Day 7: Rhodes to Slaapkranz
“Seems that Shane is not sure there is enough beer at the stations. Being the first one is a good strategy.” ~Sjirk
Another day another pre dawn exit, another day chasing the sun. The next few days would be mainly on district dirt roads with the occasional hike over a mountain, making the nav generally easier. It was time to step on the gas if I wanted to maintain my lead. My lead was of course purely a geographical lead as a new batch of riders starts each day .
I have no natural talent for cycling or endurance sport so it was fairly obvious that at some point just about the whole field would pass me. I’d be happy just to get to the finish line within the 26 day cut off. But, at the same time I felt the race pressure and liked being out front and having the support stations to myself, so the only thing to do was to delay the inevitable as long a possible. It had taken me 6 days to get to Rhodes, the racing snakes in the last batch would do that in a little over 2 days. I have no idea how they do it, I suspect they’re aliens. The first 6 days are so brutal that most humans just stick with the standard legs, after Rhodes things get a little more flexible, giving the faster riders more chance to do 1.5 or 2 legs in a day ” doubling up” and thus shaving off a half or full day from the 26 days (this year the fastest rider finished in 10 days, the slowest in 24, everyone a winner).
The nav went fine to Chesneywold, just before arriving I found out I’d lost the last couple of maps in the dark a few hours earlier. Bugger. My biggest concern was that someone would find them and hassle Freedom Challenge about riders throwing their maps away. I contacted race office to let them know and suggest I get a penalty for being a litter bug, the last thing I wanted was hassle a week or so down the line if someone complained. Race office just laughed and didn’t quite understand why I was phoning :).
I ate as quick as possible at Chesneywold but it still took me 30 minutes to escape Mienkie’s infamous lunch. I was stuffed and could hardly walk from all the food, it was more like a Christmas dinner than a light lunch.
Luckily I’d studied Kappokkraal just like politiekkraal because lots of people mess it up. So going mapless wasn’t the end of the world, the narrative was pretty good for this section (wouldn’t have liked to do it in the dark though). The ride down to Slaapkranz was good fun and I think I arrived at about 3pm another 100km closer to my blanket. After a shower and cup of tea I took a walk down the road to check out the turnoff for the next day, seeing it in daylight meant I wasted less time in the morning.
My host Joyce arrived at about 5pm and we had a great dinner together, it was very nice to have a conversation for a change. From Rhodes onwards the flavour of the support stations changes from local community guest houses in small rural villages to rural farms. For me it was nice to have someone to talk to in the evenings after spending so much time alone out front. I was once again in bed early enough to get my 8 hours of beauty sleep. It still felt like 5 star touring. Pushing hard all day, eating well, finishing the day with a whiskey and letter from my girlfriend with her thoughtful messages of support then sleeping like a baby for 8 hours and repeat.
————————————————————————————
Day 8: Slaapkranz – Kranzkop
Again the recent drought in SA meant I had an easier start than riders from previous years. People often choose to leave Slaapkranz at 3am so that the mud or snow is still frozen. Luckily I didn’t need to, I left just early enough to get to the “double gate” at first light.
I decide to try a short cut down to Goedehoop farm rather than go the long way round. I doubt it was any faster and the chance of twisting an ankle is quite high so it doesn’t really make sense to take this shortcut. Apparently I didn’t take any photo’s so I guess I was in a hurry :).
I managed to mess up the Bontehoek portage and spent at least an hour at the top trying to work out where to go, eventually backtracking a couple of hundred meters then starting again then crossing the correct saddle. The rest of the day was a warm ride into the wind, arriving at Kranskop well after dark, once again cold and very tired.
” Because you are alone we want you to sleep in the main house instead of the guest house”. I took off my shoes and walked through the house, my feet warmed instantly from the under floor heating, I just wanted to lie down and hug the floor. I took a quick shower and had dinner with the family (they’d waited the last hour or so for me to turn up). Beef just seems to taste better when its fresh from the farm. Again it was such a pleasure to have a conversation with Sandra, Diderik and their daughter they made me feel very welcome, I felt like a visiting cousin rather than a dodgy smelly cyclist passing through. Thanks guys!!
Sandra insisted she get up early to make my breakfast the next morning. After such hospitality I didn’t have the heart to say I planned to leave at 0430 so I adjusted my departure time even though I knew this meant I’d get into Romansfontein after dark.
—————————————————————————————
Day 9: Kranskop – Romansfontein
The early morning nav through the fields went well, a few moments of doubt now and again but I found my way through until daylight. After that the nav was fairly straight forward. I had a quick lunch at Brostlea then pushed on towards Stormberg though wasted a lot of time with the narrative. Then a quick descent to the Stormberg blockhouse where I stopped for a second lunch and the rest of my coffee.
After all the years following the FC if felt weird to finally be at this landmark of the Anglo-Boer war, and only slightly ironic that my bike was wearing his Red Coat.
By now I was pretty tired but still had 40km to go, I’d been warned of tricky nav ahead so pushed on in the hope of getting to the main road before Romansfontein before dark. I almost fell for the trap at the pivots but was paying close attention to my map so it wasn’t a serious problem. I made it to the road just before dark then spent the next hour riding and walking the last 10km, I was knackered.
I arrived to another wonderful family that insisted on giving me too much food, doing my laundry and getting up at 0430 to make me breakfast the next day. The hospitality on the Freedom Trail really is something special.
My toughest 130km day was done, only 15 toughest days to go.
————————————————————————————
About the boxes :
Before starting the Freedom Challenge you are allowed to send a 2L box for each support station to race office and they make sure these get to the support stations. Generally the boxes are used for spare parts, extra food, maps and narrative for the next day. This is what mine generally looked like.
Soap, toothpaste, suncream, bum cream, ORS, vitamin pills/krill oil, coffee, grain free rusk(could of eaten 3 of these a day, thanks Sandra!!), 100g nuts, 40g butter, sardines, dried sausage, whiskey, earplugs, maps, narrative.
Obviously getting the boxes to SA would be an expensive business, luckily I have a friend there who took over all the hard work for me (and schemed with my girlfriend to make sure I had a letter in each box). Thanks again young man.
In hindsight, those boxes were pretty lean…
Nah, they were fine. There are few days when they are not a supplement to lunch. The first week I ate everything after that I often had something left over (though not a lot).