River Rat

You can't scare me I can fall anywhere!

Hey Riaan are you doing the marathon? Would be great to see you get some revenge on the Mamba after Sabie X!

Just entered, time for this upcountry rider to enjoy some of these Cape trails that I keep hearing about. So, my wine guzzling cousins what can I expect from this race?

Because we paid a lot of money for these fancy toys and we want to do cool stuff on it so that we can feel chuffed with the purchase.

Leona, we have all been bitten by the African bug. It is a bittersweet love that you just can't walk away from, I hope for your sake that you find something on the work front that will at least allow you to decide weather (pun invented) you want to stay or not.

In the words of our Pres hehhehheh!

Now that's how a MTBiker rolls

Marathon looks like the 2012 route and that was 1900m of climbing !

that's not Just in Beaver it's Smiley Virus!

Yoh, that's a smack I really hope he's okay. In my opinion the straps are more at issue here than the peak. Loose straps will allow the entire helmet to move, difficult to prove though.

Hey Ranga apparently there was quite a serious bug going around, a doctor friend of mine told me that some guys were laid up in bed after the race for a week. So I guess we got off lightly although it sure did not feel like it.

Day 1 Recovery After handing our bikes in for a clean and service, collecting our boxes, finding our tent (quite easy just follow your race number), unpacking and having a shower. Red and I were sitting outside our tent when our neighbors arrived, a women's team. We introduced ourselves and soon found out that they were a mom and daughter team Sani novices to boot! Here was my chance to impart my vast knowledge of one Sani plus a stage on them, but first we had to find out how their stage went. It soon became clear that they were slightly quicker than us on the day and I could hardly offer advice to a rider that's beating me so I needed to find an excuse for our time. I tried my age but the mom, Joan, was 10 years older than me at 64, I tried the Spondy hoping that she wouldn't have a clue, turns out that she is a retired medical doctor and not only knows about Spondy but also suffered from it for the last 15 years. It was clear I was not going to win this one and I decided to make a tactical withdrawal. Red got the sulks because we were having our butts kicked by a granny, now you have to understand Red is my junior by 10 years and his ego was not going to survive being beaten by some 20 years his senior, so we started planning to beat them. We knew we would be quicker than them on the Umko Valley descent with Murray's Meander on the very edge of the escarpment being quite unsettling for the girls, although our neighbors from lasts year, team Lashes (a women's team), put some of the boys to shame as they followed me closely on this section, these girls could ride. The flat ride to Josephine's Bridge should be even but the technical section through Steve's spruit and the other river crossings should be ours. However, looking at these lightweights they would have edge over us on the climb out of the valley. The plan was simple we had to use the technical descents to close the gap on them and get a lead as a buffer for the Nandos climb. This meant that we had to get to the front of our batch early so that I could lead into the descent with Red doing his best to hold on. We would then try to keep a solid pace on the climb with Red managing the pace making sure that I stayed with him. (We had clearly learnt our lesson from day 1). We were still chatting about some of the details of our plan at lunch when I felt a growl coming from deep within my bowels. This was no ordinary stomach rumble, this one had been brewed up from the same dark origins as Mount Edna and Vesuvius. Almost instantly a bout of nausea occupied my foremost thoughts. Red was still talking about how the 30m plus drop offs on Murray's would have our competition almost permanently on the brakes when I dumped my half eaten lunch into the trash can and I ran for the Portaloos. Now I don't know how many of you have tried to run and exercise sphincter control at the same time, it is not a pretty sight, your gait can best be described as that of a dyslexic giraffe. I muscled my way past the queue with no one saying a word and I think that they could sense an impending disaster and let me go. I do not wish to describe this situation any further, it is not pretty and it adds nothing to this thread. The rest of the afternoon was spent managing the logistics of the queue to the toilets until I eventually stole a Reserved sign from one of the tents and stuck it on a blue Portaloo at the end of the row, problem solved. Now Red had booked us for the massages for Mackenzie and Jolivet and he insisted that I go. Against my better judgement I lined up at the table to have my Masseuse allocated to me, but with one eye on the shortest route to my special Portaloo. The young girl assigned to me was particularly pleasing on the eye and had more visible cleavage than Reds, this clearly annoyed him, as the lawyer fancied himself as a sort of modern Perry Mason. As it turned out Red and I were on adjacent beds I was trying to strike up a relationship with my attendant hoping to save myself some pain on the table. I had just established that her real job is at a spa in the foothills of the Drakensberg when she enquired as to how our day went when Red ( obviously jealous) decided to chip in that I had exhibited mad cow disease at Xumeni and that any kids I might have will be retarded. Not much a wingman is Red. Anyway this girl had clearly had enough of MTBikers and she found and ground every knotted muscle in my body. For the second time on the day I found myself gritting my teeth in pain but now with the added complexity of trying exercise extreme sphincter control. I was not going to last, and a serious accident was but one more knot away and the only help I got from Red was a stupid grin as he knew I was in serious trouble and he was loving my discomfort. The massage could not end soon enough and the cleavage was telling me how important hydration is following a massage when I scurried off in mid sentence for my reserved shuttle to dehydrate further. At this stage I had the dyslexic giraffe down pat. I skipped the prize giving, the videos of the days activities, and most importantly dinner. I lay in my tent with my camelback elevated on top of my box to form a sort of oral drip as I tried to get my body in some sort of shape for the big one, day 2. Red was having a merry time drinking beer and cavorting with our mates and I was wearing a well beaten path to the reserved Portaloo. I was sort of hoping for some sort of support from Red but all I got was "Hey Blue looking at your face I should call you green!". My Portaloo sojourns continued throughout the night with the only excitement being a turf war I had early in the morning with the cleaning ladies as to who the reserved Portaloo was actually reserved for. I was dispatched with a rather dismissive "Hai wenna, hamba lapa side" hell hath no fury like a Zulu Maiden in musk and I did not have the strength to argue. This was the sight we woke up to on the morning of day 2. Now this was going to be interesting......

I am glad that my advice is useful to you guys but I must apologize as you are possibly wondering what happen to the little old lady bit. Fear not she will feature in the next episode that deals with the all important race recovery after day 1 and the key to Sani, Day 2. Hopefully I'll find time on my flight to Walvisbay to finish it.

Wow, that just gives us an insight as to how lucky we are in SA. Good luck and I look forward to rooting for you in March.

Well here's hoping you have a better one in 2014 and enjoy the marathon scene. I guess that there is very little happening this time of year in the UK.

And that, is how the fight started!

Leona, you really seem to be making good use of your stay in SA, first Sabie X and now Attakwas. I surmise that the Epic is your goal, correct?

There was a really funny thread on the Hub about 2 years ago when a hubber tried to trace his waterbottle that he lost on the Argus it was hilarious. Good on you for trying to unite owner and waterbottle!

With the Sani2c only 4 months away I felt compelled to write up this piece of advice. Now let me apologise upfront for doing this, you see I am the sort of person that not only gives advice whether solicited or not, whether useful or not, whether correct or not it matters not to me but rest assured if there is a gap I'll jump in and deliver said advice notwithstanding the fact that my credentials amount to 2 completed Sanis. So here goes... First up you need to understand your limitations as a team and plan accordingly. In our case my partner was a lot stronger than I was on the climbs this due to a back problem known as spondylolysis (I just call it Spondy). However, I am considerably quicker than him on the downhills this according to my partner due to an inherent brain defect (damn lawyers what do they know). The other input to our planning was the fact that we were batched in F batch for day one in the Race clearly the criteria used by the organisers for our team differed from the rest and after a lengthy debate we settled on the fact that the organisers were giving us recognition for shooting no 5&6 rapids in the great flood of the 2005 Umkomaas Canoe Marathon, Afterall Farmer Glen is a paddler. Despite my partner being a lawyer and my brain defect we had enough collective grey matter to surmise that we should have been in M batch. This meant that we were going to be passed by faster riders throughout the day, in fact a lot of faster riders. This presented both a challenge as well as an opportunity, clearly the latter meant that we had to try and use the slip of these faster riders to improve our time. The challenge was how to do this within the constraints of our disparate strengths and weaknesses. Three scenarios existed, the first being the flats which were of little concern as the likelihood of one of us staying with the bunch and the other falling off was rather remote. The up hills and downhills were a different matter entirely though as he would be more inclined to stay with the slip on the ups whilst I almost certainly wouldn't. The downs were a different kettle of fish as we had noticed in races leading up to the Sani that I was quite capable of staying with the majority and in fact sometimes riding away from them. So the risk was quite high that we could get separated with the possibility of taking a time penalty. This brings me to my second piece of advice which is that you have to have a communication plan. We also recognised that some of the riders that would have caught us might get a little peeved if they see us mortals using their slip and they could be be inclined to work us over so we need to speak in a secret code. We devised a really cool code and I'll tell you how it works because it will change for this year's event. My partner was Red and I was Blue, whom ever was in front at the time would have the adjunct of Leader while the trailing rider will be Tail. So if my partner was in front he would be Red Leader whilst I would be Blue Tail. The key was to determine what the status of the other rider is and if he was on the slip or not. The code for being on the slip was "the flea is on the dog" and off the slip was "there is mud in the pantry". So this is how it would play out I would hear "Blue Tail, Blue Tail, this is Red Leader give me your stat" and I would respond with a "Red Leader, this is Blue Tail, the flea is on the dog." Pretty neat hey? And when you add mock static it sounds even cooler. To get used to the idea we practiced on the drive down from Gauteng only referring to each other as Red and Blue, adding further phrases to communicate any occurrence that we may encounter. We continued to practice in the Himeville Arms the night before the race but after a few beers the mock static starting sounding like a hysterical hippo with a lisp. The day of the race was clear and crisp without last years snow on the berg and freezing temperatures. For the first 10k of the ride our plan worked flawlessly and we got the feeling that we were going to better last years time, we were staying with more of the faster riders than we thought and we were holding our own on the technical sections. All great until the Big Ring climb when this team sidles up next to us and we happily latch on to their slip Red in front does a status check and I reply that the Flea is on the dog. One team member next to me shouts at his mate "Hey Brett, this oke has fleas let's get the hell out of here!" They put in an interval and Red responds, I try, but Spondy says no way. Red inquires but I've lost all my ability to speak and all I can manage is a whisper which sounded like I said " there is fud in my panty". I guess many of you reading this think its funny but I want you to try something. Find a long hill sprint until your heart rate is at max, now clench your teeth as if in pain and say "there is mud in the pantry" now what did that sound like? Any way back to the race " Hey Brett, these okes are kakking off give it Boet, give it!". Red sees red and decides to race them leaving me to fuddle up the hill on my own. It takes me 5ks to catch up to Red with my Spondy giving me a back spasm to rival a birth contraction. We exchange stares but say nothing and ignore any slip opportunity until we reach the downhill at Xumeni Forest (home of the Cape Parrot). A team from B batch that had mechanicals earlier join us on the descent and inquire as to our day so far. Red says he's having a great ride but doesn't know what my problem is. I glance down at my Garmin 38km/h and the road in front of us is clear of other riders. 45km/h a lateral drainage trench is bunny hopped, I get more airtime than I could buy from Cell C for R50. 55km/h "Blue Leader this Red Tail there is mud in the pantry". 60km/h " Blue Leader, I said there's mud, mud I said" I hear one of the other team say " Gert die ouens gaan *** anjaag los hulle laat hulle gaan". 65km/h and the 44/11 teeth combo spins out "Blue Leader stuff youuuuuuuu!" I adopt an aerodynamic position the wind in my ears and through my helmet creates a form of white noise and I can't hear anybody not even Red's desperate howl. 70km/h I use the middlemannetjie as berm to negotiate the sharp right hand bend. 75km/h and I'm wondering what a Cape Parrot with a lisp would sound like. 78km/h and the silence is remarkable these type 2 derailleurs really do reduce chain slap. Too many bends, mud puddles and rutted sections to look at the Garmin, but the momentum carries me well over the next uphill and into the forest single track. The B batch boys catch me on the jeep track after we emerge from the forest "Jy is lekker mal ne". About 20 mins later when Red caught up to me we just looked at each other and grinned in silent acknowledgement that each of us had worked the other one over with nobody winning, for the first time on the day we were really a team. Third piece of advice, you will get to know your team mate on Sani and be prepared for a fallout of some sort. For the rest of the ride our plan worked and all that was needed was the word mud to restore order. Our stage time was slower than last year, evidence that not working as a team costs you.

I think this is still the win by the narrowest of margins in the TDF. Those were the days when the TDF unfolded like the proverbial soap opera.

I'm not sure if you got your facts right as the online price for the 70 was R150 and R170 on the day. As for the route distance it is normally about 64kms and fast. Today's route was somewhat different in that they added some nice single track in the first 10kms. The normal route was also very different in that the recent rains severely scoured the jeep track and created patches of really thick sand in virtually every depression. They also changed the route after the climb and I suspect because the normal route was also badly affected by the rain and was dangerous being the only steep downhill on the course. This shortened the course by about 4km per lap. What is also interesting is that the winning time for what was 56kms was almost identical to that of the normal 64kms route and so was mine. So I guess if you measure the event in terms of Rands per minute it did not differ significantly from the previous events at Babbas. As for the drinks at the end this is not an issue for me as I generally bring my own, but I can understand the disappointment if your expectations were different to mine. The reason that I felt compelled to respond to this thread is that I feel that we need to support the "privateer" organisers. These guys put on races with minimal sponsorship and without our support there would be no more Babbas Lodge races. However, criticism is also important if it is intended to improve the event but if it is intended to destroy the event we need to think carefully about this. To support my argument it would seem that we have already lost the Voriberg event, I suspect for different reasons, but it does show how fragile the viability of these events are.

ZTR Flows with Hope hubs, fit them and forget them. I'm in your weight class and I approach downhills with more misplaced courage than talent. These wheels just do the job end of story!

I'm keen to see how this works out. I'm thinking of going with the 42 and 28/40 upfront so here's a free bump.

Brasso or toothpaste.

Man that looks like fun. Being situated in Pretoria I am not familiar with this trail how do I get there?