different expectations and different outcomes.  Some people like roughing it and come back remembering a great weekend.  Pick a different person and place them in the same situation it is just a recipe for disaster.

But whatever the reason for the road trip and whatever the outcome of the road trip, there is something in all of us that; if they see, smell or taste something the memories start flowing immediately.  What that is for you is so powerful you will stop mid sentence with what you are doing and it will immediate grab your full attention.  It can be so overwhelming that you can actually change direction from what you were busy with or planned to do at that moment immediately.

For some people is is the smell of the braai, a picture on a wall, an advertising banner on the highway, a picture of a forest in a magazine, something you come across in the cupboard whilst looking for something completely different - whatever it is, it is something that once you hit that, you immediately have a flood of memories going up and you want to do some things you have forgotten or just plainly do more of what you are already doing.

For my wife and me - it is something laughably simple - a banana milkshake.

Naturally we always end up sharing a milkshake at a Wimpy on the road cause the shake is so unhealthy that you cannot possibly be caught having one of those alone.  Even more obvious is that we also end up having two halves each (hence one each anyway) - but still - it makes you feel less guilty if you share this deadly sin with someone special.  And so it was again this weekend - both on the way to and from Clarens.

To be very clear on this point, it is vital that the milkshake has to be a fake one.  On another recent road trip we stopped at Harrie's in Dullstroom and we got given a milkshake made with real banana - horrifying stuff!  So naturally the waiter was very confused in the Harrie's at home the other day when I asked him whether the shake was made from real banana or fake banana.  Upon the answer of it being a real banana (he was very proud of this) I changed the order immediately.  He did not quite understand this and neither did I even attempt to try and explain.

Whatever it is that shakes up the images of remembrance is different for each of us and equally powerful for each of us.  All the best in finding your fake banana milkshake of memories this week.

"We do not remember days, we remember moments" - Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand

...courage and life...

All of us has people in our lives that we turn to for inspiration.  In the mind's eye these people are all kinds of wonderful and just plainly superhuman.  This is mostly the case cause we have never actually met them.  We have read a book by them; a story of them; or watched a program on them - whether it be people that dive the deepest depths, climb the highest mountains, changed the course of history or are so dedicated to a specific cause they abandon anything and everything to follow that goal.  All of these people are so inspirational and they make you feel that you are treading water in your own life.

Sometimes the people you get your inspiration from is long gone and the inspiration they bring to you can only be obtained from between the covers of a book.  Other times these super humans are still very alive, but the likelihood of meeting them is so remote it borders impossibility.  But then every now and then that changes completely.

On two occasions in the recent past this changed for me which has been incredibly inspirational, but today's story is only about one of them.

Down south in Cape Town is a man that has even more white hair than myself and has built a business from being a cook to becoming a celebrity chef to having a few restaurants.  However, as difficult as that lonely path must have been that is not the most amazing thing about this man. What is the most amazing thing about him is that he and his partner were the first individuals in the world that has run the full length of the Great Wall Of China in a total time of 98 days.  The total distance of this is about 4,200km which translates to an average of one marathon per day for almost three months.

To hear this chef, restauranteer, family man and ultra marathon runner talk about this and the ups and downs they went through on this path that was all done for the sake of charity was just a mind blowing experience.

Following the event they published a book named "Courage and Rice" in celebration of this amazing achievement.  To hear about how they got lost in the Gobi desert frequently whilst looking for the ruins of the Great Wall in the regions where it is not maintained any more or mother nature did its thing to raise the wall to the ground was absolutely unreal.

The man behind the initiative is David Grier.

The most amazing thing about him is that he is a true South African and he has also done a very similar run on the coast line of South Africa from west to east - again in the name of charity.

Outside of the inspiration that he gives you in terms of what the mind and body can endure, he also reminds you (by just listening to him) of what you can achieve in your life from a professional and personal perspective by just maintaining focus - which in his case are several professional accolades, heavy involvement in terms of giving back to the community and running a successful business on the side.

Listening to him almost makes the impossible seem tangible and makes you even more proud to be South African.  Naturally the cooking lesson he gave us was also brilliant and just made the whole evening memorable to the point of unforgettable. 

The most important message he left with us is that you will go through stages in anything you tackle where self-doubt comes to the front and you question not only why you are at a specific point, but also question the sanity of your goal.  Arriving and departing from that point is key to either maintaining focus on the goal or retreating back from it - and that is the defining moments that builds character and stretch the mind.

"Courage does not always soar.  Sometime courage is the quite voice at the end of the day that says 'I will try again tomorrow'" - Mary Ann Radmacher

...longer wingspan makes you fly...

Yes - of course you guessed it already if you have even read one of my posts in the past. This post has nothing to do with planes or wings of planes of flying for that matter, but it does have something to do with something that looks very close to it.

All Mountain Bikes come out with standard round tubular grips on them. They are thin and very basic and if you get a decent set on the handlebars they do at least come with the ability to tighten them at either the inner or outer side of the grip so that they do not rotate - or worse - slide from side to side.

After many, many kilometers and just before the last endurance race I ran off to the local bike shop (they are now rich and I am now poor) for a last sweep of the base necessities like tubes, lube and energy bars and then it looked at me again on the shelf. I have been seeing these grips several times before and never really thought they were worth the price. But being in for a nine day stretch of scenery I thought "why not - just do it".

Specialized have been manufacturing these guys for a while now and they have changed shape very slightly over that term.

They call them the contour locking and comfort locking grips (depending on which ones you go for) with the above pics being the male contour and female comfort one. The basic idea behind these being that the back part of the palm (close to the wrist) rest on the wide part of the grip and hence should give more cushioning to the forearms and wrist and all the way back into the shoulders.  Sceptical as I was I took them out for a ride the next day (a few weeks before the Joberg2c) and I was not just slightly impressed - I was unbelievably impressed.

They are not only the most comfortable grips out, I never really had any fatigue in my arms over the whole race.  They really take a lot of shock if you mount them at just the right angle as the wing part flexes quite a bit without loss of grip.

Even after the race I thought it was a little bit in the mind, but after having had to leave the bike in the shop for weeks due to a cracked frame (which is still not sorted) I had to take the old bike for a race again - and that is where it hit me how much of a difference they actually do make.

These things are really so comfortable that I will probably not replace the bar ends the next time I break one or both of them on a fall.

So if you are in the market for some proper grips or building a bike from scratch - do yourself a favour and check these out - they have become quite a bit cheaper and the extra few bucks you have to pay for them will be all worth it.

...dope on a rope...

Of all the brave things we have done over the years, there is nothing that sticks out more in terms of being memorable than rock climbing.

Different adventure activities has different elements that draw people to it. Scuba diving draws people to it cause there is such a massively unknown element to it. You can float underwater for about an hour or more (highly dependent on the depth of the dive and the duration spent at the depth) and just - well - be. You can quite literally do nothing for a long period and just float and breathe and take the scenery in. Yes there is an element of danger to the sport but it does not stare you right in the face every minute. Generally things go right on most dives - given you follow the rules and do not mess around.

There are many activities that fall into the category of diving - fun, but with some decent preparation, not the most difficult thing to master as the basic level. Try and go up a level and the house of cards changes slightly as night dives, wreck dives, deep dives, etc becomes a completely different ball game with serious commitment and high elements of risk when things like nitrogen gets into the picture.

But this story is not about diving, nor is it about trying to argue which of the extreme sports in the world are the most exhilarating out there. That is a personal choice and they should all be respected for what they are and what they give people in terms of an outlet on the one end and most importantly the feeling of being alive on the other end.

But regardless of what you may believe to be an extreme sport, there are few people that can deny that the activities of rock climbing and skydiving must rate fairly high on the scale of activities that leaves you feeling high. I have not done the latter, but many, many hours on the former.

Besides the adrenalin that any of the activity brings there is also the unavoidable lingo that comes with the sport as a result. And today's little story is a crash course into some of the lingo of rock climbing - focusing on the equipment and if there is more interest on the slang of climbing:

• Dynamic - short for dynamic rope - literally meaning a rope that stretches.  Typically used for leading a route - in other words the first guy going up the route to either fix the rope through the anchors at the top or to do the seconding for the guy coming up from below for a multi-pitch climb.  Typically these ropes comes in various two or three tone bright colors.  They are normally mostly used in 8mm and 9mm guises.

• Static rope - used for routes that does not require a lead - a cheaper rope and more durable in the long term - mostly used for indoor climbing gyms.  Normally this is a white rope with a dark red or black pattern.  More importantly this rope is only white for a bout two trips - after that it takes the colour of the red earth of Africa as you lug it along cliffs of where you may go.

• Srewgate - An amazing little gadget that is very much like a carabiner, except you can screw it shut.  Used on the harness as well as on the more treacherous ascents where there is a risk that a spring loaded carabiner may open up due to protrusions on the rock face.  Very useful as well for making sure you do not lose anything of value.

• Carabiner - Similar to the above, except it does not screw shut and is spring loaded.  Probably one of the things you have the highest count of in your kit bag.

• Sling - made of high strength webbing and is a very versatile little piece of gadgetry that can be used to hang you gear on, extend a carabiner or protection that is slightly off-line in the rock face or hang your clothes on - name it - you can use it as your heart's content - although a bit of an overkill to hang your freshly washed laundry on, considering it has a carrying capacity of about two tons (like most properly graded climbing gear)

• Figure of Eight - Very efficient for abseiling and descends, but not so great for the belaying of a climbing buddy.  They have the right amount of friction for especially dynamic ropes on the descends, but just a tad too much as a belay device.  Very funky colours for these and a few interesting shapes have seen the light as well.

• Shunt - Perfect for an anchor device.  Works especially well for illegitimate bride swinging excursions in Waterval Boven.  If you have been there then this little device needs little to no introduction.  Perfect device for a hanging belay as well.

• Quickdraw - The most important and useful device for climbing sport routes - always keep around 10 to 20 of these little guys in the kit bag.  Naturally very useful to make a very funky laundry line when you need to - but again maybe a slight overkill.  This rattling of these guys against each other is to the climber or ex-climber like the opening of the Beeno tin to the family pet - immediate interest - Pavlov will be so proud.

• ATC - The best belay device out there.  Never really sure what the acronym stood for, but I could also not find a reference to it on the Black Diamond site (the original manufacturer of the ATC).  We used to believe it stood for Air Traffic Controller - which is probably the most apt name for it considering the occasional wipe-out that is normally associated with it.

• Camalot - I still believe this is the coolest piece of climbing equipment out.  Pull the two levels and it closes up - let it go inside a crack in the rock and it sits there - various sizes available for these goodies - also referred to in short as a cam.

• Nuts - Used for similar purpose as the camalots - wedge them into cracks in the rock and they will hopefully sit there.  To wedge them properly and find the right spot for them is slightly more of an art and requires more experience than the cams.

• Friends - Another name for camalots / cams.

• Hexes - Similar in purpose to the nuts, but of a slightly different shape.

• Belay - The process of being the anchor and fall arrest person for your climbing buddy - whether it be as a pure seconding purpose or as a belay guy / girl for the lead climber.

• Belay Device - Generally another name for an ATC or Figure of Eight.

• Bolt - Permanent protection literraly either glued into the rock or fixed into the rock by rawlbolt.

• Bouldering - Climbling of highly technical low height boulders - normally ends up in a testosterone contest on who can either climb the most technically advanced move or not cry like a girl due to the lack of skin on hands and knees after the little exercise is finished.

• Daisy Chain - A very useful piece of webbing to hang gear on during long day climbs, sport climbs or purely just for storage.  Can also be used to hang any other hiking gear etc on after years of non climbing.

• Chalk - literally just that - used to reduce sweating of the hands.

• Chalk Bag - Used to hold the chalk in - hangs in your back just below the top of the harness and is used for the incessant dipping of the hands into it to keep them white and dry thanks to the oversupply of chalk in the bag.

• Rappel / Abseil - This has for some reason changed into a sport all by itself.  Never really understood that.  Yes, there is great fun in trying to see who can hit the wall the least amount of times with their feet prior to hitting terra firma at the bottom - but seriously - that is not the main rush - the main rush is getting up - not down.  People are odd indeed.

• Traverse - Generally a sideways climbing movement.

There are a horde of other climbing lingo out there and once you start to get into the slang of it, it really does get interesting.  But if you know at least the list above you should be able to either fudge your way through a conversation of about two minutes with someone that climbs, 5 minutes if you can add a few slang terms.  After that you either need to change feet or you need to make sure your beer is almost empty so that you can excuse yourself for another one.

Seriously though - if you ever want to climb then you will need to memorize most of the list above.  There are many other tips I can give on this subject, but mainly the following two.  The first one being there is a major difference between screaming "TIGHT" to your belay partner and screaming "TIIIGGGHHTTT!!!" to you partner.  The former is a request - the latter generally goes down as an insult as it either means you think my belay is 'slapgat' or you have no confidence in you own climbing ability - either way - someone is going to be peeved at someone.  Secondly - and this is for the ladies - please, please, please always remember that long curly hair that comes halfway down your back may look good in the school photo album - but that is not so good at the climbing wall or rock face.  I can still remember Leona getting stuck halfway down next to the waterfall in Boven and us having to construct another abseil and swing next to it.  When I say stuck this needs to be read in context.  Long curly hair being sucked into the figure of eight on the abseil leads to the neck being craned in a rather odd angle and thanks to Leatherman and sons we manage to get her loose and down safely (minus some dark curly locks of hair) with some minor bruises to the ego.

Lastly, climbing is not for sensitive viewers.  Half of climbing routes can and mostly do get a proper mouthful from the climbers when they have been trying for hours to get past a crux (the most difficult move on the sport climb) and when you start reading the names of some of the routes - you will need to grow a sense of humour very quickly - but luckily most of the routes has just got really, really cool names, like in Flying Is Fun and The Pasture.  Lesser cool ones being things like the Coven and Screaming Demons.

So to all my ex-climbing comrades who I know will be reading this post - let me know if you are up for a stint to either Waterval Boven or Mountain Sanctuary any time soon.  Yes I know we will all come home depressed about the last number of years lost and how seriously flaky we have become and the harness does not fit so loosely around the thighs anymore, but it will remind us all that we have more life left in us that we sometimes think!!

Let me know - I am extremely keen.

...how do you like your eggs in the morning...

A given fact about Western civilization as we know it is how much choice we have. Does not matter where you are or what you buy, you are quite literally overwhelmed with choice.

This weekend, for example, standing in the hardware store, I was again quite surprised, but mostly amused, at the number of nuts you can get for a 5mm bolt - wing nuts, self tightening nuts, lock nuts, normal nuts and several other flavors I have never had the need or want to use. This can drive you, well, quite literally, NUTS!

Just go and try to buy a TV - there are rows of the stuff along the wall with so many options that you never thought you wanted or needed that it can drive you insane. If I have not done some homework prior to buying an expensive piece of gadgetry I normally rather end up walking out, cause really, it is just too futile an exercise to try and guess which ones are truly better and which supplier is paying for the sales lackey's fishing or hunting trip (as naturally that product will be the best).

I have made it a mission in the supermarket to just at a glance try and see how many products of the same type are on the same shelf nestled next to each other (something that has stirred an interest in me in a recent book called The Long Tail). Frightening stuff - really. The specific example out of the book that stuck is the number of jams that you can find hoarding together on one shelf - the mind boggles!!

Name the industry or the product - there is just an endless array of choices and for the not so savvy consumer and shopper it can be quite daunting. Whether it be cars, furniture, appliances, food, cellphones, clothes, the list just goes on and on.

Don't get me wrong - choice is not a bad thing - it drives innovation, spin-offs, improved manufacturing techniques and all kinds of improvements - and, quite honestly - even more choice. If it was not for the endless array of choice we would all be wearing khaki shirts (cause they don't look dirty quickly), rugby socks (cause they are warm), Bata toughies (if you dont remember them then you must be either really old or really young or your parents were just plain rich) drive a Yaris (cause that is all the car any person will ever really need, being economic and low on maintenance and it must be brown - to not show dirt easily) and go on holiday to Bela Bela (cause there are warm and cold water fountains and wildlife a stone throw away).

So no - sorry - in the context of this we are all byproducts of modern society. On a different topic - if you do not yet have full appreciation for the complexities that this does bring to the Marketing team then you should probably just stick to the Yaris and the rugby socks...

And - again - the sport of cycling is absolutely no different. And that is great; cause we all want to believe that a white frame is better than a red frame and should you faster (just purely by virtue of 'wit warm waks') - yet sadly this is not the case - obviously.

But...

That does not mean you do not have need to pimp your ride frequently and endlessly. So, very recently I did just that - I pimped the mountain bike with some new pedals - eggbeaters, by Crank Brothers!

See the resemblance?!

Quite honestly - lovely stuff. Not only does the name do it serious pride, but there is no chance that anyone can deny these pedals just plain and simply look real funky. And yes, as is to be expected they go from cheap to horridly expensive, as there is clearly a market to save that 50g from between a cheaper version and an almost full titanium version. But who cares - when you are really working hard there in the back of the pack and wondering why on earth you are here, there is a very, very, very slim chance that some other slow poke may notice those titanium egg beaters of yours, cause there in the back of the pack you mostly look down and do not firstly have the energy to look up or secondly want to see the road snake relentlessly up the hill - and then - clearly - in that moment of desperation you will obviously believe that you made the right decision?!

No - on a serious note though - if you have ever dragged your body through mud that are mixed with some short stubby grass you will remember mostly that it is really, really difficult to ride in that mess and secondly that getting your cleat into the pedal becomes more and more difficult as your pedals get more and more clogged. And this is where the eggbeaters really shine - cause you not only have (like most) one or two sides you can clip the cleat into, but actually four (basically all round). and that is already a massive plus. After having done a couple of rides with these items in muddy terrain I have to honestly say they do work better for those specific two problems in the mud.

Is there anything wrong with the Shimano SPD pedals I have used for years - no (except that I am proud to say that the guy at the local bike shop went to great length explaining to me that I am only the second guy in about five years who managed to break one - hit it on a rock at above 25km/h and you will understand how that can happen).

The other little benefit from this (which I have not yet proven or seen) is that because they have four sides to get the cleat into there must be some benefit for the novice cyclist - few things funnier than watching that inevitable phase we all go through / went through if trying to not look like an idiot with trying to ride with cleats - and the inevitable few falls trying to get them clipped in at slow speeds or - most funny - forgetting to clip them out when you stop - it happened to all of us!

So yet again I believe that Crank Brothers hit a home run with these goodies. Not sure about how well they will last, but they do seem to look and act fairly robust. Very importantly they are actually surprisingly simple in their design and that is normally a good start to being a lasting product - complex products have just got too much parts that can break.

Just one thing to remember though - if you plan do do a lot of spinning in the gym with your riding shoes then you will have to stick to SPDs, as, very cleverly, Shimano seems to have some kind of monopoly on what pedals are fit to spinning bikes in gyms.

So - if you are tired of having poached or scrambled eggs for breakfast - maybe it is time you pull the good old eggbeaters closer - you may just change the way you think about these relatively basic and very important items on your ride...

...evil eye, evil expense...

Most of us has some kind of fetish. For some it is shoes - lots of shoes. For others it is ties (weird as that may sound). For others it is books. The list here is endless and is really limited by the imagination. For some it is stamps, small dinky toys, socks (seriously!), watches, cars, wine, etc, etc...

The issue with these fetishes is not so much the fetish itself, but it is really around the incidental expenses that goes with that. Take books for example - believe it or not, at some point you are going to run out of bookshelf space and you will have to get another, and another. At some point you can run into the issue of the house becoming too small and then you are just completely poked and will have to get a bigger house to accommodate the little library you have going.

We all know the story of the wife that bought the R 700,000 scatter cushion. The R50 cushion did not fit with the lounge suite, which had to be upgraded as a result, naturally bringing new curtains and a carpet. With these things everyone forgot to measure the size of the lounge suite which did not fit in the room and hence some small structural changes to the house had to be made.

We have all been there in some fetish shape or form.

So boldly today I have to admit that I have a thing for sunglasses and quite literally I go through a pair per year. But the sad reality of this is that I still only have at any point in time one pair of them and I have been sustaining this bad habit for - well - years actually.

The history being this:

• 1997 - Oakley M-Frames
• 1998 - Replacement Oakley M-Frames (cracked on the nose - warranty repair)
• 1999 - Replacement Oakley M-Frames (lost them in St Lucia estuary)
• 2000 - Replacement Oakleys - lost on a brief climbing excursion in Mountain Sanctuary
• 2001 - Another pair of Oakleys - which I lose on a trip to Mozambique in Praia do Bilene - diving trip
• 2002 - Get my first pair of Adidas Evil Eyes - and they last the year - miracle
• 2003 - Second pair of Evil Eyes (New Scottish Terrier has a fetish for sunglasses too
• 2004 - Scratch the lenses on the sunglasses after they fell of a bakkie - new lenses
• 2005 - Took so long to get new lenses sourced -again I skip a year
• 2006 - Lose the Evil Eyes on my first Sani2c battling through mud
• 2007 - Buy el cheapos again and they last the year
• 2008 - Not happy with glare on el cheapos - Evil Eyes (again) - lost same year at waterpoint on Sabie Experience
• 2009 - New Evil Eyes - lost on the same race after they came dislodged from the helmet
• 2010 - Hunting for new sunglasses again - Evil Eyes poked after wipe out ion Nick's pass on Joberg2c - took fall directly on helmet, dented it and (I think) shattered the sunglasses again on the helmet - never went back to find them)

So yes - even though this is not technically a fetish as such - it has some borderline bad features to it.

Which does bring the question - what to get next.  After some extensive research and riding again with some of the el cheapos (and my darling wife's scratched Oakleys [which is a stroy for another day]), I have come to the realisation that the Evil Eyes and Evil Eye Pros from Adidas is still the best.

Again, like most sporting equipment these babies aren't cheap, but if you sat a few days in a saddle in succession, you will realise very small things that are great about these sunglasses are actually quite important.  First is the adjustable level of the earpieces - three settings - lets face it - all faces are after all different and to get a comfortable fit requires come customization - especially if you have a crooked nose like mine.  Then there is the spongy thingy at the top.  Nothing is more annoying that the streaks of sweat (perspiration if you are a lady) running across the lens face - can just imagine why fighter pilots get annoyed if the windows of the jet is not clean!  And then there is the airflow.  These things really work quite well in the sense that even though it does not fog up, it does channel quite well the airflow from the eyes.  Naturally the lenses are quite good as well.

So if you have sunglasses as a fetish or really just can't keep them together, I can truly recommend these ones - they come in all kinds of colours and really works well for almost any sport.

So if you get the Evil Eyes, you cannot go wrong, but try to avoid the evil expenses annually.