Argus Cycle Tour 2007

Race Report : ARGUS CYCLE TOUR 2007

Team : Abel en Rossouw van der Merwe

It is with considerable pride that team Bloed en OMO reports that it has completed another arduous and perilous journey.

Before scoffing please consider the following:

1. The Argus is done on a real bone rattler - macaroni thin tyres pumped to 9 bar and no front or rear suspension. Your typical AR dikwiel is just not tolerated.

2. Considerably greater navigational skill is required on the Argus. Whereas the common AR or MTB route is littered with water bottles and other debris that can be followed safely home to the wicked witch (to those addle brained few that ride a hard tail this is a sly reference to AR race directors) the Argus offers no such flotsam and jetsam as navigational aids.

3. The Argus may, on first reflection, include no single track. But the picture changes if you view the thousands upon thousands of other cyclists as trees that could at any time tap your handlebar and sling you into oblivion. In fact the situation is much worse because these trees are rootless and have a tendency to duck and dive with gay (it is after all Cape Town) abandon. Just ask yourself : why are there more hospitalisations during the Argus than all the ARs combined?

4. Then there is the matter of Suikerbossie. Hilary would surely have been daunted by the 100m climb, and as for Sherpa Tensing, I’m afraid that the Empire would have had to resort to whips and other forms of encouragement to get him to do his bit.

5. I particularly missed my AR rucksack full of padkos and other survival stuff lovingly packed by myself. No such luxuries on the Argus. Not even a shady tree to stretch the legs, eat a sandwich and sip a chardonay.

6. Another challenge is the short intervals between water tables (“what’s a water table” asks the wicked witch). I’ve hardly had time to swallow my last mouthful of coke and the next table looms ahead like a mini Vegas with pom pom chicks and neon lights. Cheeks bulging with free coke are not conducive to good aerodynamics. What with the free massages and all I’m surprised that some of the younger okes made any headway at all.

7. Then there is the matter of gale force winds - and that’s just the contribution from 35 000 cyclists taking ill-advised supplements.

The list is endless and perhaps its best I stop here – just now the weaker Argus riders decide to cop out and do AR.

Imagine how that would lift the tone and level of AR. Bloed en OMO would be pushed even further back in the field and how will I then bring some excitement & pride into the lives of Ouma en die kleinkinders?

How did Bloed en OMO do? I refuse to answer that one. The Argus does not require teams to stick together – in fact that they don’t even require teams on the premise that if you the enter the Argus you are tough enough to go it alone – so my partner (the little sh*t) left me somewhere near Simon’stown. He was eyeing some blonde in lycra when I came in bruised of buttock and bloodshot of eye.

I am considering reversing the freewheel ratchet in his sprocket for the next race. Yet another reason for looking forward to the Swazi Extreme.