Photo: Llewellyn Lloyd - Reblex Photography
The weather was cool and the skies overcast. Perfect riding weather. Arriving at Romansfontein I felt okay, tired but not exhausted. It's hard riding 330km, including a number of time consuming portages, and not feel secondhand. I sat at the kitchen table and chatted to hosts Wil and Stephanie while they plied me with an assortment of food and drinks.
After 30 mins I was ready to leave. Backpack on I slid my water bottles into the bottle cages and was all set to go when I came over light headed. It was a bizarre sensation. I felt like I was about to pass out. I put my bike down and asked Wil if I could crash on a bed for half an hour. I was asleep in seconds. Waking 25 minutes later I felt a whole lot better.
I wandered through to the kitchen and told Stephanie I was going to be on my way. Her answer surprised me - "You'd better hurry there's a storm coming." A storm coming… I wasn't expecting that. Sure enough the sky to the west had turned a menacing grey and the wind had picked up.
The forecast has been for afternoon rain. Light rain. I looked at my watch. It was 11h15. I suppose that's closer to afternoon than sunrise. I hopped on my bike and after 15 minutes of snaking through the farm I exited on the district road. 5 mins later I felt the first drops of rain. Not heavy enough to be of concern but surprisingly cold. 10 minutes later the rain had increased sufficiently for me to don a raincoat. I could see that it wasn't an isolated shower as the landscape as far as I could see was blurred by rain. Looking ahead I couldn't see Aasvoelberg which was shrouded in cloud. Aasvoelberg was the mountain I needed to cross in order to drop off the Eastern Cape highlands into the flat Karoo. I figured the prospect of rain would lessen as I lost altitude so pushed on with more urgency.
The ascent up Aasvoelberg starts at the farm Gunsteling. The last 2km of district road to the gate of Gunsteling is reasonably steep making it a bit of a slog on tired legs. To make matters worse the road surface had recently been covered with gravel which had yet to be compacted. I could see the yellow metal responsible for finishing the road sitting idle on the side of the road up ahead. To make matters worse the rain had increased in intensity. Even so I was puzzled by the amount of water pouring onto the road from the adjacent fields. It didn't correspond to the amount of rain I was experiencing. The combination of loose gravel and water turned the road into a sloppy mess that reduced me to plodding along at 4km/h.
Once at the farm gate it's usually a quick ride down to the farmhouse. The mud however reduced me to picking my way down carefully. After freewheeling down the driveway for 3 km I felt the chill of rain through my raincoat. I took shelter behind the wall of a kraal and stripped off enough to put on a merino wool base layer. Now with 3 layers against the wet and cold I started up the mountain. There was no chance of riding. The water cascading down the track resembled a river. Every now and then I saw water fountaining out the ground. I figured the water was coming out of mole holes fed by water higher up. I slopped through the water reaching the crest. Any hope of a reprieve from walking was dashed as I watched rivers of water tumbling down the track I needed to take.
I started down the track and in spite of using my bike for support I lost my footing a couple of times. Eventually the track surface improved enough to get back on the bike. I was able to ride short sections before having to dismount to walk through the bush to get around patches of mud that spanned the track.
By the time I reached the bottom of the mountain I'd been of the go for 4 hours since leaving Romansfontein. In fair weather it takes a little over 2 hours. I was bleeding time. My 58 hour finishing goal was going to be tight.
The mud coming down the mountain covered my bike. Thankfully it wasn't the kind of mud that clogged wheels and turned your bike into a sled.
I stopped at the first stream and washed my bike. It wasn't showroom condition but the drivetrain and brakes were cleared sufficiently. I did the maths. The ride to the next drop off would take an hour. After that it was another 2 hours to get to Hofmeyr. Elandsberg lay another 3 hours beyond that. It was 15h15… Hofmeyr by 18h15 and Elandsberg by 21h15. That meant doing the Elandsberg portage in the dark which I had hoped to avoid.
I got on the bike and had gone less than 20 metres when the bike ground to a halt. I couldn't believe it. My bike had become a sled. The wheels were coated in mud locking them solid where the mud had compacted into the gap between wheels and bike frame. It's the last thing I needed. The only remedy is a mud stick - a stick you carry to scrape mud off your bike every time the build up has you skidding your bike over the ground. Clearing the mud sufficiently to get the wheels moving again is time consuming. When I saw puddles I rode through them. The mud in puddles isn't as sticky and the additional water helps release the mud already on your bike. The 2 kilometre stretch to the district road burnt my candle down an additional 30 mins.
Once on the district road it was another visit to a stream to get the bike shipshape or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. It was time to get trucking. The next 12km was all uphill. Not steep but a persistent climb that my gearing, or lack thereof, should have been fine to grind away in an hour. The effort was harder than I had anticipated. I alternated between sitting and standing. When standing I could accelerate the bike sufficiently that I could sit but once seated the speed dropped off slowly until I was out the saddle again. I stopped and checked the bike to make sure the drive train and wheels weren't binding. They were fine. The problem was the road. It was soggy. While it's okay to stand and pedal for 50 or 100 metres at a time it eventually takes its toll. It didn't help that a 4x4 with monster tyres came churning passed ripping up the best lines. I alternated between riding short sections as I could and plodding through water and mud. 1 hour became 2. Eventually the road levelled out signalling the end of that torturous section. Only another 35 km to Hofmeyr.
More yellow metal, more road work, more mud, more frustration. I'm not someone given to strong language or the use of 4 letter words but I must have muttered "Eish!" at least a dozen times.
Clear of the mountains the conditions hadn't improved. The 4x4 that had passed me earlier had left evidence of its challenges. It had lost control a couple of times sliding off the muddy road.
The road passes close to a cell phone tower near a place called Rietfontein. I'd never given it much thought except to use it as a reference. Once there the riding was normally fast and easy all the way to Hofmeyr. I took my cell phone out and was pleasantly surprised to have signal. It was 18h30. When leaving Romansfontein I had planned on being here around 15h00. The rain, mud and endless walking had eroded my resolve. The question that haunts every endurance athlete surfaced, "Why are you doing this?" In that moment the only response I had was, "I don't know." The question is one we constantly suppress. When it does pop into our heads we take a moment and fight back. I was tired and the fire of fight had flickered out. That phone call to the race director was made, "Chris, I'm done!"
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