There are a couple of good climbs with a challenging climb up to the entrance of SALT — Southern African Large Telescope. After that it's a long fast descent into Sutherland on a good tar road so I mentally subtract those 14 km because they are free. So I'm looking at an effort just shy of 50 km. That's doable. Cue Robert Burns, "The best-laid plans of mice and men..."
I check I have all my kit as I don't want a repeat of 2 years back when I left my gloves on the table and had a grumpy ride back to fetch them. Everything is accounted for and either fitted or stowed.
It's warming up but there's a breeze to keep it under control. Unfortunately it's a headwind. This section is where you start racking up vertical gain. The total vertical gain for the race is a smidgen under 6000m and I've done half of that in 745km. The other half is shoehorned into the remaining 335km.
As I get to the top of the first climb I can see the mountains where the telescope is located. They rise up like a fortress taunting me. The landscape between where I am and those mountains is dry as a bone. As dry as the many sheep skeletons I see up against the fences. The road ribbons away across the scorched red earth thinning as it goes until almost imperceptible. It's far and I need to ride every metre of it. And then the fortress awaits.
I crank up one climb after another each time I crest it seems I'm giving away all my vertical gain as I drop into another desolate valley.
It's getting hot and I've already used up 2 of my bottles. As I head through a cutting I notice a windmill off to my right but it far off the road and the terrain would mean complex routing to access it. Below me to my left there's a water trough. I figure the only source of water for the trough must be the windmill and reservoir on the opposite side of the road. I dismount and make my way down to the water trough. Predictably the water is manky but It has a float valve controlling the water level. I push down on the ball and water gushes. Carefully positioning a bottle I half fill it and inspect the contents. There are no tadpoles or nasty bits floating around so I fill both bottles and head back to my bike. That's one less thing to worry about.
Ahead the road rises sharply. Finally I've started the climb that'll take me to the top. Oops, wrong. As I freewheel down the other side there are four things of note. Firstly, off to my right, perched high up on a mountain I see the SALT observatory. Secondly, in the distance is the anticipated gnarly climb. Thirdly I see a cyclist. They are probably no more than 1 to 2 km ahead but they may as well be 10 times that distance because my final observation is that the wind has turned ugly. Very ugly.
I'm reduced to a crawl by the gusting menace. In a race of over 1000 km I'm riding in 150 metre increments. My goal is riding twenty fence posts at a time. I'm trying not to think about how slow I'm moving. In spite of my pathetic pace I'm gaining on the rider ahead.
The rider ahead starts up the final climb 500m ahead of me. I crank up slowly behind them. It's John. Nearing the top I pass him. His reduced pace is a clear indication that he's struggling. No words pass between us. There's nothing I can say to alleviate his struggle. Likewise I'm engaged in my own personal skirmish.
Eventually the gravel road gives way to tar near the entrance to SALT and I'm eagerly anticipating the drop into town. The wind at the top of the climb is worse. It seems we were in the leeward side of the mountain on the climb. As the road angles down I stop pedalling and instead of freewheeling down the mountain I come to a stop. This isn't how it's supposed to go. Instead of a 14km freewheel into town I'm forced to fight for every metre.
Looking behind I see John is dropping further back. I also see a truck coming. Normally I hate traffic but the truck will give me break from the wind albeit briefly. I'll settle for even 5 seconds of shelter from the wind. As the truck rumbles by my speed doubles but I'm still going less than 20 km/h. Within seconds I'm back to single digits.
At least now I'm able to use telephone poles as distance targets rather than fence posts. I've never appreciated before just how far apart telephone poles can be. A few kilometres from town I've lost sufficient altitude that the wind while still strong isn't threatening to push me back up the mountain.
Arriving in town I delay my arrival at the support station by popping into a shop and buying a buddy Coke. I need to reward myself for winning the battle even though I'm feeling more tattered than victorious.
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