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Sunday sees the new year’s Formula 1 season in with the first race taking place in Bahrain. Here’s the complete schedule for 2010:

Germany’s away jersey for the 2010 World Cup tournament has been unveiled by the Deutscher Fussball Bund and Adidas. In a break from the red strip the team wore in the past when playing away from home, the new shirt is black. An interesting colour choice for a rather warm South African winter in the months of June and July…

Red and gold complement the base colour, whilst the badge contains the DFB logo and three gold stars, one for each World Cup win (1954, 1974 and 1990).

White shorts with black and red strips round out the away wear.

Germany will test their Adidas kit against Argentina in Munich on 3 March 2010. The announcement can be read in more detail at the DFB site.

Michael Schumacher‘s ride for the season has been unveiled. The Mercedes Petronas RB1was unveiled in the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart.

The traditional Mercedes silver is incorporated along with the necessary blue colouring of the team’s main sponsor. Some very odd detailing on the front wings and an unusually long front section makes the car seem somewhat ungainly when viewed from the angle shown in the image above. The name of the car is the RB1. RB stands for Ross Brawn, the team principal.

This year’s Rooiberg Eco Ride has a new format and something that every cycle race should have: a relaxing ride on single tracks through the bush with brunch and high tea served! Obviously, the Eco Ride is no race. It’s a three day tour of 160km through the Rooiberg in Limpopo‘s Waterberg at a relaxed pace.

The tag line It’s not a race, it’s a ride appeals to me and I’ve submitted my entry. Day one sees a late start on a 30km ride including a stop for sundowners (probably non-alcoholic – the only downside). Early Sunday for a start on 70km, stopping for brunch and tea, and day three finishes the event off with a 60km ride. Though the distances will require some training on my part prior to heading up to the Waterberg, the fact that there’s no pressure on finishing within a set time should make this a great outing. I’ll probably take the camera along to snap a few pictures along the way…

The Eco Ride takes place in late April and the entry cost does not include accommodation. A curious prerequisite for the ride is that all mountain bikes have to be fitted with tubeless tires. Before getting the Anthem, I rode on goo-filled tubes for ages without a single stop due to a puncture. I’m not certain I agree with the fact that tubeless tires reduce the chance of punctures, and carrying a spare tube is a good idea even when riding tubeless. How strictly this rule will be enforced remains to be seen.

Entries are limited and the official website can be found here.

Michael Schumacher has announced his return to Formula 1 racing, a move that will encourage me to once again follow a sport that has had very little appeal for me in the past few years. It’s not that Schumacher‘s return will change the way races are run or diminish the boredom of racing that generally isn’t. Instead, it’ll be good to have a driver to support again…

Schumacher moves from Ferrari to an all-German Mercedes-Benz for at least three seasons.

Gentlemen, start your engines!

The adidas Tango was the first football I ever played with that had a technological advantage. Even for amateur, school-level football, that ball was an absolute revolution – light in weight, perfectly round and unwilling to soak up water the way older leather-panel balls would. Adidas still develops special match balls for the World Cup, and the 2010 edition features some up-to-date technology. The adidas Jabulani is made up of eight thermally-bonded 3D panels that are spherically molded to make the ball perfectly round.

The name is typically South African and the design incorporates some colours of the South African flag.

Jabulani. To celebrate.

In 2010, I’m sure we will.

The draw for the FIFA World Cup 2010 tournament has taken place.

Of 200 teams in over 800 matches, 32 teams qualified for the competition. The 32 teams have been placed into eight groups and thus have been allocated their first opponents and venues of play beginning 11 June 2010. In a draw that was performed by a number of celebrities, South Africa has had its first opportunity to impress the world.

Group A

	South Africa
	Mexico
	Uruguay
	France

Group B

	Argentina
	Nigeria
	Korea Republic
	Greece

Group C

	England
	United States of America
	Algeria
	Slovenia

Group D

	Germany
	Australia
	Serbia
	Ghana

Group E

	Netherlands
	Denmark
	Japan
	Cameroon

Group F

	Italy
	Paraguay
	New Zealand
	Slovakia

Group G

	Brazil
	Korea DPR
	Ivory Coast
	Portugal

Group H

	Spain
	Switzerland
	Honduras
	Chile

Some very interesting combinations! Spain seems to have a reasonably easy group, whilst the other seeds are likely to have a tougher time. Now, to book accommodation and a flight…

FIFA has announced the eight seeded teams and the individual pots from which teams will be chosen for the official draw that will be taking place at 19:00 South African time this coming Friday. The 90 minute event will see 32 teams allocated to eight groups designated A through H. Each of the seeded teams will be allocated to one of the groups in position 1, whilst the remaining teams will be drawn from pots and allocated to individual groups. There are some rules: except for teams from Europe, no two teams from any one confederation will occupy the same group. As the host nation, South Africa is allocated to the premier position A1 and starts off in pot 1 together with the remaining 7 seeded teams. The seeding is based on the October FIFA ranking.

Pot 1 (seeded teams and host nation)

	South Africa
	Brazil
	Spain
	Netherlands
	Italy
	Germany
	Argentina
	England

Pot 2

	Australia
	Japan
	Korea Republic
	Korea DPR
	Honduras
	Mexico
	United States of America
	New Zealand

Pot 3

	Algeria
	Cameroon
	Ivory Coast
	Ghana
	Nigeria
	Chile
	Paraguay
	Uruguay

Pot 4

	Denmark
	France
	Greece
	Portugal
	Serbia
	Slovakia
	Slovenia
	Switzerland

The separation of higher-ranked teams means there should be some excitement lined up for matches beyond the first round. How well South Africa fares through the first round will be interesting.

Together with roughly 4000 other mountain bike enthusiasts, I’ll be joining the fray from tomorrow morning at 07:30.

If you’re there, good luck. 25km is more than enough for me, especially when I observe the flight path that will require quite a bit of pedaling. Uphill…

I trust the wine I had this afternoon, lack of a ride in the last 2 weeks and overall lack of fitness will stand me in good stead.

There are quite a number of magazines related to cycling on the shelves of bookstores. For local cyclists, the problem with international magazines is usually that a lot of the content is simply not applicable. Cyclists in Europe are gearing for winter right now, whilst sunny South Africa offers hot weather and clear blue skies. The prospect of seeing winter gear reviews is an interesting one, but somewhat useless for local conditions. A description of a trail or cycling route in Scotland is certainly of interest, but unlikely to fit into the route plan of the MTB enthusiast living in Durban. That cuts the number of useful publications down quite drastically to just a handful. MTB or road bike? Unlikely that both are covered in the same magazine, so the options narrow even further.

Of the local magazines catering to MTB enthusiasts, only one has so far impressed me sufficiently to prompt me to inspect each new issue. Tread is a great magazine that provides a balanced array of content, ranging from gear and bicycle reviews to brief essays from everyday cyclists, to recommended trails covering all provinces and a very brief overview of current events. The publication strikes a good balance and manages, so far, to stay out of the trap many others of its ilk fall into: plastering page upon page with pictures and tables detailing top riders and event results. That’s lazy and hardly worth reading.

The online presence of Tread Magazine can be found here. The magazine is published on a quarterly basis and is certainly worth waiting for.The cover price is about ZAR 37 and each issue runs well into the ninety-something pages.

If you’re into mountain biking, I recommend you check it out.