Captains Log

At 103km and 2600m of climbing today was always going to be tough, with so much climbing packed into a "short" distance (think 147km for 2900m yesterday) we were in for a long ride. Also, Leon Evans (Dr Evil) said today would be 'hard' (with a smile) Because we're camped up on a hill the first couple of km's were speedy and dangerous but the groups quickly thinned out as the road went uphill. The first climb involved about 25% walking and was quite steep for the rest of the way, we were then treated to a little bit of single track and vineyard riding before we hit the bottom of 'charlies haven'. This mountain, mountain not hill; was very hard. I tried to ride as much as possible but obviously had to get off and walk here and there! The view at the top made it all worth it, you could see the sea! I personally had no idea we were anywhere near the ocean - weird. Turns out the 'top' was actually not a top so we went 1/3 of the way down and then turned right back up again to go to the real top. With an awesome view as well! The decent down was pretty frightening, big loose rocks and narrow dual track making going down it pretty painful. I'd also decided not to wear gloves today because I put them in the wash yesterday. This meant I couldn't feel my hands at all. Each time I tried to move them they just looked at me. Eventually once the nerves regenerated I was able to lift them up, turns out half of the mountain was stuck to my hands, they were disgustingly black, sweaty and slightly deformed. Thats what flying down a mountain does to you! After the crazy decent dad and I were finally in sight of water point 2! it took long enough! The usual stocking up took place and we took off, the wind had picked up by now and was a full block headwind. This wind didn't leave us from the 60km mark and battered and bruised us all the way to the finish! As always, it was good to see uncle Alastair at water point 3 (He's a volunteer) and we set off into 4000km/h winds after a hairy water crossing and a stock up from the uncle. The last 25km to the finish were long uphill drags and very short downs, its hard to ride together when the wind hits from the front and the side and we struggled to stay together for the final km's. With 5km to go we were taken up another 100 or so metres in evelation to get a little bit of single track on the decent! Dad took a fall on the track, which I didn't see! It was really tough and rocky and took a lot of concentration. We came out of the single track and through the caledon botanical gardens (not quite as nice as kirstenbosch) and coasted the last 500m to the finish. All in all a LONG day, we did 7h51 which makes it +-40 minutes shorter than yesterday for 40 km less!
Not too sure what tomorrows stage is like but I'm confident that there will be a hill involved in some way shape or form

Nick






 



 


 



 

Not too sure what tomorrows stage is like but I'm confident that there will be a hill involved in some way shape or form

Nick