By Ian Sadler
Jan Mulder reckons there are times, like speeding down Ou Kaapse Weg at over 100km/h, it is just as well he can't see.
Runners-up by a nanosecond in the tandem section of Sunday's Cape Argus/Pick 'n Pay Cycle Tour, Dutchmen Mulder, 43, and his pilot, Heerko Gorter, are aiming for gold at the Sydney ParaOlympics later this year.
Mulder lost his sight after a cycle accident in 1982 and then spent two years in a rehabilitation centre. "I started running and swimming, but cycling is my sport, I've been on tandems for 15 years now."
"I trust Heerko and he knows it. We both love high speeds, but he is not crazy, though sometimes it is better I can't see," he said.
"Only when things are not going well do we speak - I can feel and hear when to brake or if there's a turn coming up," said Mulder.
Gorter, a supermarket butcher in Rotterdam, has piloted Mulder to 10 wins out of 12 races.
"We train in the Swiss mountains. We've hit 125km/h there before," said Gorter.
The pair return to Holland at the end of the month to prepare for the Sydney ParaOlympics and Mulder's last big goal - a third gold medal to go with the two he won at Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta four years ago.
"I only hope my age is not a bigger handicap than my eyes," he said after Sunday's race.
Married with two children, Mulder is a social worker in Twello, his home town in the east of Holland.