I started riding my bike at the tender age of 11 when some friends convinced me it was a fun thing to do. I started taking it seriously as a sport by 13 and was getting really competitive in all the races I entered.
By the time I was 14 I took out my first racing license With the SACF(South African Cycling Federation) and decided to give track racing a go as well which was great fun but not quite my thing for some reason (who would guess 12 years later I would have raced a number of the worlds biggest 6 day track races with Jp Van Zyl).
In 1992 I had terrible back ache and after consulting the Orthopedic I was told I had Scheuermanns disease and Spondylolysis. Like most doctors the first one you see is always the worst case scenario (no more sport ever). The second doctor came through and said I had to take the year off totally and let my vertebrae heal which I did. The year there after I was back on the bike which was 1993 and started racing in earnest again. By half way through the year I was winning races in the A category and managed 15 victories.
My last year of schooling at Princess High on the West Rand in Johannesburg was not the most productive as far as schooling is concerned but never the less I passed all my subjects and matric in the process. The teachers seemed to have the impression I would not amount to much as all I wanted to do was ride my bike. I suppose looking back I can understand their concern as cycling was an almost non entity in SA at that time. During this year my passion for riding only grew and it convinced me to pursue my cycling carreer alone.
My parents were supportive as always from a distant point of view but said financially they could only back me in furthering my studies and not cycling. So I started working in restaurants to pay for riding and my living costs as I also decided to live on my own. Between the tips I earned and prizemoney I won the rent and car payments were never a problem but fillet steak was not on the menu either.
I took the year 1995 off from any studies and only raced. This was also the first time I was ever sponsored and raced for the Canola Team and also rode my first big one week tour which was the Hansom tour in the Eastern Transvaal (Mapumalanga). I suffered like a dog but managed to finished as the youngest (18) rider in the race which was not so bad.1997 was the year I was sponsored by my now best mate Tony Harding whom I had met at a sporting fitness center where I had been working to support a non paying sport at that time.
The team ran for the year and managed some really great results considering we were the smallest team around and had the most inexperienced riders. In 1997 still riding for Tony, we decided to go to Belgium for 3 months racing as it was the easiest way to race at world standards. Things went good and bad during this time as we won some races and never finished a whole lot more. For me this was honestly the first time I ever truly believed I wanted to and could race as a professional in the future. The only problem was finding the way to do it (a problem most young riders in SA still face today). This is about when my life and career started taking a drastic turn in the right direction.
The end of 1997 I got in touch with an old team mate Brent Copeland who had been racing in Italy for Velo Club Lugano. He had managed to organise a spot for one South African on the team for the following year. I convinced him I wanted to give it a bash and signed a year contract with Velo Club Lugano.
Just before I made my decision I had also managed to convince Tony to carry on sponsoring the team for another year with an even bigger budget so imagine his surprise when I walked into his office and said I was leaving for Italy. The emotional person he is he never spoke to me for 3 months till I phoned him one day with news of my first victory and he realized it was the right thing.
It is probably one of the hardest if not the hardest decision I had ever made to leave behind my country family and friends at the age of 19 in pursuit a dream. All of which was supposed to happen in a foreign country with a language I never understood.
The year 1998 was one of the longest times I have ever had but also one of the most rewarding. Living in a house with 4 Japanese team mates who spoke little or no English was not much fun to say the least. Hence I started reading books which I discovered (I am sure to many a high school teachers delight) was a lot of fun. To this day reading books is one of my best ways of relaxing. When I was not racing I spent many a hour walking around the streets of Varese alone window shopping and trying to learn Italian (which I now speak fluently).
Racing was great at this new level, the races were now faster, longer and a whole lot harder. I honestly loved it even though I won some races and never finished others but I never left a race with out leaving a mark even if it was just a intermediate sprint I won. My biggest and probably best result of the year was a the ITT in the Giro di Primavera in Italy with the SA national team. This result is what got 3 pro team's looking at me for the following year. Through out the year I was in contact with some pro teams (Mapei, Festina and Risso Scotti) but mostly with Guiseppe Saronni the Manager at the time of Mapei.
All the advise I was given by people around me was that this was the best choice not only because many a young rider had passed through his ranks but when they did they were given time to learn with the pro's and not put straight under pressure to perform.
At the end of the year I rode my first pro race with Mapei as a guest rider in the GP William Tell in Switzerland. Things went well for me and I had a great ride finishing 3rd in one stage and 8th in the ITT.
One week later I had signed a pro contract. And my career began ...
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