I'm not one to rant on about races, especially MTB events – ultimately we do crazy stunts, enter tight races and prefer anything but the beaten track because these are the things that make our sport so exhilaratingly fun but also equally tough. However, when a lack of planning and bad route design turns excitement and bone wrenching endurance to frustration and dismay, something should be said about the basics of setting out a technically challenging, yet smooth and effective event. Not so, Sondela? I entered for the 80km, and besides for the absence of now almost event-standard goodie bags (sorry, I know this sounds trivial but for me the devil is always in the detail :-) ) I was very excited about doing the race as I was looking to get some hard-core longer-distance fitness training under the saddle. Having spoken to other riders I prepared myself for a sandy but flat route which I could look at completing in more or less 4 hours. We all started well but, approaching the first sand pit the race quickly turned sour as some of the less-experienced riders preferred to walk the calf-deep sand patches, resulting in huge bottle necks and less than polite comments from some of the riders. I suppose this is to be expected when starting in unseeded batches, or not starting in any batch at all – but there will always be overly competitive (read: asshole) riders who will have no consideration for this. Finally navigating the sandstorm, things did not get better as we hit a maze of poorly designed switch-back single tracks right after the first water point. One could not help but wonder if those setting out the track sought the easiest and quickest way to make up distance for the event. After what seemed to be hours, the familiar and blissful regular Sondela single tracks appeared. Unfortunately bad turned to worse in the second 40km lap – especially in the now notorious first section where the path with occasional deep sand we had navigated the morning, had now been ridden to a continuous 12km long Sahara. One marshal said it well “Ek weet nie hoekom hulle julle hierdie *** pad laat ry nie, die quadbikes sit dan hier vas!”. In, what has by now become a familiar occurrence, 40km riders were harassing some of the “langasems” to get out of the way, not considering the technical difficulty of the track and the sand. Riding the switch-back maze all over again was torture and everywhere one sensed a negativity in riders battling to stay ahead of the chasing fresh legs of shorter distance competitors. The ASG finish line banner appeared only after 92km on my Polar and, where I would have been more than grateful for a few extra training miles at other race, I cursed every single km after the 80 mark at Sondela. I assume many riders will have enjoyed the Sondela Classic but I also suspect that an equal amount of participants will have a mouthful to say about the bad and ill-judged planning of the routes. And sadly, here adventure sports is much like rugby where bad planning and management results in ill-discipline which in turn leads to inconsiderate and rude participant behaviour. As for me, I will probably not do this race again.
