“What were we thinking, Dave?”
Dave shook his head. “We weren’t,” he answered.
We had lined up in Heidelberg on a wintry morning for a nine-day mountain bike race – the longest in South Africa.
We had both sworn off mountain biking races forever after we endured eight soul-destroying hours slipping, sliding and swearing through mud during our last race.
But a week later, with mud still embedded in places in my body that I didn’t even know I had, Dave casually mentioned an upcoming nine-day race, and before I could say “What you talkin’ bout, Willis?”, we had signed up.
That is why we found ourselves at Heidelberg contemplating the pain of an almost 1000km cycle from Heidelberg, Frankfort, Reitz, Sterkfontein Dam, Winterton, Nottingham Road, Underberg, Ixopo, Highflats and to the finish at Scottburgh on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast.
The thought of a 1000km race was still better than being at work.
The company had been taken over by a tyrannical bean-counter who had made my job unbearable. I dreaded going to the office. I was miserable and desperate to leave, but I feared taking a leap into the unknown.
This holiday was a much-needed break – and there was no better person to ride with than Dave – the yin to my yang, the Simon to my Garfunkel, the Laurel to my Hardy.
We put our gear on back to front, we crash our helmets together when we both bend down to inspect mechanical issues on one of our bikes, and we crash a lot. But what we lack in style and skills, we make up for in enthusiasm.
Best of all, we are both pun connoisseurs.
We joined the 800 riders as we headed out of Heidelberg to cycle 117km to the small Free State town of Frankfort.
We pedalled along district roads and wobbled over the world’s longest floating bridge across the Vaal River and finalised our race strategy: we survive from waterpoint to waterpoint for nine stages and then launch our attack on the 10th stage.
The 10th stage was the bar at the Cutty Sark, the hotel we were going to stay at after crossing the finish line.
Seven hours after we started the race, we pulled into Frankfort and stumbled into our tents.
I was exhausted after a hard day in the saddle, but I couldn’t sleep. The supplements riders take cause explosive flatulence. Frankfort? More like Frankfart, am I right or am I right?
I wasn’t sure whether to put my earplugs in my ears or nose, but I decided on my ears when tents all around us broke out in violent snores. It was a cacophony of snoring and a kakophony of farting.
The next morning, we began our journey with a chill factor of -2 °C.
It’s not called the Freeze State for nothing.
Mile after mile. Mielie after mielie. Mielie mile after mielie mile. Mielie mile after mielie meal. I was all mielie-papped out, so I turned to puns to keep up our spirits.
“These mielies are stalking us,” I told Dave.
“Look over there,” he said, pointing to a stray cob, “it’s a uni-corn.”
“If I’d gone to the army, I’d have been a kernel,” I responded.
Our puns were “a-maize-ing”.
Each morning we woke up and slapped chamois cream on our saddle-weary butts, which when you share a small tent, requires you to be careful not to bend over and touch butts – a phenomenon known as moonstruck.
After the chamois ritual, we would list our ailing body parts. Left wrist. Right shin. Butt cheeks (left & right). Knees (right & left).
As the days progressed, it was becoming easier to list the parts that didn’t hurt. On day eight, after waking up with a bleeding nose, cracked lips and coughing up dustballs, the only body part that didn’t hurt was my left eyebrow.
As we set out that day, I noticed that Dave had turned an alarming shade of green.
I looked him up and down and delivered my diagnosis: “You’ve eaten too much meat.”
There is a Babette’s Feast at every waterpoint – kebabs, tender steak strips, condensed-milk-coated marshmallows, burgers, roosterkoek slathered in Nutella, koeksisters, doughnuts, biltong, chocolates and boerewors rolls.
Dave offered a second opinion on his green streak. “I think your puns are making me ill.”
But we survived and eventually made it to Scottburgh, where it was a short bunny hop, skip, and stumble over the beach to the Cutty Sark.
Our journey took us hurtling down single tracks and cycling along old cattle paths, through nature reserves, rural villages, farms, and the edge of the escarpment, past fast-flowing rivers, half a gazillion cows, more mielies than you can shake a cob at, bouncy single-track and hairy switchback descents, all set against lush river valleys, dry Highveld terrain, rugged mountains, and breathtaking vistas.
We also rode to the banks of the mighty Umkomaas, which means “the place of cow whales” in Zulu. Whales once used the estuary as a nursery, giving birth in the shallows. This is as close to the middle of nowhere as one can get.
It wasn’t all downhill, though. There were climbs. The ride sections have great names like Great Wall My China and Puff Udder, but my favourite is the climb out of the Umkomaas – Push of a Climb. In Cape Town, it would be renamed Jou Ma se Push.
At the Cutty Sark, Dave and I replayed the nine days and revelled in the glory of surviving a heart-thumping, lung-bursting, eyeball-popping, jaw-dropping, teeth-shattering, butt-bruising, hair-raising, bone-rattling, body-shaking race that took us on a nine-day tour of South Africa’s back roads and farming heartland.
It’s the best way to experience what’s happening in South Africa beyond the cities.
Tiny towns welcomed us with open arms, providing feasts fit for royalty. The tannies and oumas see it as their duty to fatten you up overnight.
Ultimately, this was more than a race; it was a holiday on two wheels. This kind of adventure makes you walk a little taller, makes you less aggressive when a roadhog cuts in front of you, and makes you appreciate life just that much more. It also gives you the courage to do difficult things, like leaping into the unknown. I arrived back from my holiday, walked into work and handed in my resignation.