With the Western Cape being in the midst of the worst drought in decades, it’s become a badge of compliance to drive a dirty car. The same goes for bikes – although the chain should be kept clear of grit to prolong its life.

With this in mind, I’m loving the light brown colour of my Santa Cruz Tallboy. Officially, it’s ‘rust’, which is not something one would normally associate with a carbon frame. Be that as it may, a light coating of dust suits its bush credentials perfectly.

Given my equine interests, I’ve taken to calling the colour ‘light bay’.

Sticking with horses, Sergeant Hardy is a giant in both achievement and physical appearance, standing a good few inches taller than his competitors. He’s definitely a ‘tall boy’!

On Saturday, Sergeant Hardy made light work of near-top weight, charging home in the feature race at Kenilworth. The second horse carried 9kg less (that’s almost the weight of a Tallboy), which equates to about six lengths. January will be a busy month for him, with the Cape’s most important sprint races coming up on the 13th and 27th. Having him on point for both of those will be an impressive training feat by Justin Snaith.

Erica has no such concerns with me, although in some respects my training objective is similar to Sergeant Hardy’s, in that we both need to be super-fit to lessen the impact of impaired breathing. The current part of my training programme is all about base training – long, slow distance, most of it on the road.

On Saturday, I did a 95km spin to Simon’s Town, and on Sunday, an 80km run out to Koeberg and back. For me, there isn’t a whole lot of fun in this kind of riding. In addition, I’ve decided that my road bike is uncomfortable to the point of me having to be Stoic just to sit on the damn thing after pedalling for a couple of hours.

I may end up doing most of my base training on the Tallboy, which is an extremely comfortable ride.

Comfortable, on the other hand, is not how one would describe Piet at the prospect of wearing the Sergeant Hardy-inspired pink kit we wore for Epic 2017.

It’s not the colour of the bike, nor the kit, that makes a difference. There is work to be done…