Location : Southern KZN
Distance : 240 km or thereabouts
Date : 31 Jan to 2 Feb 2007
Team : Bloed en OMO
Team Members : Abel van der Merwe and Rossouw van der Merwe
I have just read Corne van Biljon’s race report and agree that it was truly worth it.
To avoid repetition I’m just going to add – maybe expand a bit – on what Corne has already said.
Firstly there was some 4500 m of total ascent. Half of it occurring on Day 2, the big day on which the temperature was reported as reaching 49 degrees at quarter past one – the time when the leaders were having a sauna in their tents and the true heros were still a long way from home.
The single track (most of it specially prepared for the race) was fantastic. Challenging but not destructive. Too often MTB races include sections of jagged rocks and on sharp downhills that actually prove nothing other than separate the stupid from the less stupid.
Nick’s Pass down the Umkomaas escarpment is in class of its own. I stupidly pulled to much brake (as my son quite unnecessarily reminded me after the fact – he’s forever bitching that I waste downhills by pulling brake) and went over the handle bars on a switchback. Bruised my back and only realised how badly when it seized up two days later on the way home. It is still the source of much mirth at the office when I cruise by with the sideways gait of a Putco bus.
Also quite cool was the gash on my leg – the Netcare manne took one brief look, momentarily fainted and then refused to operate mumbling some lame excuse about no ICU in the van. At least Oupa’s got another scar to impress the kleinkinders.
Another memorable section was the long - very long - floating bridge (wooden slats on 44 gallon drums) across one of the dams. Weird feeling – especially for XL okes like me who caused a moving indentation below the waterline. Focussed so hard on the slats to avoid going off the edge that I became semi-hypnotised and had to break a chain just to have an excuse to sit down and give my eyes a chance to stop spiralling in counter-directions.
It was shortly after this bridge that my son – the little sh*t – was caught by a fellow competitor riding hands free and writing SMSs (or Mix It) on his cell phone whilst his old man was hurtling up the next incline at break neck speed and deftly throwing the bike left and right to avoid life threatening obstacles and ruts.
As for the many comments received about the tackies that I carried in my rucksack I can only think that they were made by palookas. Firstly, only palookas ride so near the back and secondly, if you know you are going to walk the bigger hills (as most did) you might as well do it in comfort and not wipe out those high tech carbon shoes. I am convinced that tackies will be in fashion next year.
An enduring image will be the close to a thousand brand new tents erected with military precision at the overnight stops. The lines seemed to stretch to beyond the horizon and reminded one of the graveyard at Delville Wood or the Farm Murders memorial outside Ermelo.
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The Clover trucks providing a seemingly endless supply of chilled water at all the water points and at the camps deserve an honourable mention. As do the Clover girls handing out ice cold milk and of course the ladies who seemed to work day and night to supply food and more food.
In fact there was an amazing support effort all round from young and old. Imagine stopping at a water point and there’s a swarm of people : some lubing the bike, other pouring ice cold water over your head and yet more offering chocolates, doughnuts, USN coke, fruit etc. Felt like being at a F1 pitstop – and they had already given the same treatment to a thousand before me all day long on the bloody sun.
The bottom line is that we received a lot more than could be covered by the race fee. The milk (huge quantities of it), for example, was apparently sponsored by the local dairy farmers.
Of some amusement were the roadies (those okes that shave their legs) in the communal showers. Those with hairy torsos looked as if they were wearing threadbare lederhosen made of bearskin.
A final enduring memory will be the event’s theme song that was played just before daybreak. A 1920s type cowboy song that starts out with several sawed bars with a fiddle or concertina (could not make out which – actually sounded like a cat being dragged to and fro through hot tar) and then a nasal voice singing “Back in the saddle again …”. Made me feel quite keen– until I put my leg over the saddle and remembered that scars don’t have time to heel during multi-day events.
I particularly liked the line that goes “ .. we have no laws but that what’s right”.
Pity the politicians won’t realise that its not about how many laws you make or how modern your constitution is but whether the citizens know and can apply “what’s right”.
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