I lined up beside Roger Nicholson, Peter Roux and Ingrid Avidon. Roger's strategy was transparent, he would stick with me. At least that's what he said. Peter had a good race last year but did scribble a bit after leaving Bucklands so was back to get revenge. Facing off against revenge is like staring down a Cape Buffalo. Not that I've had to face off against a buffalo even though that was a possibility in the not so distant future - like the next day.
I was fairly confident that I could make the 1 pm gate in Cambria the following day and was fairly certain that Peter and Roger would also be there.
Roger and I ride together fairly often and had discussed the race. We have different ride styles so knew we would more likely spend time riding around each other rather than with each other. As a rule I'm quicker on the sustained climbs and portages and Roger has a downhill death wish. His bulkier frame aids this wish. I knew that I'd have to put some distance between myself and Roger on the long climb out of Cradock as once we were over the top he would chase me down like a ground to air missile.
Roger and I are competitive when we ride together and it's all good fun. But one thing we were very clear about was our sole focus on making the gate cutoff. Nothing else mattered. We would feed off each other's momentum if we could but wouldn't be distracted by the need to be tethered to each other.
I bolted out the starting gate eager to get at the first climb. It's not that I have a T-Shirt that reads All I Want for Christmas is a Monster Climb. It was more of a case of the climb was there and needed to be dealt with so rather sooner than later. Oh, there would be lots of laters that would extract pain but I'm all for the concept of eating pain one bite at a time. Right then Swaershoek Pass was on my plate.
Roger was at my side as we turned off the tar onto the dirt road that would be be our race track for the next 57km. I had 17km to put as much distance between myself and Roger and hopefully Peter before the summit. Peter was an unknown force. I had no idea if he was a downhill kamikaze or mountain goat. Or even worse a combination of both. I increased my speed bit by bit until a gap opened between myself and the other two. Looking back I saw that Roger had managed to get ahead of Peter so that answered the mountain goat question. Once they were out of sight I had no idea if I was getting away or getting hauled in so I pressed a little harder. As I neared the cloud shrouded summit Llewellyn pulled up next to me and out of the window of the car he shouted, "Roger said you must wait for him... in Willowmore." We were racing but that didn't mean we couldn't have fun.
Once over the top I scampered down the other side craning my neck at every twist in the road to see if Roger was catching up. Eventually he pulled up next to me and commented that he had to ride at threshold to catch me. I tutted and said something about the silliness of using a heart rate monitor in an endurance race as it's never going to say anything to please you. We pressed on to the next objective of Grootvlakte farm.
The first gate was an easy affair as it wasn't locked. The second gate was a tall game fence that was locked. Without hesitation we hooked our bikes on the gate and scrambling to the top swung them over the other side. After we had manhandled our bikes over the fence we stood and looked at each other before Roger said, "Maybe next time instead of us each doing our own bikes we work together." This was a consequence of us having no firm agreement to ride together. For the rest of that day we would assist each other with gates and fences if we were in sight of each other. If not we would close the gate and leave it for the other to negotiate on their own.
Once over the nek Roger was soon out of sight as I carefully picked my way down the rock strewn jeep track. Roger probably didn't notice the rocks. For me they loomed large and menacing. I'm very conservative when it comes to risk. Mostly because I'm a sissy and I cover that up by saying I need to ride carefully because I mostly ride on my own and can't afford to crash and get injured. Truth is, I'm not a great technical rider.
Lumpy bits helped even out our pace and when Roger dropped a pack of tissues I was able to get ahead when he went back to retrieve them. The final climb up to the old farm house that marks the start of the Struishoek portage is one of those roads that has massive water bars every 20 metres. They seem to go on forever. I was thankful when the old tangle of gate hove into view as it signalled that end of the torture. Well... the end of that particular torture. The next manifestation of unpleasantness was waiting around the corner.
At the start of the Struishoek portage I thought I would be able to go a lot faster than Roger. Well, that didn't happen. He picked up his bike and headed into the rocky jumble like a rock rabbit being pursued by a civet. Struishoek is a rockery. Every step is an invitation to roll your ankle, stub your toe or trip and face plant. Twice I misjudged my step and jarred my knees. The pain in both took a while to subside as we continued our charge down the valley.
My race timetable dictated that we needed to be in Pearston by midday. A glance at my watch suggested that was optimistic. We were still 20km from Pearston and it was already 11h15. Still, whether we got there on time or not the 1pm gate the next day was immovable. We kept at it until the ground levelled out and we were able to remount and make better speed.
Once on good farm roads we put our heads down and mashed our pedals arriving at the support station in Pearston at 12h03. So far so good.
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