fred hatman

I’m here. In my beautiful country cocoon of Stanford. It’s a glorious sunny Cape winter’s day and I could tell you that many birds are lunging out their unique songs in the garden but that wouldn’t make it very much different from many South African gardens. What is perhaps different is, that from where I [...]

Fresh from the success of the Heart and Sole Tour and Geoff Brink’s mind-bogglingly brave unicycle ride from Durban to Cape Town comes another epic endurance event undertaken by a hardy and compassionate soul wanting to raise awareness of the plight of landmine victims. Jane MacKinnon, a Johannesburg physiotherapist, will take part in a gruelling six-day [...]

Only now am I able to deliver the Last Post on The Heart and Sole Tour saga. And it is delivered in pretty much the same key as Peter Sellers used to such diabolical effect in the opening scenes of The Party. I hope that you, dear Hatpeople, will find this as funny. But I [...]

Yes. It’s time to remember… what the Heart & Sole Tour has been all about. So, as Geoff “Heartman” Brink and I (oh, and Kim, Geoff’s fiancee, who has joined me in the back-up truck) roll into Cape Town today (The Clock Tower, V&A Waterfront, 2pm) to complete our beautiful unicycling adventure, we would like [...]

OK. I need to be like Speedy Gonzalez, my babies. As a 15kph back-up driver on the Heart & Sole unicycle tour, my name and “speedy” don’t ever feature together – but today is the exception. The Heartman has arisen and, despite Stanford’s considerable charms, our homesick unicyclist is champing at the bit to get [...]

Fasten those seatbelts, Heartpeople. I have to issue a health and safety warning here… The following image may bring on feelings of dizziness and acute disorientation. You may experience extreme giddiness and an uncontainable desire to fall to the floor and writhe around in wanton wondrousness. OK. Ready? Just roll around in the beauty of [...]

Look. There you are minding your own business on the side of the road and trying to get a 2,000km unicycle ride from Durban to Cape Town out of the way when a German comes along and steals your deckchair. Um. Well, not exactly. I don’t do stereotypes on this blog, do I? No. Correct [...]

Hello, Heartpeople! Here, somewhat unusually, are a few words from Geoff “Heartman” Brink, aka the Unicyclist on The Heart and Sole Tour… “A few words about the reality of riding a very large unicycle nearly 2,000km across our beautiful country (at the age of 38, 2 months before getting married). Undeniably the most uncomfortable mode [...]

OK. So it turns out that Geoff “Heartman” Brink, our intrepid and totally nutty unicyclist who is fixed-wheel pedalling all the way to Cape Town, has a good dose of Afrikaner in him. This doesn’t surprise me. Although he’s been maintaining for some time that he’s one part Scottish, one part Viking (whatever that means). [...]

“You’re a braver man than me.” Mmmm. When somebody says this, it doesn’t necessarily mean much. But when it comes out of the mouth of Bruce Fordyce, Comrades Marathon legend, you have every right be feel a bit chuffed. This is what nine-times Comrades winner Fordyce said to Geoff “Heartman” Brink – and he’s had [...]