Finally, another race report

Ring ring and i pick up the phone, it's ching chong jim wei on the line:
CCJW: hey dude where are you?
Sailorboysteve:F@#$ Sh11 CR@p, I'm still in bed.

Luckily our oriental friend needs me to find Lourensford, as he's unable to point his car east on the N2 and follow the cars with mountain bikes on the back. Of course I've set my alarm for the unholy hour of 5am, but the phone is so damn clever the artificial intelligence kicks in and realises i don't want to be up that early on a saturday (but I did this morning, huh?!).

The dude doing the start seeding has not read Darwin's “origins of the species” and I'm in B group 10minutes behind a whole bunch of funriders. It's not like the alphabet either, essentially B comes last here. Sweet. At least I find Tatum and some very fit looking multisporter in team jeep kit called Cass next to me as we sneak in under the candy tape. We have the usual startline chit chat...not doing much training/had the flu/just chilling out today etc etc. The gun goes and after about 500m of dirt riding that stupid race competitive instinct kicks in and it's time to start weaving through the field. Cass is quickly gone, but a good thing I'm still ahead of Tatum.

I'm expecting the long pull up to the saddle 'a la Lourendsford classic, but instead we head off towards the dams pretty soon. Then it's the usual overtake/passing right spiel. We hit this just rideable slog up some vineyard track which takes a while. At the top I realise that i'm not overtaking B group hackers anymore because chingboy is there too. Poof! there goes his 10 minute headstart like the dust cloud that emerges on every descent through the very dry terrain.

that's a loverly bike...the silverback

It's still very crowded when we hit the first wooded single track at about 10kms. There's a holdup as some senior guy has had a very bad wipe on a steep section. There's groaning and ahhing. He's got some guys helping him, but no-one knows who to call, there's no emergency contact on the number board either – nice one Epic. Of course it's been brilliantly marked the whole way with a lot of signs and candy tape, but there's not much in the way of personnel on the course. Moving on it's now soldiers rank down the clustered singletrack as the rubber necking has held the route up and patience is the order of the day. Not so for some wise guy who decides it's a good idea to overtake 10 people at a time. I have to laugh as he flies down the side, brakes, does a sideways somersault with his toeclips/cages and comes to rest.

There's some more very technical uphill slogs to follow, did Leon 'Dr Evil' Evans set this course too? I'm fine with that, you have to suffer to appreciate the 966 reasons the Epic finishers are legends, but it quickly becomes apparent there's a big gap between the 22 and the 55 routes as some people are beginning to suffer. In my prerace rush I haven't checked my qr skewer properly and the rear wheel pops out on the next downhill (i'm actually not sure how that happened, it's a new bike and i thought it was tight enough). All is fine as i stop before any damage, but the one pad (v brakes) has twisted and is rubbing. I'm about to swear when i realise my multitool is still in the car, but then Tatum swings past like an angel. A quick stop and she's got her's out for me. I promise to try catch her. It takes a while as she really does fly (see her work here ), but when I pull up to her she's running short on air in her rear wheel and doesn't have a pump on her. Rarely is karma repaid within 3kms and we're back on the go after a few good pomps (ja ja, that joke never tires). We concur that it is actually a moer of a race and we can't wait for some downhill respite. I mention that if we still are going up to the saddle then it'll be a loooong day indeed. Then we arrive at the saddle, from above?! How did that happen?!

A long section of downhill follows, and the rest is a race against the incessant throb of helicopter engine. I have to beat those damn Vredestein dudes to the finish line. There's a few sections of singletrack thrown in, where they've taken a broom and cleared a path in the pine needles. There's little 'flow' to it, and I'd hate to be rider 1199 down that section. It does get a little bit hot, but we're mostly in the forest now. For jeep track riding, it really is good terrain. There's repeatable sections of switchback road leading to hiphigh river grass every gulley and for once the contour is flat. I probably only see 2 other riders for the last 5km's (but I do pass a big truck setting up a water point about 5 mins from the end – huh?!).

the only Bulls worth shouting for

Well I time it perfectly and beat the Bulls by about 15 minutes so I'm on the grandstand for their sprint finish. Later i hear some swiss hack called Cristoph won it after his partner's knee exploded on stage three of the epic. That's funny because the online registration closed before the Epic started, and I doubt he entered both. Either way the yodeller is lucky, because if I was in A group I would have sucked his wheel dry and dropped him on the downhills (or taken the chicken run shortcut from the saddle – employed by a few I hear!).

I'm glad I did the race, it's obvious they use it as an afterthought, but you can't ride lourensford just once a year. Much respect to all the full finishers, and the dude who invented Spur rib burgers.

saddle sores, that's what 966km does to you