The Three Why's Men

When asked why we do extreme stuff I find it comes is three flavours. 

The first is usually followed by a statement. "Why? You do know that it's a lot easier in a car?" There is no adequate response to this "why" save to make a flippant reply and smile dismissively. The asker has no understanding, appreciation or interest in our endeavours. It's simply a shallow form of humour born of a need to exercise ones vocal cords while disengaging their ears and minds. 

The second kind of 'Why' is interested. But more so in understanding what makes us tick. They do not connect viscerally with the activity or have any desire to replicate our experiences. They are keen to gain an intellectual understanding of why someone would subject themselves to what, in their minds, seems amazing, edgy, perhaps even a tad foolhardy, but ultimately jolly interesting. Having sated their curiosity they nod knowingly and over the course of the next week or two they ply their friends with the tales and adventures of an adventure addict they bumped into. 

The third 'why' enquirer is far more incisive. They might not understand the full depth of the how's and why's of extreme pursuits but they are keen to unravel the process with a view perhaps of going down that road themselves. 

I use the word 'process' deliberately because 'extreme' is exactly that. Something you have just completed is oft no longer considered extreme. We will explore the compounding nature of 'more' in the context of extreme in the next instalment. 

Why?

Why?

When people hear about the extreme bike adventures we do the responses are varied from "That's so cool", or "You guys are nuts!" through "Why?"

The last response is the shortest to ask but the most difficult to answer. 

As I sit here now trying to manage a riding induced hand ailment that will no doubt result in going under the knife to resolve, the question of "Why" plays on my mind. Why do we do these things?

As cyclists we are no different to other athletes. Mountain biking, apart from other risks such as carpal tunnel syndrome and saddle sores, carries an ever present risk of broken bones. We all fall off our bikes. Often it's funny, at other times there is no humour in it, but it is treated as an acceptable and inevitable risk. We can take steps to mitigate against catastrophic outcomes by lessening the risk. This, to a mountain biker, would be like an aspirant boxer settling for shadow boxing to avoid taking a punch to the face. 

The "Why?" to the basic pursuit of mountain biking is uncomplicated. Certainly a lot less complicated than asking someone why they choose boxing as a past time. Particularly when you finish with "it's healthy exercise and is good for me."

Over the next few weeks in the run up to the Race to Rhodes I want to try unpack the answer/s to the question "Why?"

Post Race Reflections

My goal at the start was to finish in 55 hours or less. It was never going to be easy. However, there was a time during the early part of the race when I thought 48 hours was on the cards. As it is we finished in 63 hours 35 minutes. We had endured 14 hours of rain and I had squeezed in about 2 hours of sleep - Casper a whole lot more. Our unscheduled stop on the Elandsberg portage had cost us about 8 hours and it was there that my hopes of racing my age evaporated. However, if you were to ask me which section of the race was the most memorable I would have to say it was the night on Elandsberg. Money can't buy experiences like that. I look forward to doing that section in the future and would welcome the challenge of doing it in the dark again. 

A few words about Casper. It was never my intention to do the ride with anyone else. I am completely comfortable in my own company. I knew of Casper from past races and he had been generous in supporting the Scholarship Fund through my last Race to Rhodes endeavour. I had never met him in person. Stepping in to the dining room at The Rubicon when I arrived in Rhodes I met him for the first time. We clicked immediately and by the time dinner was eaten we had a loose alliance. He has all the characteristics that epitomise a Freedom Challenge rider - A quiet humility coupled with tenacity. 

In truth he was the stronger rider and could well have beaten me by many hours. That's just not the way he rolls - he has a high regard for alliances. 

We laughed a lot and he had an appreciation of my dry humour. He trusted me implicitly with the navigation and when I did falter on Elandsberg it didn't faze him one bit. 

I like to think that through this journey he got to experience a little of the dark side of endurance racing. By that, I hope he had a renewed appreciation of his ability to push boundaries. To move forward relentlessly and go beyond exhaustion and stifle discomfort to emerge at the end of the experience with a bit of "Wow, I did that!" Casper is the kind of person you would want at your side if ever you had to go to war. 

I, as indicated by my blog name "Adventures of an Ordinary Cyclist" am very ordinary. I am ordinary in my ability to ride a bike. I can't ride faster or better than any of my friends. I merely want different things from these races. I want to go beyond. Whilst pushing boundaries and piling on non-stop miles I try not to be so focussed on that one goal that I don't take time to smell the roses. I attempt to take in all the small detail. The one thing I do miss out on is the extended hospitality of the support stations. Fortunately, most years I get to do a recce ride down the trail where I spend quality time at the support stations ahead of the race.

These race blogs are intended primarily for people who have ridden the trail. They get to fill in the blanks from their own experiences and relive in some way the rich pleasure of living on your bike for a few short days or weeks as the case may be. 

Casper mentioned an incident related to me that he wouldn't have heard from me. I asked him how he knew. His reply "From your blog. I read about your adventures on the Freedom Challenge from your blog and that's how I came to do it."

That makes it all worthwhile. 

Would I do this race again? I can't think of a single reason why not. In the words of Casper who messaged me earlier "Do you know that I don't have a single bad memory,hardship yes but bad memories,no"

Right now it's time to rest up a little and then begin preparations for the Race to Rhodes in June. 

Storm Clouds Building

Storm clouds were building around Stuttgart. As we pedalled down the road looking toward Schurfteberg where we were headed it looked clear. I commented to Casper that we might get a 'get out of jail free' card. 

As we started up the Garland Valley Casper rode over a cattle grid just as a rinkhals was making its exit. The rinkhals reared up and dropped away from Casper while Casper swerved off in the opposite direction. I suspect each was as surprised as the other. I caught up to Casper. 

"Did you see that?" he said. The exhilaration clear on his face. 

Casper set off a a good pace and I trailed behind. I was really tired now for the first time since we we had left Rhodes some 57 hours before and I battled to keep my eyes open. The track was wet and muddy. The tyre tracks of the group a few hours ahead of us were obscured by recent rain. Looking behind us a huge storm blackened the early afternoon sky and we could hear occasional thunder. We had already endured 12 hours of rain and weren't keen for more. About half way up the valley I called out to Casper that I needed to have a quick nap. Stopping in the shade of a tree I lay back on my backpack. I set an alarm for 20 minutes and pulled my buff over my eyes. A dog was barking in the distance. I heard it bark twice before I felt the darkness of sleep drop over me like a heavy blanket. It had taken seconds to fall into a deep replenishing sleep.

I killed the alarm, put my helmet back on and pushed my bike back on to the road. 50 metres ahead a farmer had stopped by one of his gates. He pointed behind us by way of warning. The storm was closer and a lot bigger. We acknowledged his warning with a wave and pedalled off with more purpose. 

The Schurfteberg portage appeared ahead of us bathed in sunlight. Perhaps this was a 'get out of jail free' moment. 

We kept moving and eventually arrived at the Die Hoek farmhouse ruins where the climb over the mountain starts. The track to the top of the mountain looks spectacular if not a little intimidating.

"How long will that take?" asked Casper. 

"About an hour," I replied. 

"Are you mad! That's going to take at least 2 hours," said Casper. 

If you have ever stood at the farmhouse and looked up at the track that scribbles its way up that mountain you will have sympathy for Casper's assessment. It looks like a massive challenge. In truth, on a fresh pair of legs most of it is ridable and a good rider can knock it off in 30 minutes. We hadn't had a fresh pair of legs for a few days now and settled into a trudge to the top. 

An hour later our efforts were rewarded with magnificent vistas over the Karoo. Clouds, pregnant with rain, loitered menacingly over the plains below. 

"I am not so sure about the 'get out of jail free' card now," said Casper. "The best we can hope for now is some parole." With that he hopped on his bike keen to savour the exhilarating 20 minutes descent off the back of the mountain. 

We reached the road at the bottom of the mountain as it began to drizzle.

"Maybe we should put our rain gear on?" suggested Casper. 

I looked up the valley toward the exit we would take and saw it was still basked in sunlight. "Nah, I am sure we can outrun this." With that I put my head down and powered down the road. 

We cruised down that road at high speed belying the fact that we had been on the go for days. We slowed occasionally for puddles that stretched the full width of the road and then resumed our charge. All the while I kept an eye on the rain clouds around us. The nek we were headed toward was still clear even though we were all but surrounded by clouds. The drizzle continued. 

As we reached a steep climb that would take us over the ridge and down toward the district road at the foot of the Swaershoek pass the rain intensified. It is a steep climb, steeper than many parts of the Schurfteberg track we had just walked. Spurred on by the prospect of outrunning the rain we powered up the climb without any thought of walking. Cresting the ridge it became immediately apparent that we weren't going to outrun anything. The plain ahead of us was fully obscured by torrential rain. Casper made some comment about my dumb idea of not putting our rain gear on and charged off into the downpour. 

I desperately wanted to stop and put my rain coat on and my cell phone wasn't in its waterproof pouch. Casper however was a hundred metres ahead and in the reduced visibility I didn't want to lose sight of him. For twenty minutes I chased him down the road past the Jakkalsfontein farm house toward the district road. We were soaking wet. It felt like I had just walked out of a muddy dam. Catching up to Casper just short of the district road I suggested we take shelter under the cover of a shed at the junction where we could wring ourselves out. 

We arrived at the shed sopping wet but still high in spirit. We looked back toward Schurfteberg and wondered how Tim was going through the storm that engulfed the mountain. 

We spent 30 minutes putting on dry base layers and wet leg warmers and realising that the rain was there to stay we headed back into the deluge to take on the last climb of the trip. It's 10.4 km's to the top of Swaershoek pass. The first 8 km's is a gentle climb. We rode side by side chatting for most of this. The pass ahead was pitch black while the sunset behind us was clearly visible in a break in the clouds. At one point Casper mentioned that the rain had stopped. Indeed it had. We had been so engrossed in our conversation that we hadn't noticed.

Casper had spent many a holiday on a farm nestled at the foot of that mountain. He reminisced about days spent wandering around the bush and nights of warmth and laughter around the kitchen table. We stopped at the gate of the farm that used to belong to his family. The post was still there but the nameplate long since removed. Like most farms in the Karoo the small farms have been consolidated into larger farms as market prices force up the minimum size of economical farming units. It is no longer possible to profitably farm 1000 hectares in the Karoo. I am told the minimum economic unit is now 3000 hectares. 

As the road kicked up to start the last few kilometres to the top we stopped pedalling and walked. The race was all but over. Alex had arrived earlier that day to secure the win and we were certain of finishing in second place ahead of Tim who we figured was at least 2 hours behind us. We savoured the walk and spoke of nothing in particular. As we came over the top of the pass we were enveloped in mist. We noticed snake like critters on the road. On closer inspection they were giant earthworms. The rain must have forced them to the surface. They were about as thick as an index finger and about 2 feet long. We saw hundreds of them as we rode down toward Cradock. We also saw hundreds if not thousands of frogs. They didn't hop as you would expect. They ran towards our lights like rodents. 

As we dropped below the mist we could see the lights of Cradock in the distance. They seemed so close but we still had 17 kilometres to go. The descent at night, although looking fast, is a whole lot slower that doing it during the day. I had previously ridden this section of 18 during the day in just under 30 minutes. At night, with mist and a little mud to deal with it took us almost an hour. It went on forever. Every time I thought we were at the bottom it dropped down even more. 

Finally we got to the T-junction at the bottom and turned toward town. A short while later we took our final turn and rode toward the finish at the Ou Pastorie. Waiting outside to greet us was Glenn and Meryl. It was good to see them. Our race was over. We had done well. 

I learn a new Afrikaans saying

There are certain moments in life that stand out in bold face. Once such moment occurred in April of 1973. I was in the First Form (Grade 8) and my day dreaming during the Afrikaans lesson was interrupted by Mevrou Wasseman. 

"Woolnough?"

"Yes ma'm?"

"What is the Afrikaans word for Thursday?"

I had absolutely no idea and just winged it, "Dinsdag?"

I recall watching the veins on her neck and forehead getting bigger by the second. She grabbed a ballpoint pen off her table and strode over to where I sat at the very back row. 

"The word you are looking for.....," she said, grabbing my by the hair on the back of my head. "Is..." she pulled the cover off the pen with her teeth and spat it out on the floor. "D" the ballpoint pen pressed deep into my forehead. "O". A deathly hush fell over the class. "N". The pen stopped writing and she paused to scribble on my diary to restore the flow of ink. Having painfully redrawn the N she continued. "D". The girl sitting next to me started giggling. Rather that I thought than pity. "E R D A G."

She stood back looking quite pleased with her work. Fixing me with her bloodshot eyes she continued, "Donderdag, DONDERDAG!" 

That's quite a few fillings I thought as her face was obscured by the widest mouth I have ever seen. 

And so, to this day, I have never forgotten what Thursday is in Afrikaans. 

"How do you spell that?" I asked. 

We had made our way across the scarred landscape and were walking up the jeep track. 

"L-e-p-e-l l-ê with a cap on the e," replied Casper. 

"Lepel lê," I repeated. "So that's the Afrikaans word for spooning, interesting!" There was my new Donderdag. 

A little further on Casper remarked, "At least we have had a good nights sleep and should be able to push through to the finish without any more power naps." I chose to ignore that comment as a battled to keep my eyes open. 

At 7:30am we walked in through the front door of the Elandsberg farmhouse where we were warmly greeted by Lisa. 

"Hello Mike, you better call Meryl. She is worried about you guys."

We apologised for not letting her know we were running a little late but explained that we had no cell signal on the other side of the mountain. 

'A little late' meant 8 hours. We had surrendered an 8 hour advantage to Tim by parking off in the bush for the night. We knew Glenn and Meryl had been at the farm the night before and were keen for any information about Tim. When we asked Lisa she mentioned that Tim still wasn't feeling well and she thinks he spent the night  at the previous support station of Romansfontein. I was a little skeptical because that didn't sound like Tim. You would have to beat him with a gum pole to make him stop. We didn't have 3G signal so couldn't check the Freedom Challenge website to check on support station times. I called Meryl. The conversation went like this.

Me: "Hi Meryl, we have just arrived at Elandsberg."

Meryl: "That's great. Glenn and I drove through that awful storm near Elandsberg last night and were really worried about you guys. Where did you sleep?"

Me: "Doringbos Lodge."

Meryl: "Thank goodness. We were so worried. Did you have any trouble getting in?"

Me: "Huh?"

Meryl: "Were the people at the lodge okay with you just pitching up?"

Me: "Meryl, there is no lodge. We slept under a thorn bush; a doringbos!"

Meryl: lots of laughter.

I asked her where Tim was and she confirmed that he had indeed left Romansfontein the previous evening at 21:15. That meant he should be right behind us. She said he was last spotted entering the Elandsberg portage section. That's where we slept. 

I converted this information to Casper and we resolved to get out of there as fast as we could. The problem was the food. It was awesome. At one stage Casper spilled something and apologised as he scraped it off the table cloth. I told him it was okay, after watching him scrape the yoghurt off the carpet at Brosterlea and eat it I was immune to anything. 

"I was hoping you didn't see that," he said the laughter rising in his throat. 

I took a dollop of anaesthetic cream and gave my saddle area a good smothering to numb it ahead of the long ride to the next support station of Stuttgart. 

Casper looked up in mock shock. "How can you do that in the middle of the dinning room?" he asked.

"You stick to carpet yoghurt and I will take care of my sore butt!" I replied. 

Suitably fed and hydrated we got a cricket score update from Jose, thanked Lisa and Jo for their hospitality and pedalled off down their driveway. 

Still no Tim in sight. That was good. 

We resolved to get to Stuttgart as fast as possible with the hope that if Tim was close behind he would see that we were moving quickly and give up any hope of catching us. We could then take a lazy ride to the finish without worrying about Tim pipping us at the post. 

The ride from Elandsberg to Baroda is normally crazy fast. We had a slight head wind that continued all the way to Stuttgart. Crossing the tar road near Spekboomberg I could feel the sleep monsters rousing. I asked Casper if he had any music and ear phones. He did. I told him I was sleepy and was going to get my ear plugs in and drown out the monsters. I did just that and Casper followed suit. Without any chit chat we moved efficiently on to Stuttgart covering the 72 km's in 4h30. 

Refuelling on a pot of tea followed by a plate of scrumptious venison pie we left Stuttgart half an hour later at 13:22 ready to bang out the last 72 km's of our race. 

A long uncomfortable night

Although layered up with both a wind shell and raincoat on top of my cycling jersey I was sopping wet. I had leg warmers in my back pack but decided the pouring rain coupled with the cramped space under the bush, which we named Doringbos Lodge, made it too tedious a job to put them on. It took us about 10 minutes to fold ourselves into the smallest possible mass and tuck the space blanket around us to exclude as much rain as possible and trap as much body heat as we could. If I so much as moved an arm it would cause the space blanket to open somewhere and we would spend a few minutes getting it secured again.

I kept my helmet on as I didn't fancy the prospect of pressing my face into the wet soil. As I lay there I had one ear to the ground and the other pointing skyward. The rain hammered against the space blanket and I was glad to have at least something between me and the storm even if it was a thin foil cover. I looked at my watch - 01:32 - it was going to be a long night. Within minutes I could hear Casper snoring gently. That chap could sleep anywhere. I wasn't so lucky. I moved a foot and immediately felt the cold night air invade our cocoon. I slowly reached down to see if I could tuck the space blanket back under my foot. At the same time I noticed a light. For a second I thought Tim had caught up and was standing there looking at these two tjops wrapped up in a foil blanket. My movement woke Casper. "My flippin' headlamp won't turn off," he said. He gave it a slap and it started cycling its way through its lighting programme from white to red and then a red strobe. He gave up placing it on the ground above his head. The rain it seems had invaded its gizzards and it wasn't going to turn off. We spent a few minutes adjusting our foil cocoon and soon Casper was asleep again. I looked at my watch  - 1:36. I adjusted my head to rest on my backpack and had the Christmas light display of Casper's headland right in my face. Not wishing to wake him again I placed my still gloved and wet hand over my face. A reasonable level of comfort slowly waned giving way to aching muscles begging to be moved. Eventually I surrendered to their plea and gave them a good stretch. Freezing air filled our space. Casper woke and announced "All turn over!"  We flipped over onto our other side, tucked the cover in and started shivering. Intense shivering that makes your muscles ache. We snuggled up closer desperate for warmth and pulled the space blanket down to minimise the airspace. I tucked my head into my raincoat to preserve the heat of my breath and try make it count for something. It was 01:45. 

That was the pattern throughout the night - cramps followed by shivers followed by cramps. At some point the rain stopped and was replace by a chilling wind. 

It seemed a week had passed before the darkness of the eastern sky gave way to the first light of dawn. I unfolded myself and dragged my aching body from beneath the bush. It took me a while to straighten out. The words of the poem "There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile...." played through my mind. I could hear Casper chuckling at me.

I looked up and one kilometre over the gnarled landscape in front of me the elusive jeep track ran up the ridge into the mountains. We were in exactly the right place. Looking up I saw a sky totally devoid of clouds. The wind had abated and it was a beautiful morning. Time to break camp and get to Elandsberg farm for  some breakfast.  

Doringbos Lodge.

My exact words to Casper were, "This is not cool. I don't get lost!"

I can imagine the deflating effect that had on him. All along he thought he had his own personal GPS guidance system and here is the middle of the bush it declares it doesn't know where it's going. 

I saw a ridge off to my left and decided to go have a look on the off chance that it was the ridge we sort. Casper wasn't keen on traipsing his bike across the bush so found a perch while I set off on a little explore.  As I climbed the ridge I saw a distant electric light off to the North. It was the only fixed point of reference in my black world. I was careful to check my bearing against this light so that I was able to retrace my steps to get back to Casper. After a few hundred metres it became apparent that the ridge I was on wasn't going to help with the nav. I turned back and made my way toward Casper careful to keep the light at my 2 o'clock position. I stopped paying attention to it for about 30 seconds and when I looked up expecting to see Casper's position dead ahead he was nowhere be seen. Instead I found the distant light directly ahead. It was a reminder of how easily you can get disoriented. I could see Casper off to my left. 

Arriving back at his position I said we need to go back to the fence and start again. He wasn't keen. "It's so far! How are you going to find it if you don't know where we are?" It was a valid point. Fortunately the fence line ran East to West and was kilometres long. I set of in a northerly direction and we intercepted a track that I mistakingly thought was the one we wanted. After a few hundred metres I realised it was heading easy instead of South. We rode back down and resumed our search for the fence. Intercepting the fence we split up to look for the cycling shoe I had left on the fence pole which Casper found off to out left. Regrouping at the shoe I started going through the required navigation. It started raining and Casper decided to take shelter under a little bush. He looked like a dassie tucked under the little bush. While I was 99% certain of where we were it takes just a smidgen of doubt to make you start doubting. Random thoughts like "what is this is the other shoe I found?" can unhinge your confidence. As I stood looking out ahead of me toward where the jeep track must be I could see absolutely nothing so complete was the darkness. 

Casper suggested we go to ground and wait for light. It was only a little after 1am. I figured it would take us over an hour to get to Elandsberg if we got the navigation right on our second attempt. Stuttgart was at least 5 hours from there and then it would take another 5 or 6 hours to the finish. And we were tired. We would have to take a nap somewhere. The prospect of racing my age had evaporated. 

Always up for an adventure I asked Casper what he had in mind. He told me he had a black plastic bag which we could put on the ground. Sitting on that we could cover ourselves with a space blanket he had in his pack. Standing there in the soaking rain it did sound an attractive proposition. 

I scrambled under the bush to join him. The black bag was placed on the damp earth and we did our best to get equal amounts of body on it. Then the interesting job of unrolling the space blanket started. It came out the bag as a long sausage and bit by bit we unfurled it uncertain how big it was going to get. Fortunately is was a large one and we figured that if we lay on out sides and spooned we could shelter from the rain and do our best to keep warm. That was the beginning of one extremely uncomfortable night. 

The science of getting lost

Being discombobulated I stopped. I could well have been going the right way but I didn't have a sense of my direction. This seldom happens to me and when it does I stop and reset to get reorientated. I had my compass out but it is little comfort knowing the compass directions derived from magnetic north when you don't know where you are. I knew I wanted to go SSE to intercept a jeep track that would take me in a southerly direction. SSE was the direction from the start of the track and not necessarily the direction required from where I stood. I am not quite sure what Casper made of my sudden halt. A walked around a bit and then told him we needed to get back to the gate to start again. We found a fence line and by following  that in a northerly direction Casper found the gate. Starting back at the gate I gave my head a little shake to reset my internal gyro and tried again. We went in exactly the same direction but this time I had no doubts and we quickly picked up the track we were looking for. We bumped along this track for a short distance and then walked up a couple of steep sections all the while I was checking and double checking. Once we were at the top of a ridge that would lead us down to the fence line where we would have to stop and hop the fence Casper was ahead of me. It was a mistake. Not that Casper did anything wrong, it is just that I didn't have a proper sense of the distance we covered. I told him to look out for a fence line on our right hand side and mentioned that when it got close we were to cross to the fence line and hop over. He did just that. 

Something wasn't right. The slope of the land did not correlate with my mental picture of what should have been in front of us. My light, although bright did very little to help. I told Casper I was going to go further down the track. He said he was happy to stay where he was and I climbed back over the fence and walked further down the jeep track. I walked for about 100 metres and saw the fence was a lot closer to the track as I had expected. Crossing to the fence I stepped on an old cycling shoe complete with cleat. I had seen this very shoe on my previous excursion and confident that this was exactly where I wanted to be. I picked the shoe up and hung it on the fence. After hopping over the fence I walked in Casper's direction to fetch him. Imagine my surprise when, as I walked down the straight fence line, I saw his headlight far off to my right. A short distance on I found a junction in the fence that I hadn't noticed before. Casper and I had crossed the wrong fence. It ran perpendicular to the fence we wanted. I reached him, retrieved my bike and we made our way back to the spot I had marked on the fence. I explained to Casper that all we had to do is head directly south and after a few hundred metres we would intercept the track that would take us on to Elandsberg farm. It's a no brainer. I did this same section at night in 2009 when riding with Glenn on the tandem and we made it look easy. The only difference this time round is that it was dark - there were no stars or skyline visible. The only way we could get a bearing was with a compass. That is where it got interesting. As most of us know, geographic north (true north) and magnetic north are not the same thing. Maps are oriented to true north which is a good thing as magnetic north has a nasty habit of wandering. It moves all the time. From Cradock magnetic north is way off to the west of true north. The trick is to know how much. On the last government ordinance maps of that area that I saw I seem to remember the magnetic declination (it's marked at the bottom of the maps) of the maps being something of the order of 18 degrees west. That means your compass will point 18 degrees further west than the true bearing if you are heading north. We were heading south which means the indicated bearing would deviate east 18 degrees, or so I though. The maps I last saw were dated late 70's early 80's and I thought 18 degrees a little steep so I aimed to walk just off South, 10 degrees or so. Today I googled the current magnetic declination for Cradock and found it to be a whopping 23 degrees west. That's massive. Certainly a whole heap more than I anticipated. The net effect is that we wandered off too far left. There is another interesting contributing factor that causes you to go off line. Every time you walk around a bush or try find a line through an obstacle,such as the dongas we were faced with, it is unlikely you will realign yourself on the same intended track once through. You will be some metres left or right of your previous bearing. Pick up your compass and continue on the same bearing and you will continue on a parallel line that will maintain your obstacle deviation. After a few hundred metres you could be 20, 30 or even 50 metres away from your target line. With the benefit of some light you will see the skyline. By aiming at a feature you do away with the parallel deviation and introduce converging paths. If the distance to the feature you head toward is fairly close the convergence effect is self correcting.

While this may all sound rather boring, to me it is fascinating. By understanding how we get it wrong we are able to apply the learning to avoid a reoccurrence. 

When I spoke to Alex about it later he said he was surprised because we know the lay of the land and it is simple. True, except for a few things. Firstly, we had been on the go for nearly 40 hours with less than an hours sleep. While not aware of any ill effects I guess it might have played a part. The second challenge is selective visual attention. If you stand at the fence in daylight it is easy to see the track that you need to get to. Your brain, bombarded by many visual stimuli, is able to focus in on the target stimulus. In this case it correctly identifies the distant jeep track heading up the ridge as the way out. There is a high resolution of focus on this one object. Everything else is  demoted to your periphery where it is scanned in low resolution and is stored in your brain with little detail. If the jeep track was not visible from the fence then it is probable that the stored memory would contain more detailed information. 

As we drifted left I started seeing things that I was not familiar with. The dongas we encountered were huge. Nothing like the ones I remembered from previous years. Probably an effect of poor memory data and the effect of things looking bigger at night as you battle to get a sense of scale in a limit visual pool. Eventually I stopped and told Casper that it wasn't going well. To be continued....

Romansfontein to somewhere dark and interesting.

Romansfontein as a support station is a double edged sword. The hospitality and food are fantastic. While that can be said of any number of support stations along the way, there is someone unique about this place. When the kids are home it is even better. It exudes a home-away-from-home feeling. It always makes me home sick because there is something about the place that is uncomplicated and completely welcoming. Will and Stephanie are so chilled. That we managed to get out in under an hour and a half is surprising. We arrived to a warm welcome, were plied with tea and good food and given a bed where we lay out grubby bodies for a 30 minute snooze. As it turned out I only managed about 10. I scratched through the opened resupply boxes hoping to find some AA batteries but it seems AAA are more popular. Will scratched around in a few boxes in his garage and came up with a handful of assorted brand AA's and I fitted 4 of these these in my headlamp. At least I now had a light to make the transition through the Elandsberg portage a bit easier. 

Shortly after 2pm we left the support station and headed toward the next big portage of Aasvoelberg. I was hoping to get to Hofmeyr by 7pm and then on to Elandsberg by just after 10pm. 

During our lunch stop I had read a message Fiona had recently posted about her ride down Aasvoelberg earlier that morning and her group encountered really bad muddy sections. I wasn't looking forward to those. We pedalled along to the farm Gunstelling and after a crazy descent to the farm house started the plod up the near side of Aasvoelberg stopping to take a picture of me sitting on the old rusty shell of a car near the top. I like many others always wonder how it got up there. Last time I posted a similar picture I labeled it "Iconic relic." Dave Bell shot back "Double sided comment 😜".  I am a relic but hardly iconic. 

We popped over the top not quite sure what to expect and were pleasantly surprised to find the 'going underfoot' rather good. We could see where Fiona's posse had bludgeoned their way through some snotty sections but could also see how Alex, like us, rolled over the now firm surface barely leaving any tracks. 

I am a cautious technical rider avoiding any chance of an unscheduled dismount while Casper revels in the challenge. Not having any front brakes made him even quicker. His reward? He got to open and close most of the gates on the way down to Magdala farm. 

We trudged along in the heat to Vlekpoort and stopped at the stone barn to fill out bottles from a tap just behind the barn. 

At this point Casper made a startling confession. He is quicker that me on both uphill and downhill sections but admitted he was not looking forward to the flat stretches in to and out of Hofmeyr because he struggles to keep up with me on that type of riding. I can't figure out how that works but was surprised to hear that. The result is that I made a point of riding behind him on flat sections. That made him quicker. On the odd occasion that I moved ahead of him there was an obvious drop off in his pace. As soon as I backed off and let him go ahead I would have to increase my effort to keep up. 

Before the drop down Vlekpoort pass Casper said his rear brakes were almost gone. We decided he could take his brake pads out his dysfunctional front brakes and swap them to the rear when we got to Hofmeyr. 

Arriving in Hofmeyr we found a spot under a street lamp just outside the hotel and Casper set about sorting out his brakes. The street light would burn for about 5 or 6 minutes and then go out. It would slowly start again and after a few minutes of full brightness would go off again. I called the race office to check in and Glenn asked me what time we expected to get to Elandsberg. I figured on 3 hours from Hofmeyr so I said 11pm. The bike maintenance took 6 light failures (30 minutes) so we only rolled out of town at 10:30. 

With a slight tail wind we 'breezed' out of town at a blistering pace and I though we could make up a big chunk of the 30 minutes we had lost. 

The ride to the start of the portage went faster than expected but it wasn't interesting enough to keep the sleep monsters at bay. Casper was seeing kangaroos and snowmen regularly. A storm was building up ahead and the stars above us were completely obliterated by cloud. Getting to the last gate we turned off left and followed the faint jeep track for 50 metres before is disappeared. 200 metres in I had absolutely no idea what direction I was headed. 

For the first time in many years I dug out my compass to get a heading. 

The night was black as ink. Without a torch visibility was zero. The occasional lightening bolt would show a silhouette of the mountains but fairly soon the lightening would stop altogether. It was the start of an interesting night......

Stormberg to Romansfontein.

Although the wind was strong and icy we were counting on it pushing us toward Romansfontein. Exiting the blockhouse we would for the first time on the race have to wind at our backs. A funny thing happened during the ten minute ride toward Vegkoppies - the wind stopped blowing and a while later the rain followed suit. It seems you can't have everything your way - in our case it seemed we could have almost nothing our way. We still had to deal with the effects of the deluge - huge puddles and loads of mud. We picked our way through these obstacles as we went through the Stormberg battle site and arrived at the nearby farm house where we hosed our bikes down and filled our bottles. It was around 10am and we had been at this for 29 hours with minimal sleep. Having said that, apart from the spirit damping effect of being soaked to the bone for 9 hours we were in fairly good shape evidenced by our humorous exchanges. Casper laughs easily and has an infectious cheerfulness about him. We had commented on the toughness of the riding but neither one of us had complained or wished we were doing anything else. 

A short distance up the road we hit a climb with the worst mud of the whole race. It took us a good ten minutes to cover about 400 metres. Once through we wound our way through some challenging bits but were not reduced to walking. Once at the Molteno tar road I expected a fairly clean 20 kilometre run toward Seekoeigat and we had just that. At one stage Casper stopped briefly while I rode on slowly and once again he accused me of making it difficult for him to catch me. All a figment of his imagination, mostly.  

The Seekoeigat section through the farms was really wet and the going was slow. I never realised before just how long that section is. We were happy to see the district road and with sleep monsters tugging at our eyelids made haste to get to Romansfontein where we could get some hot tea for the first time since leaving Kranskop nearly 15 hours earlier. It had taken us 4 hours longer than we had anticipated. As such, the prospect of racing my age, while not impossible to achieve, got a bit tougher. We signed in and noticed that Alex had left Romansfontein less than 3 hours before we arrived. It seemed he hadn't fared any better than us through the rain and mud. 

Cold, dark, wet and windy.

Over the years Brosterlea has come to represent an oasis, a happy place in a challenging section of the race. I sort refuge from a snowstorm there in 2007 albeit only for an hour. Good food and mugs of warm tea reviving me sufficiently to push on. In 2011 on a recce ride the temperature plummeted below zero on the road there and we spend a night comfortably snuggled up in warm beds after a sumptuous meal sitting around the dining room table with our hosts. It's a great place with hospitable hosts. Arrive at midday and your resolve to ride on is truly tested. Arrive at 3:30am during a blackout expecting to push through and the reality is very different. It is an interim support station and as such you should expect nothing more than bread and water.

We found Anthony fast asleep drowning in plush pillows and swaddled in a fluffy duvet. In the other room, by the light of barely adequate emergency LED light we found a loaf of bread, margarine and peanut butter with some kind of juice. There was a kettle; with all the stuff needed to make tea, toaster and microwave oven but Casper had forgotten to bring a 6.5KVa generator along not to mention a litre or two of petrol - that's the price of packing light to race the trail. I normally carry a few fuel tablets and a metal mug but this time decided to lighten up. 

I nearly forgot to mention the yoghurt! There were 2 or 3 little yoghurts. This is the interesting part about this stop. Casper grabbed a spoon and peeled the foil lid back and dipped his spoon in to get a good portion. As he raised it to his mouth his frozen hands misfired and the yoghurt slipped from the spoon and splattered on the carpet. Without hesitation Casper leaned down and scrapped the yoghurt up with his spoon. Now he has contaminated his spoon I thought. Having recharged his spoon with the floor scrapings he simply popped it into his mouth and carried on like nothing unusual had happened. Waste not want not. That's interesting I thought and said nothing. 

There were three empty beds and they were exactly that - empty! Not a stitch of bed linen. 

Anthony woke up at about 3:45 and said the hosts had been told we were pushing through so they hadn't made arrangements for sleeping. He had initially set his alarm for 4am but with the storm he said he was going to get up at 5 instead. We decided a little nap for an hour while we waited for the storm to abate wouldn't do any harm. Casper found 2 bath mats and what looked like towels. I placed a bath mat on the bare mattress to protect it from my muddy clothes, carefully lay on it and covered myself with the tiny towel. The next hour was long. I was wet, cold and uncomfortable. We got up at 5, layered up in our soaking clothes and headed out into the rain. As we pedalled down the slippery road in the rain I commented to Casper that this was a lot more comfortable than the time I spent on the hard mattress. He concurred. Here we were pedalling down a muddy road in the rain just over 24 hours into the race and I had had about 10 minutes sleep. Casper had fared better on the sleep front. 

Anthony soon caught us and after a few pleasantries he rode off at the pace of a man who had spend many hours fast asleep in a cozy bed. By the time we got to Enerdale farm Anthony was out of sight. For the next few hours we trailed the twin set of tracks from Alex and Anthony. Alex wasn't that far ahead. According to Anthony, Alex had lingered at Brosterlea because of the storm and had only left about an hour before we arrived. We could see from Alex's tracks that he had a torrid time of getting through the mud and sand traps along the way. At least we had the benefit of daylight to pick better lines. 

We refreshed our water bottles at Weltevrede farm and began the slip 'n slide ride up the back of Stormberg. The wind had picked up and we were being lashed by regular squalls of rain. The ground had long since given up trying to absorb the rainfall and it ran down the track we were riding up. 

Cresting the ridge above the Stormberg station we made our way to the blockhouse intending to get shelter from the icy wind. The wind had picked up making the inside of the blockhouse unbearable. In fact it was probably the low point of the ride. We got back on our bikes and pedalled off through the rain grateful for the heat the effort produced.  

Headlong into the storm.

When we arrived at Kranskop at 9pm stars sparkled in the moonless sky. When we came out an hour later with Casper having added sealant to his back tyre to put the tyre issue to bed it was overcast and pitch black. To make it more interesting my batteries of my headlamp and my spare bar mounted light went flat. Entirely my own stupidity as I forgot to get new batteries before the race. Nevertheless I had a dynohub driven light and we cruised through the first two tricky navigation sections and crossed the tar road south of Jamestown. 

The ride from the tar road to Brosterlea is hard because it's boring. Sure there are one or two steep climbs but the navigation involves just one right turn. What makes it hard is that sleep monsters, like trolls, lurk under every bush particularly when you have been on the go for over 18 hours. The trickier the nav the easier it is to stay awake. The converse is also true. 

This stretch wasn't without points of interest. Ten minutes after leaving the tar we approached a car on the side of the road with its hazards on. Clearly the driver thought we were another car and had gotten out the car to flag us down. As we rode past we heard him say "bicycle." Clearly we were a huge disappointment. We did wonder at his chances of getting help on this road at midnight. Fifteen minutes later we came across two inebriated souls who were carrying what looked like a 5 litre can of petrol between then and assumed they had been dispatched many hours before to get fuel for the car. Clearly their skills at tracking down shebeens trumped their fuel sourcing skills. But they seemed to have fuel, could still walk after a fashion and were headed in the right direction. I remember thinking "if they hurry they might just make it to the car before the storm hits." They at least were headed away from the storm. We on the other hand were heading into the teeth of the beast. 

For the last four hours we had watched the lighting storm ahead of us build in intensity. It started as a distant flash and had over he last few hours grown until it filled the whole sky ahead of us. I told Casper I wasn't going to get worried about it until I could hear the thunder. The very next lightning bolt produced audible thunder. We rolled on as the storm wrapped its arms around us without a drop of rain falling where we were. Nearing Gouevlei we decided to "suit up" and not a moment too soon. That was the start of 9 almost continuous hours of rain. After an hour it stopped briefly. Casper had sleep monsters crawling all over him so we stopped for 15 minutes. I spent 14 of those minutes listening to Casper snore away gently as he vanquished the monsters. I envied his ability to sleep so easily. The rain started again and we pressed on. 30 minutes later I realised that Casper hadn't vanquished the monsters. He had in fact piled them onto me. With another brief lull in the rain I tried to get some shuteye myself. After a minute it started pouring again so I gave up any attempt at sleep and instead had a running battle with the beasties all the way to Brosterlea. We were tired and cold and spoke at length about how good a few gallons of hot tea would feel in our bellies. The turn off to Brosterlea was like a kettle watched. It seemed as if it would never appear. Finally, it showed in the glow of our lights and we scuttled off in anticipation of something warm. We opened the door to the Silos where we could see Anthony Avidon's bike propped and discovered to our dismay that there had been a power cut. Given the intensity of the storm we had endured it was hardly surprising. It was 3:30am and we were tired, cold and hungry. The storm outside had worsened and we were in no hurry to run outside and play. 

Easy night riding.

Out of Moordenaarspoort we had a gentle breeze that while neither hindering nor helping our headway had a pleasant cooling effect that allowed us to make good speed over the ground. It did occur to us that with Tim holed up in bed we were in second position on the race behind Alex as the only people who has pressed on beyond Moordenaarspoort on the first day. We weren't fooling ourselves that we were stronger than the mighty Tim James and counted ourselves lucky to to feeling strong on our bikes.
Casper still had problems with his tyre deflating. When it got too soggy I would ride on slowly while he stopped to pump the tyre. Every time he caught up he would accuse me of sprinting off and making it harder for him to catch me. I actually slowed to make it easier for him. It highlighted the benefit of continuously moving forward which it what characterises the way I ride. I told Casper he would have time at the next support station to sort the tyre out while I made tea and heated dinner. In the mean time he must just pump it hard.
45 minutes into this section we met with a car coming in the opposite direction. The road being narrow we pulled over to let the bakkie pass. It stopped next to us. Quite satisfied that it was just a pair of cyclists Casper and the farmer got chatting. I understood just about nothing of the conversation and Casper unwound it for me as we rode on. Apparently at a farm behind us someone had mistaken our lights for a suspicious slow moving vehicle and the news had been relayed via the farm radio network. They knew about the race and where we were headed. The week before they had lost 70 sheep to stock theft so were extra vigilant.
He said the farmer also said we were mad. No offence taken at that but the slow moving part did rankle somewhat.
Passing the old store and turning into the jeep tracks through the farms I stopped to phone home and check in with Meryl while Casper pumped his tyre. Meryl asked how strong we felt in a scale of 1 to 10. The easy answer was 10, we felt great. It was at that moment I saw the first distant flash of lightning on the horizon in the direction we were headed.
In spite of all the stops to pump tyres, chat to the farmer and phone home it took us just short of 2 hours to cover the 40 km's to Kranskop from Moordenaarspoort. We were on a roll!

Hunting trip out of Moordenaarspoort.

Since leaving The Bonthoek farmhouse Casper had been having problems with his back wheel. He would stop every so often and pump it up. Just before arriving at Moordenaarpoort he stopped to pump it again. I went ahead to the farmhouse and tucked into a plate of creamy butternut soup and a few cups of tea while Casper poured water over his tyre to see if he could find where it was leaking. When Casper joined me the hosts were surprised we had arrived so early and asked if we were pushing on to sleep at Kranskop. We had been on the go for almost 13 hours. With sunset the temperature had plummeted making it more conducive to cranking out some serious miles. Casper later confessed that he would have been quite happy to clock out for the day. My reply was that we would sleep when we got to Cradock. Casper merely rolled his eyes and continued spooning soup down his throat. 

Finishing, I rose from the table, thanked the hosts and told Casper he better hurry if he didn't want to get left behind. With that I went outside, grabbed my bike and make my way over to the cottage to use the bathroom, fill my bottles and refresh my chamois cream. Unknown to me, Casper came outside, didn't see my bike in the shadows, called out a few times, cursed me for leaving him behind and dashed out the gate and down the road in hot pursuit. I came out the bathroom to find Tim and the hosts looking bemused. "He has gone to hunt you down!" 

"Really?" I replied. "Thanks going to be very interesting because he is a lot faster than me."

Fortunately the hunt was short lived. I ride without maps and rely solely on memory. I figured Casper would have to dig out his maps and figure out which way to go. That would slow him slightly. That's exactly what happened. Getting to the first turn and unable to see me Casper sorted his maps and settled down for some night navigation. He confided in me later that he was very disappointed. He thought we were getting on nicely and really didn't expect me to pull a fast one on him. 

Turning on to the district road I could see Casper's lights a few kilometres up the road heading off at 90 degrees to my right. He obviously caught sight of my lights and came to a stop setting his headlight to strobe. Satisfied that he had seen me I made my way up the road and together we continued on our way to Kranskop 40 km's ahead. 

Slaapkranz to Moordenaarspoort

The trip from Slaapkranz to the Moordenaarspoort emergency support station is only 57 km's but straight out the door you have to take on the back to back portage pair of Slaapkranz and Bonthoek. If you can knock off those first 22 km's in under 3h30 you have done well. 

Tim finished his lunch and scurried out the door while Casper and I settled into a routine that would continue through the next few days. The hosts would engage us in conversation and occasionally I would look toward Casper who would translate the gist of the chat. The hosts would often switch to English after realising I was a rooinek but that would only last a few seconds before they unwittingly reverted to Afrikaans.

Lunch eaten, bottles replenished we slide out the door at 12:50. At the bottom of the first portage which I refer to as The Scar we saw Tim a few hundred metres above us. I knew from previous experience that he was at least 25 minutes ahead. I swing my bike up onto my back and started the trudge up the mountain. It's was tedious. My shoulders and arms started aching and my thigh muscles burned but the best way to get up is to switch off your mind and keep plodding for the 30 minutes it takes. My mind was alert enough to spot a snake as it slithered past but I didn't break my rhythm. 

Having got up the worst of the climb Casper asked what the plan was. We could see Tim higher up on the mountain but I had no intention of climbing that high. We hopped a fence and contoured around to a nek where we hopped another fence and 

dropped down onto a cattle track. We could see Tim making his way down off the ridge in our direction. As the cattle track converged with the jeep track that would take us off the mountain we caught up with Tim. 

Out clever sneak around the top of the mountain had obviously played a role in closing the gap on Tim but he was also starting to look a little grey around the gills. 

The three of us settled into a comfortable and efficient rotation of opening and closing the gates on the way down to the district road. We had made good time crossing the first mountain and wasted little time in heading up the valley to take on the next.

Scrambling up the cattle track that leads to the last contoured ridge Tim slowed and soon Casper and I were hundreds of metres ahead. What we didn't know at the time is that he was busy donating the contents of his stomach to the mountain gods. 

We waited for him to catch up at the summit and trailed him down the mountain to the uninhabited Bonthoek farmhouse where we stopped to replenish our bottles. 

I scratched around for some rehydrate which I normally carry but came up empty. Casper gave him an effervescent electrolyte tablet which he added to a bottle and took a swig. Fairly soon Tim was on all fours desperately trying to not heave. I told Tim that he didn't look particularly legendary like that. 

We continued on to Rossouw and as Tim was feeling bleak we went to the Rossouw Super Shop to get some cokes. Don't be fooled by the fancy name. It is just a hole in the wall spazza shop. 

Tim couldn't finish his Coke and as we  started the grind out of Rossouw he told us to push on without him as he was going to go to ground in Moordenaarspoort until he felt better. We rode on without him and arrived in Moordenaarspoort about 10 minutes ahead of Tim at 18:40.

On to Slaapkrans

It had taken us 4h15 to get to Chesney Wold. Refreshed with tea and a selection of fine nibbles we were back on the road 11 minutes later. We knew Tim was only 5 or 6 minutes ahead and we were keen to keep in touch with him. The first support station was only 38 km's up the trail. With the first big portage of the race in this stretch we were hoping to cover the distance in 3 hours. Hitting the first steep climb of the day I changed into granny gear and my chain over shifted on the rear cassette and got properly stuck between the cassette and spokes. This was hardly surprising as I had only assembled the bike the day before I had headed down to the race and apart from not test riding the bike I had installed new shifter cables and a rear dérailleur and clearly hadn't got it perfect. After freeing the chain, not without some effort I might add, I ran through my mantra for figuring out which limit screw to adjust to prevent the chain jumping off again. Is it the H (high) screw or the L (low) screw? Before steep descents on roads there are generally signs reminding truck drivers to select an appropriate gear to use engine breaking to slow their descent. "Heavy vehicles engage high gear," I chanted myself. Quite clearly I had to turn in the H screw as that was the high gear. Half way up the climb the chain jumped off again. This time it took a full 2 minutes to free up the chain. I got out my multitool and gave the H screw a good number of turns. The funny thing is that the dérailleur didn't budge at all. Slightly perplexed I ran the mantra again - "heavy vehicles engage LOW gear."  Darn, I had messed it up and turned the wrong screw. I wound the H screw out a few turns to where I thought it might have been before my befuddlement and turned the L screw in a quarter turn. The dérailleur responded immediately and I knew the chain over shift was a thing of the past. 

Heading into the farm Kapokraal I was chatting away with Casper who was riding next to me when he came to a sudden skidding halt. I stopped about 20 metres ahead and asked what the problem was. Less than a metre in front of him lay a Cobra. It hadn't reared and just lay still on the ground with its hood slightly flared. It's yellow/orange colouration was beautiful. 

"That was close," said Casper. "That's the problem with only having rear brakes."  

The night before Casper had given his bike the once over before the start and all was in order. As he pushed his bike to the start he realised his front brakes were completely dysfunctional and they remained that way to the finish.  

After admiring the snake for a minute we continued up toward the farmhouse of Kapokraal. Allow me a digression here. I have since learnt that kapok is a name for a type of soft/slushy snow - if not, then someone can enlighten me. Anyway, in the race of 2007 I had never heard the word before. In fact, I didn't even know we got snow in South Africa. The first time I heard the word used in a sentence was while lying in bed at the Romansfontein support station. It was the early hours of the morning and Will and Stephanie's youngest daughter looked out the window in the sitting room adjacent to where we were still snuggled under blankets and declared in an excited way "Dit kapok!" Having no idea what she said  I asked Rowan in the bed next to me what that meant. He pulled his blankets up higher and answered, "It means we are going to have a bad day!"  We did!

Passing the farm house we started up the portage and could just see Tim a few hundred metres ahead. We took the low line along the wetland and made good time to the top. Cresting the ridge we made our way down to the old ruin on the other side. Casper had never seen the murals before so we spent some time looking at the paintings as well as marvelling at the ox wagon that is parked in the shed behind the house. 

I am always left with a sadness about the lifeless state of these abandoned houses and wonder at what they were like when people stayed there. I stand still and strain to hear the echoes of yesteryear. To hear the voices of families around the dinner table, kids running around the garden or special occasions like birthdays and weddings being celebrated. 

We exited the house through the old front door and found 2 herdsmen propped against the derelict walls smoking home rolled cigarettes. 

We picked up the old jeep track leading away from the ruin and 7 hours 20 minutes after leaving Rhodes we had covered the first 105 km's to arrive at the first support station. As we walked inside Slaapkranz farmhouse we found Tim tucking into a hearty plate of food. By checking the race sheet we had to fill out we noticed Alex had left more than an hour before. 

Rhodes to Chesney Wold

Leaving The Rubicon it was apparent that the three big guns were intent on getting on with the show. As we rounded the first turn down the driveway Alex slowed briefly, turned his head toward me and wished me a good ride - a nice touch. With that he was gone. By the time we had cleared town Casper and I were officially last in a race of 25 seasoned riders - being the inaugural Race to Cradock it was opened to only finishers of a previous Freedom Challenge event. By the time we reached the first climb it was still dark and we could only make out two riders ahead of us. Alex was nowhere to be seen. 

Crossing the Bokspruit river we caught up to Robbie. Just beyond the river the road splits and the race takes the right hand fork. Casper decided it would be fun to mess with Robbie. Robbie turned right and Casper sprinted up the left fork and shouted back, "Robbie, where are you going?" 

Robbie dutifully turned around and followed Casper up the wrong road. Casper chuckled before turning around and headed back the way Robbie had just come. Robbie did a big loop and fell in behind us. In truth it was really funny until we heard Robbies laboured breathing.  He hasn't enjoyed the best of health lately and he was wheezing like an emphysema sufferer. Safe to say we felt awful. 

Robbie stayed in touch for a few kilometres before the elastic snapped and we could no longer see him behind us. In truth we were concerned about him. We heard later that he battled through to Chesney Wold where he retired from the race. 

I had originally intended to skip the interim support station of Chesney Wold but gave in to the temptation of a good cup of tea as well as wanting to show appreciation for the effort Minkie makes in catering for the riders. We arrived to find Tim's bike propped against the fence next to the house. As we walked in we passed Tim who was on his way out. Minkie went out to see Tim off and we surveyed a table set with enough food to feed an army. But it was tea we sought more than food. Fortunately, I know my way around the kitchen and by the time Minkie had finished chatting to Tim outside and returned to the kitchen we were gulping down mugs of tea and tucking into the spread before us. 

Race start

Race to Cradock

As I sit at my desk back in my Johannesburg office I am not sure how to blog the 63 hour adventure I shared with Casper Venter. There is no merit is doing a day by day account as it ran as a non-stop film strip. There were no days as such. It was just light then dark and then it got light again and sometime later it got very dark and wet and we spent a few hours snuggled under a bush before it got light and then the sun peeked out briefly before it got dark and very wet and we arrived at the finish having covered a few kilometres short of 600 kilometres in just over 63 hours.  

I knew very little about Casper Venter before the race but it was no accident that he had been assigned a last batch start which is typically reserved for riders wanting to race the event hard. 

We arrived in Rhodes in appalling weather. The roads were snotty and everything looked and felt bleak. Walking into the building I met Casper for the first time. Apparently he had spoken to Glenn, the race director, and Glenn told him I wasn't fast but would just keep going so he should look to tag along. The big guns of Alex, Tim and Robbie methodically readied their kit while I flopped on a couch in front of the fire. Casper and I made some polite conversation. Just before lights out I spoke to Casper and asked him what his race strategy was. He said he had none but would like to ride with me. Generally I like to ride alone but Casper struck me as particularly congenial and I was immediately up for the company. 

The rain fell off and on during the night and by the time we got up at 4am it had stopped raining. I coaxed down some food and joined the other 4 at the low-key start. Glenn looked at his watch and as it said 5 o'clock wished us well. The race had started. 

Arrived at the start

In Rhodes. As I lie here up to my neck   in a bath of hot water I can hear the steady rhythm of rain on the roof. 

I departed Johannesburg early this morning in the company of Alex, Tim and Robbie. These guys are well organised, meticulously equipped and psyched up for the challenge ahead. Their mounts make mine blush with embarrassment. Kilograms lighter and fitted with Tri-bars theirs look every bit the kit of athletes who know their craft. 

180 km's short of Rhodes the skies opened and continued sheeting down on us all the way to Rhodes. The 4x4 setting on the car came in handy as the dirt roads into Rhodes got snottier. The rain was accompanied by insane winds and spectacular lightning that rivalled any Highveld storm. 

We are all doing our best to convince each other that it will blow over by morning in spite of all weather apps suggesting this is just the beginning of 3 days of steady rain. Reports from down the trail attest to the extent of the inclement weather. I nearly fell off my bike earlier riding across the parking lot - they make really slippery mud in this part of the world. 

The 55 hour race-your-age just got a whole lot trickier. The worst part of the race for mud occurs within first 150 km's. After that it is challenging but less likely to have you sawing at your neck with a Leatherman. 

Almost ready for Race to Cradock

Friday morning. Tomorrow I load my bike into the car and drive down to the sleepy hamlet of Rhodes in the Eastern Cape. From there I will join the tail end of a steady stream of riders making their way to Cradock. Tail end in two ways. Riders depart Rhodes in small batches every day for four days starting yesterday. My batch on Sunday is the last. The last day is typically reserved for those who want to race hard and the race winner is most likely to come from that batch. I am without question the slowest rider in that batch so will be the sweeper right out of the start gate. My batch has two previous Freedom Challenge record breakers and winners in Tim James and Alex Harris. Then we have Robbie McIntosh known primarily for his exploits on a road bike (particularly in time trials) is no slouch on a mountain bike and if memory serves has partnered Tim on the Absa Cape Epic. The last of the racing snakes is Casper Venter. I don't know his pedigree but do know he is fit and fast. My only hope of company was Allen Sharpe who has had to withdrawn with an arm injury. 

The format is non-stop covering a distance just shy of 600 kilometres. There are support stations spaces roughly every 100km's and while they supply food, water, showers and beds they are entirely optional except that you must sign in and out at each.   

I rode the route last week over 6 days and it is fairly straight forward. As such, it doesn't play to my strength which is navigation. For example the route to the first support station entails just 7 turns - 4 left and 3 right. The others in my start batch are going to spit it out in no time at all. I expect I will be an hour slower than the fastest rider to Slaapkranz. 

Bike is finally patched together. It's looking a bit like an Oxfam hand me down but I have all confidence it will get the job down.