Hello, Heartpeople! Here, somewhat unusually, are a few words from Geoff “Heartman” Brink, aka the Unicyclist on The Heart and Sole Tour…
It's all about The Heartman... Geoff Brink doing what he's been doing for 43 days. He's halfway to achieving The Heart and Sole Tour's objective Pic: Hatman
“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 of transport ever invented.
At any given moment one (that’s me!) experiences pain of some description. At the moment my right gluteus maximus (bum) feels like it has been stung by 32 seriously angry wasps! My right calf muscle feels like it has been gnawed on by a family of hungry Bolivian beavers! My right lateral muscle feels like Chuck Norris just skopped me with one of those “around the house” numbers! And that’s just the physical side!
Emotionally I miss my fiance Kimmi so much it hurts worse than all the above combined. I miss our dogs badly too! It sounds naff but they are our children, and seeing a dog of any description on the ride reminds me of them and how I miss home!
Mentally – well it’s the toughest thing I’ve done since quitting alcohol 5 years ago! The concentration required balancing on one wheel for 5 hours a day is really intense, and I have to be constantly aware of my thoughts especially when faced with insanely steep and long hills, extreme heat and strong head winds! Spiritually I find it really important to keep an open dialogue with God, but often it is really tough to keep that connection when faced with all that I have just mentioned.
Apart from all that this Heart & Sole Tour is an absolute jol! It’s a bit like being a DJ at a party of your choice for 60 consecutive days! Fun but tough!
A quick note to all those beautiful souls who have and continue to support us on this trip. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! You have made this trip possible and are all as much a part of this adventure as me and my mate Howard (Fred H).
Best wishes and lots of love.
Geoff
OK. Fred here. The Heartman (Geoff Brink) has told you how tough it is on The Heart & Sole Tour. And beautiful. Believe him. I’ve been behind him (as his back-up driver) every inch of the 1,100km we have covered so far. What Geoff is doing is beyond words. I could write a book about our experiences. And I will. But not now.
Here’s the really fun bit. Some clever friends (Fred Roed and Mike Perk) of the highly respected World Wide Creative website design group wanted to help us reach Cape Town and achieve our objective of raising awareness of the evil of landmines that continue to maim and kill innocent people long after wars have ended.
So they came up with this cracking idea… they have organised an online raffle in which you can buy a ticket to be in line to win one of these stunning prizes…
* Three nights at a wonderful villa in Camps Bay, Cape Town, courtesy of Cape Realty
* Two nights at the Constantia Boutique Hotel, courtesy of The Last Word
* A weekend away at Friday island Resort
* A chef for the night, courtesy of Capsicum Cooking
* Golf lessons, courtesy of Cape Town Golf Academy
* R800 voucher for an authentic Tretchikoff print, courtesy of VladimirTretchikoff.com
* R500 Spa voucher, courtesy of Health Spa Guru
* A signed Ajax Cape Town football shirt, courtesy of Ajax Cape Town
* A half-day tour around the Cape Peninsula, courtesy of Executive Touring
* A prize courtesy of Wildcard (TBC)
*** Ticket prices are R25 each
All you need to do to enter is mosey on over to this hastily-made but effective website page to buy a ticket!
Nice. You each give R25 to help us finish our mad unicycle adventure and you could win – I am sure you will agree – a really, really cool prize. I like this. A competition in which there are no losers. Because even, if by some cruel twist of fate – and that is highly unlikely to happen to YOU – you don’t land up swanning around a Camps Bay villa for a couple of days, you’ll have WON the satisfaction of knowing you helped us to help people who don’t have the same number of limbs that you and I have. Phenomenalness, isn’t it? Yes, it is.
My dear Hatpeople, please be seated. And please be prepared to experience phenomenalness overload.
I present to you a totally mad Scotsman Danny MacAskill, who clearly got so bored with lolling around on the sofa in his Edinburgh apartment and watching re-runs of Noot Vir Noot, that he decided to pop out for a bike ride…
You might want to take a few deep breaths before reading on. I’m fine with that. Just let me know when to continue… I’m waiting patiently. That was a lot to absorb. And just as you’re winding down for the Christmas hols too.
OK. Are you ready? Good. That was footage shot over a period of a few months in and around Edinburgh by Dave Sowerby of our Danny, who is a member of the Inspired Bicycles team.
Good name. Inspired Bicycles. Could be improved, methinks, to Chuffing Unbelievable Stuff Performed On A BMX Bike team, though. How was it for you when he rode his bike along the top of the spiked railings? How did you feel? Are you over it yet? No?
That’s cool. Neither am I. I’m so not over it that I’m thinking of getting our nutty Heart & Sole Tour UNICYCLIST Geoff “Heartman” Brink to try that on one wheel. And he will. Try, that is. Well, we still need funds (and a back-up vehicle) for our Heart & Sole Tour so I scheme we’ll get old Heartie over to a place where there are some nice sharp railings and see if we can get some coins tossed into a flat cap.
“They came, they saw, they conquered” is a saying I dreamt up a few years ago while doing the morning crossword on the bog at Hatman Mansions. Yowzerness, you might exclaim in surprise. You didn’t know I do the crossword. Well, what can I say… I’m a man of letters. And you didn’t know that the origins of that popular phrase lay in the head of Fred, did you? There you go. It’s just the way I roll.
So I don’t have to apologise to anyone for corrupting my saying to “They came, they schmoozed, they, like, TOTALLY ROCKED the Smother City!”
Which pretty much nails the vibe that Heart & Sole unicyclist Geoff “Heartman” Brink and moi created in Cape Town as we swept all before us and “AmaOneTyre” (the unicycle)… at the SiliconCape launch (where Helen Zille and I fell in love, serenaded by the delectable Lucy Kenny and aided and abetted by head honchos Vinny Lingham and Justin Stanford) to morning coffee with Seth (yes, Rotherham) at Camps Bay Vida to arvie beers with internet marketing supremo Fred Roed of worldwidecreative.co.za and ideate.co.za fame to dinner with Gen and Lyndall (yes, Morton and Jarvis) at Caprice to a public appearance at Caveau to… hang on, this is turning into a very long sentence… so time for a pic (waffle to be contd.)
Seth (the "sex symbolic blogger" of 2oceansvibe fame) and I strengthen the ties between Camps Bay and Umdloti at the SiliconCape launch. Lest you be confuzzed, SA's sex symbol blogger is the one on the right. Just so you know
OK. Where was I? Oh, yes. (continuing)… to an autograph signing session at the Sky Bar at the Cape Royale (big doff of red hat to Goldfish for providing the tunes) to breakfast at La Bruixa where we shared Barca scrambled eggs with social media oligarch Dave Duarte to a pizza and glass of wine with Channel24 editor Jean Barker to a highly convivial and fruitful meeting with Argus editor-in-chief (and obsessive mountain biker) Chris Whitfield to double espressos and almond croissants with Springbok rugby legend turned commentator and philanthropist Bob Skinstad to.. oh, chuff it, that’s enough name-dropping for now.
Hatpeople have been reading me banging on and on about Geoff “Heartman” Brink and his nutty unicycle ride across South Africa to raise awareness of the Mineseeker Foundation’s Sole of Africa campaign to rid our planet of landmines.
It’s been a continuous cacklestream as we’ve watched Heartman fall off his “AmaOneTyre” machine a thousand times, pick himself up, slap on another Mickey Mouse plaster and wobble off again. Well, more good news my babies, the laughing ain’t over… by a long way.
You simply have to stock up on the old Kleenex, seat yourself near to the floor so you don’t bruise yourself when you fall over laughing… and take a butchers at this vid that our good ally, Fred Roed of www.ideate.co.za, dropped on to YouTube last night!
Warning: this video contains scenes of hilariousness overload… OK, flick the switch Projectorman!
Lekkerlag, ne? OK, so after enjoying that little gem, why don’t you trot over here and read the “One Minute With A Superhero” interview that Fred “One Time!” Roed did with our Heartman? It gives a true flavour of the madman that is Geoff Brink… gotta love him!
So Geoff, myself and Genevieve are off to Cape Town (by plane, not unicycle, this time!) in a couple of hours to meet all the Smother City geeks, heckle Helen Zille during her speech and tweak “sex symbol” Seth Rotherham’s nose at the SiliconCape launch tomorrow. I will be blogging here about all of that malarkey as well as our meetings with the media moguls we will be brown-nosing in order to drum up further publicity for the Heart & Sole Tour.
Sponsors are rapidly climbing aboard in support of our landmines awareness-raising initiative and we are almost ready to announce their names and set a date for the departure of the Heart & Sole roadtrip! Watch this space and, remember… “AmaOneTyre!”… “AmaOneHeartman!” “AmaOneWorldWithoutLandmines!”
