The Accidental Single Speeder - Race to Cradock Part 1

"Chris I'm done."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm pulling out of the race, I've had enough. This sucks."

"But Mike, you're almost in Hofmeyr."

" I don't care. Besides, at my rate of travel it going to take me many hours to get there. And the flippin' mosquitos are eating me alive."

"Mosquitos in the dry Karoo?"

"Not funny!"

I had reached the nadir of my riding exploits. The recent feeling that I was well past my use by date stared me in the face. That's what happens when a challenging situation collides head on with a negative attitude. I'd let the conditions and a bike I was uncomfortable with get to me. After only 36 hours into the Race to Cradock (RTC) I was ready to give up. There's so much you can't control but your attitude is one thing you can. I had loosened my grip on that. But let's rewind to where this adventure started and how I came to be on the phone to Chris. 

Roger No Trophy Nicholson had entered RTC with the express purpose of doing it on a single speed. In the process, assuming he finished, he could lay claim to the single speed record for the race as there are no other single speed attempts on record. He spent many hours trying to convince me that I should go one gear as well. I don't own a single speed bike and had never ridden one. For me it seemed a silly thing to do—civilisation has led to mountain bikes with gears. My regular bike sports a very handy 9/52 rear cassette which I couple with a 32 tooth chainring. It enables me to go fast on the flats and climb almost everything the mountains can throw at me without tearing the tendons off my knees. The knees I refer to are attached to my spindly legs which have never been referred to as gnarly looking pedal pistons. 

Apart from my well geared and lightweight Alibaba special I have a second bike which had been on loan  to a work colleague while he was repairing his own bike. He had found a single speed conversion kit in a box of bike parts a friend had left me when they emigrated. In no time at all my spare bike was fitted out as a single speed. He had even dug out a rigid fork I had bought years back. When I got the fork I had tried it out on a single ride before it was removed and tossed into a box labelled "Things I Hate". 

In passing I mentioned to Roger that I had a one gear bike at the office and the nagging mounted for me to do RTC on it. 

Two weeks before RTC my regular bike had a few spoke nipples pop through the rim. 48 000km's, countless river crossings and many litres of corrosive tyre sealant later the aluminium nipples had reached end of life. The bike was liberated of its wheels which were dropped at the local bike shop to get respoked. 

3rd March 2022 will go on record as the day I first mounted a single speed bike. I could have changed my other bike back into a proper bike but decided to see what it was like. I didn't like. The vibration through the unforgiving rigid fork was awful and hills I'd never thought of before made themselves known. I looked forward to getting my proper bike back. Many trips to and from the bike shop had me returning home empty handed. It seems the spoke sizes were outside the regular range and had to be specially ordered. That being the case my only option in the interim was the torture machine. 

A day later I went on another ride with Roger and Carlo to familiarise myself with the beast ahead of a long final training ride with Roger the following day. The ride with Roger and Carlo was torturous. They possess good tech skills and race down tracks I wouldn't send my pet goat down. I tried to keep up but the pair spent many minutes waiting for me. I didn't trust my front wheel without a shock to compensate for my lack of skills. I gingerly picked my way down the rock strewn and water eroded paths the other two revelled in. 

The following day we had scheduled a long ride over flat terrain and Roger insisted that I ride my single speed otherwise we'd have a speed differential problem that wouldn't be fun - not that I had another option bike wise. As the sun peaked over the horizon we started out on our bikes and hadn't gone more that 1 km when Roger lost control of his bike and hit the deck hard. The deck being a combination of concrete and tar. He was properly broken. A two minute car trip for him and a short pedal for me had us back where we started. While I was in a state of shock over the extent of his injuries Roger was doing a self assessment trying to figure out if he would be okay for RTC which started in 12 days. My 3rd ride on a single speed was severely curtailed. 

Over the next few days, while waiting for my proper bike wheel set to come back from the bike shop I kept riding the single speed. On one ride with Mrs Robinson I told him that there was no way I was going to do RTC on the SS. A side note is necessary here. Gavin Robinson was an early adopter of personal pronouns. His being He, Him and Mrs. It's a long story but he is known in our circles as Mrs Robinson. 

News from Roger didn't look promising with new complications arising until a scheduled surgical repair put paid to any chance of him doing RTC. I had already decided that I was going to go with my regular geared bike up to that point. Now that Roger was out of the race a small irritating voice in my head - which did sound a little like Roger - kept saying, "Go on, do this for your buddy." It's a sobering moment when your resolve against something dissolves and you pivot your decision against your best judgement. There had already been people offering up support for a SS ride by way of donations to the Freedom Challenge Scholarship Fund (FCSF) if I'd do it. This was initiated by Roger weeks before and others had joined the chorus. I have a heart for the FCSF so this was a cheap shot that worked. Once I'd announced my intention to go SS in place of Roger the support from the FC family via the very active and supportive Whatsapp group caught fire. Because of Roger's unfortunate accident I had become an Accidental single speeder. The hook was set. It was time to get me and my unfamiliar bike to the start line in Rhodes.