Day 1

Today was really tough. 156km in 16h20. The tandem is really hard to keep moving. With two human passengers loaded with trail luggage the total rolling weight of The Beast is just over 200kg. There was a lot of climbing today and that is the toughest part of riding a tandem, particularly one that weighs as much as it does. We got the the first support station just behind Andre and Francois. Andre is riding a single speed so that was an outstanding effort. After tea and some food the four of us decided to push on to Centacow an interim support station about 48 km further on. Not an easy task when we were all so tired and so late in the day. At 17h15 we headed out to use the last 30 minutes of day light before continuing on in the dark. It took us 5 hours to get there but we were satisfied with that given our fatigued state, the lack of day light and the tricky navigation of the part of the trail. On arrival we were treated to dinner and hot showers and feel well pleased with our days effort.