Had a fantastic time – and good results on Saturday, but Sunday definitely a hard time, including a flat tyre 1km before the finish which made me carrying the bike on my back and running through the line instead of pumping up a new tyre!

Thanks to Jason for sorting out the Dirty Dog Sunglasses mountain bike shirts and for us being the official race team!

Just found out my results from Saturday (Sunday was not so great!) – 41 overall from almost 1,000 participants

The application compliments the mumbaikar.com website dedicated to everything Mumbai at your finger tips. A one-stop shop for anything and everything Mumbai, with interactive maps, localization, geo-tagged Mumbai business directories, event listings, blogs and breaking news on incidents in your neighbourhood.

A must to check out – and thanks to Imthi for making that happen!

Mumbaikar.com iPhone app

On Friday, the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the UAE, fired Omar bin Sulaiman from his position as governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and replaced him with Ahmed Humaid al-Tayer.

On Thursday, Sheikh Mohammed removed Mohammed al-Gergawi, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Mohammed Ali Alabbar from the board of the emirate’s main holding company, the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD). The board will be chaired by the Sheikh Mohammed, with his son, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince, as deputy chairman.

From Kipp Report: “It’s a family affair, for now”

The people that were replaced are three important figures in Dubai:

• Sulaiman is chairman of Dubai World which is state owned and globally known for the Palm development by Nakheel, plus many other international investments. In South Africa, Dubai World bought the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, Shamwari Game reserve in the Eastern Cape and the Pearl Valley Golf course close to Paarl. Flip Media designed and developed most of Nakheel’s websites.
• Alabbar is the head of Emaar Properties – which also includes many other Emaar related companies such as Emaar industries, Mall & Retail and other international investments such as the Hamptons Properties (UK based property development company). Emaar has been a big key account for Flip Media which developed more than 300 projects for this client.
• Gergawi is equally powerful as big boss of Dubai Holding, and I do remember the times when he was working at Emirates Towers at Sheik Mohammad’s office where I used to start up in Dubai with Impact Proximity, and at quiet a few occasions we would sit next to them during lunch at the Noodle bar . Today, Flip Media’s office is located in Al Soufah Tower which is owned by Gergawi.

So big changes in Dubai – and I hope they will be for the better for the city. All 3 ex board members in my opinion did contribute to the growth of Dubai a lot, and will most likely keep on playing a significant role within their respective companies. However, being pushed off the “Dubai Inc” inner circle means less access to support and one wonders if projects like the Palm Jebel Ali, Palm Deira and the World will be completed one day.

At the same time, a lot of work during this consolidation period within Sheikh Mohammad’s government and one hopes that now with tighter family control, the results will show rather sooner than later.

Happy Birthday, Ash!

We went to the Muizenberg beach on Sunday and had an awesome day by the beach – sunny and despite ice cold water Robs and Cammie made it into the waves for 2 hours – freezing cold!

Here are some pics:

Today they unveil mydubaimetro.com, a non-profit portal developed as a service to residents and visitors of Dubai. It’s packed with great features like detailed station information, connecting buses data, downloadable pocket maps, a detailed FAQ, and journey planner and fare calculator.

Flip’s design team created a really fresh look and feel with a vibrant palette and simple bold icons to help users find helpful information quickly. Keeping in mind the fact that it’s a community portal, they have devoted plenty of space to user generated content like blogs for people to share their views and experiences and media sections for metro photo sharing.

The site is scalable, so there will be plenty more features to come. In time, mydubaimetro.com will not only serve as a one stop shop for information, but also create long lasting connections.

My Dubai Metro