Seven brave souls from Grahamstown completed the longest single stage Mountain Bike race in the world – the 230km TransBaviaans 24-hour endurance ride from Willowmore in the Karoo to Jeffrey's Bay last weekend.
In total 400 teams – more than 1 000 cyclists – entered the 2011 event, which transformed sleepy Willowmore into a festival city for a day.
For TransBaviaans novices, like me, the start is a very nervous time: would I be able to cycle twice as far as I ever had?
Seven brave souls from Grahamstown completed the longest single stage Mountain Bike race in the world – the 230km TransBaviaans 24-hour endurance ride from Willowmore in the Karoo to Jeffrey's Bay last weekend.
In total 400 teams – more than 1 000 cyclists – entered the 2011 event, which transformed sleepy Willowmore into a festival city for a day.
For TransBaviaans novices, like me, the start is a very nervous time: would I be able to cycle twice as far as I ever had?
The ride usually runs through Baviaans Kloof, but this year’s heavy rains swelled the Baviaans River, making it impassable, so an alternative parallel route on the Karoo side of the Baviaans Mountains was run – dubbed the “LangsBaviaans”.
Fears that the untested route would be tougher turned out to be justified by the rugged terrain of the Groot Winterberg mountain crossing.
The first 130km was a gentle downhill honeymoon run from Willowmore to the Groot Rivier Poort, over which my partner, Colin Meyer, and I averaged a speedy 24km/h.
But the terrain changed dramatically entering the poort, with a steep rocky descent and a knee-deep river crossing.
Climbing out the poort with the sun setting over the Cockscomb, the riders had to traverse 40km of rugged, and often muddy, jeep track through the Baviaans Mountain wilderness area – in the dark.
This took our team two-and-a-half hours, with much pushing up the steep sections, dropping our average speed to 17.6km/h.
The slightly chaotic press of riders carrying their bikes over the river-crossing and pushing up the other side reminded me of old photos of army columns in retreat.
Riding in the dark is part of the TransBaviaans experience, made possible by the wonderful LED lights now available that are as bright as car headlights, and last up to six hours on a rechargeable battery.
The windy and partly cloudy day gave way to clear skies and a comforting yellow full moon over the mountain. Looking back down the 900m ascent from the Groot Rivier Poort, a winding column of dozens of lights traced the path over the mountain.
Food is a big part of being on a bicycle for 14 to 20 hours, both as fuel and for morale.
Colin’s heart rate monitor estimated that we burned more than 13 000 calories over our fourteen-and-a-half-hour ride and I was noticeably thinner the next day.
The race organisers laid on wonderful pit-stops every 40 to 50km, with roosterkoek, sosaties, soup, jaffles, coffee, fruit and energy drinks.
But the highlight was the Patensie stop, at 188km, where seconders' vehicles were allowed to provide their teams with supper.
Our support team of Karen and Megan Meyer laid on a mouthwatering feast of spaghetti bolognaise, Woolies fruit salad and choc brownies, biltong and filter coffee.
Never has food tasted so good and now I understand why the folks on Survivor go OMG and make such a big thing about winning food treats.
Each team and each rider has their story of this amazing endurance event.
Our team’s ride went well, but my partner had coped with a painful knee for much of the ride.
Riding next to the railway line on the outskirts of Jeffrey’s Bay, I remarked how well our bikes had gone – which seemed to be the “commentators curse” – as less than a minute later we both lost control of our bikes and went down in a mud patch.
But, with the end in sight, we got up with a smile and our tyres were soon happily humming along the first tar since Willowmore, to the finish at Kabeljous Resort.
