Tour De Transbaviaans 2023

[TyronLab]

I'm considering doing a bikepacking tour from home (Jo'burg, GP) to the start of the Transbaviaans (Willowmore, EC) for this year's race. Idea is that I'd arrive in Willowmore the day before the Transbaviaans, then do the event itself. I'll likely fly home or get back some other way, it'll be a one-way trip. This is pretty ambitious for me to tackle, so I'd appreciate any advice (packing, baggage, route.... anything). This thread will serve as the collaborative journal of my plan to attempt to try and do this.

I'm keen on doing it mostly on gravel, as I'd much rather take the slower average speed but deal with less traffic on the way there. Also would ideally be overnighting at establishments along the way and keeping camping to a minimum too, for a few reasons;

1. I have no camping gear, so I'd have to buy a lot of kit I'd likely get little future use out of. 
2. I'd have to carry all the camping stuff too, and seeing as I don't have racks or bags or whatever that means buying more things to carry things in.
3. I don't want to take too long off work, so I'm planning on doing long and relatively big days of riding (12 moving hours and 160 - 200km a day). Staying in an establishment means I'd likely get some better sleep and won't have to take the time to set up a camp. 

When I popped the start and end points into Komoot and hit "Mountain Biking" it spat out this route (84% Unpaved / Gravel, 4100m of elevation gain). 

Home - Klerksdorp (213km)
Bloemhof (370km / 157km)
Kimberley (545km / 175km)
Hopetown (670km / 125km) (De Aar is too far a stretch at 245km from Kimberley)
Richmond (882km / 212km)
Aberdeen (1053km / 171km)
Willowmore (1195 / 142km)

Only editing I did was reroute through Aberdeen to divide the last days up more evenly. Other than that its obviously very rough (hell, I know nothing about any of these places, so assuming there will be some place to stay

My back-of-bidon calculations tell me that if I ride between 04:00 and 19:00 every day that gives me 15 planned hours between stops. Assuming 3 hours of stoppage during that time (lunch, peeing, pooping, having a lie-down, buying food etc) that gives me 12 hours of moving time and a required moving average speed of between 11 and 18 km/h depending on that day's distance. For reference I averaged 15.7 km/h moving speed during the Munga Grit in 2022 which had 1000m more elevation gain in less than half the distance. So it's in the realm of my physical ability at least (I'm purposefully ignoring thinking of the impact doing that daily for a week back-to-back is going to have).

...

More pondering to follow.

Edited January 9, 2023 by TyronLab

[Dusty]

Sounds good. If you go on to the Massive Adventures website you can download the 1000 Miler route. This will give you a route to plan around/alter to suit your needs. It is all dirt.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Dusty

[TyronLab]

That's flippen awesome, thanks! It gets me from Vereeniging to Richmond on a known dirt route. That leaves home to Vereeniging and Richmond to Willowmore that I'd need to plan still, but this takes a lot of uncertainty out of the route at least.