The End of Something

So. The TDA is done and dusted. After four months, it seems incredible to be in Cape Town.

A week after the race finished I am still adjusting. Only now am I starting to realise that it is over. 120 days might not seem like a long time in the scheme of things, but it is more than enough to be habit forming. Most of me still expects to be getting on the bike tomorrow. To have my food cooked by someone tomorrow. To be in a tent tomorrow. To be drinking a litre of thick, sweet coffee tomorrow. To be seeing all the TDA people tomorrow.

But its not going to be like that.

The strangest thing is how quickly the elation wears off. There was maybe five minutes at the final lunch where I realised that I was going to keep EFI - I didn't have to worry about keeping it anymore. After that EFI seemed like a pretty hollow achievement. I see the photos from the expedition riders and it seems like they experienced so much more of the tour than I did. Don't get me wrong though. I wouldn't have wanted to do the tour without trying for EFI and I would have been pretty disappointed to lose it through accident or by giving up.

Cape Town is a pretty nice place to be having TDA withdrawals. The Waterfront has everything that you could need. This is me enjoying (and destroying) a platter for two at a German restaurant.

I look pretty healthy in this photo. Turns out that I am pretty weak though. Tabata Protocol at the gym nearly killed me and I can't lift anything to save my life.

Not having a protective layer of blubber means that I started to feel the cold a lot. Even though I am not super skinny like I was in the depths of sickess (85kg). On the first day in South Africa it was bitterly cold and I had no warm gear with me at all. Luckily, we stopped in a petrol station / cafe / supermarket / crystal shop / second hand emporium. I found a riding coat perfectly suited to cycling long distances.

Lightweight, waterproof, fashionable. All these things are hard to find in a second hand coat. I am also wearing a loaner helmet. I couldn't find my helmet at the start of the day. I have a system that means that my helmet should always be on my head or in my locker. On the rest day before this, I went for a ride to find some money then lost my helmet. Turns out that I just carefully packed it in my spares bag. The system broke down.

Final picture. Me after having jumped out of a perfectly good (well pretty banged up really) plane. Strangely, not nearly as scary as going up a ladder.

Sossusvlei, Namibia to Felix Unite, Namibia

Day One - Sossusvlei to Betta

Distance: 137.14km

Ride time: 6:27

Climb: 887m

This morning was a pretty hard section. There were a couple of 5km or so 1-2% long climbs. Those combined with the bad sections of road were tiring. Having another four big days of this stuff to go is a bit daunting. My hopes of the last two weeks being a cakewalk have totally evaporated. We have hundreds of kilometres of dirt and TWO mando days in the next four days. Not going to be easy.

Riding meeting today was good. I got my plate for winning the stage into Sossusvlei. Hooray. Actually, it was pretty good. Maybe I will become addicted to not being a mediocre rider.

Day Two - Betta to Some Lodge with Chocolate Cake

Distance: 152.93km

Ride time: 7:20

Climb: 942m

First mando day of this stretch. We did a bunch of climbing before lunch. I couldn't get my heart rate up at all and really suffered. Grinding it out. For a lot of the climb, I could see the same rider in front of me. Normally, I can reel that guy in easy. Especially on the hills. Today I had nothing to use to even catch him. Let alone keep him back once I passed him.

Surprisingly, a lot of people were still there at lunch when I turned up. All my experience at lunching quickly was handy. I jumped back on my bike… wait a minute. I didn't jump back on. When I got into lunch, I couldn't unclip my right foot so I just unstrapped my shoe and walked around in my sock. When I went to get back on I tried keeping my left foot on the right hand side of my bike and re-strapping my right foot. This left me in a pretty precarious position. I couldn't swing my left leg over, get going and steer around the other bikes on the ground. Luckily, Canadian Dave was there to help out. He held my saddle while I got going, at the same time that Gerald cleared the bikes for me. Thanks guys!

After lunch, the day got a lot better. There were a few me climbs out of lunch but after that it was a -1% or -2% grade all the way to camp. Plus, the gravel road got much, much better. By the end, it was basically like riding on a paved road. I even saw their grader out cleaning up the road. Namibia seems to be really serious about maintaining this road. I guess it is because a lot of the overlander trucks use it. Every day we see a couple of those tin cans packed to the brim with tourists. I can't imagine what it would be like to be stuck in one of those for endless days. Especially since they are full of people. On the bike, you have a bit of freedom. Like, you can stop and take an emergency break when you need it. Plus, you can ride by yourself if you need some time away. Maybe overlanding appeals to a whole different type of human. One that likes other peoples' body heat and second hand air.

The best bit of the day was the lodge that we stayed at. Delicious homemade food - including ice cream - at really low prices. The milk tart (custard tart) was good, but the chocolate cake with coffee ice cream and chocolate liqueur was awesome.

Day Three - Some Lodge to Seeheim Hotel

Distance: 126.07km

Ride time: 7:24

Climb: 351m

An easy day today. A short distance plus 90km of pavement made for an untaxing day. At the end of the 30km dirt section was the town of Bethane. There was a pretty awesome coffee shop there. I had a couple of cheese toasties and a few cups of coffee. A pretty nice way to start the day. It turned out to be a long day though. 7+ hours.

The camp tonight is strange. Seeheim seems to be just a small collection of buildings near a railway station. And the railway station seems to be used only for cattle. There is one crush and a loading ramp. Not in use today. But the hotel for this town is pretty amazing. Multi-storied, turret, thatch roof. Pretty cool. So out of place though - I can't imagine why it is here. If I wasn't feeling so strangely tired I would ask the owner.

Day Four - Seeheim Hotel to Hobas Camp at Fish River Canyon

Distance: 108.9km

Ride time: 3:43

Climb: 481m

Another short day. I dunno why, but I felt like pushing it out a bit. I'd left it until nearly everyone else had left before I set off. Straight out of camp there was a fairly steep climb and my heart rate went straight up to 160. It didn't come back down for around 20km. I was hauling along ok, going past people, but I was definitely feeling it, so I had to wind it down a bit.

By the time I was getting close to lunch I had passed most other riders. I could see a bunch of riders in the distance though and wasn't really making up much ground. Stuart still hadn't caught up to me yet though, so I pushed it out a little bit more. When I rolled through lunch, I saw Sunil and Marcel sitting there. There was still one more rider in the distance though, so I didn't stop and kept on going.

At the 76km turn I caught up with Tim. I still hadn't seen Jethro though, so I figured I had to crank up the Slayer and push even more. The turn had swung us out of the tail wind and into a cross wind, so things also got a lot less pleasant. Every 1km I had to stand up and mash a bit to loosen my back. I also snuck a look behind to see if Stuart was gaining on me. I could see a dark blur back there but I couldn't tell who it was or whether they were closing. I figured that there wasn't too much point looking back there. Could I ride any faster than I was now? No.

Around 10km out, I heard a voice coming in over Slayer. I turned around and found out that the dark blur was Jenn, and she was calling my name. She had found out that she had unexpectedly come into the front of the pack as well. We both kept on pushing, not with any expectations, but just to see if we could. At 100km I dropped my bottle. I thought about stopping to get it but decided I had to keep going. Top of the last hill, I dropped my chain and had to get off and fix it. I looked back and saw another 2 dark blurs about a kilometre of two behind.

Jenn and I dropped down into camp. A couple of camp staff pointed us in the right direction and we checked in. I just had enough time to win the stage.

Just kidding. The locals pointed us in the wrong direction. They were standing in front of the trailer with the check-in machine on it. We rode off into the park looking for the trailer. When I got to the edge I realised that we'd been given a bum steer. "FUCK" I yelled and turned around. I rode back looking for the truck. Rode to the truck and found that the scanner was on the trailer was back up the rode. I threw my bike over my shoulder (not sure why, I guess I was pretty angry) and ran back to the trailer. I saw that Stuart was checking in already - I'd wasted whatever lead that I had fucking around looking for the trailer. Stuart hadn't realised what was going on. He asked if I was angry that he'd checked in. "No. I'm angry at the TDA", I said and booted my helmet across the camp ground.

By then, it was just after 10 am, so I decided to have some breakfast beers.

13 beers later, I went to see the Fish River Canyon. Surprisingly, the only effect I felt from the beers was that my legs were a bit wobbly.

And that was how the day was.

Day Five - Fish River Canyon to Felix Unite

Distance: 178.90km

Ride time: 6:53

Climb: 1235m

Second mando day of the stretch. Some might think that I had set myself up for failure by drinking 13 beers the day before. I felt fine though. Not fine enough to ride fast, but fine enough to finish the day.

It was a pretty strange day. There were two super long climbs after lunch with super long descents afterwards. The only downside was that the second descent had a massive headwind. Even on a -4% grade, it took effort to get above 30km/h.

Two notable things about the day:

1. Adam and I had our sprint. Adam outsmarted me and won.

2. Tony and I thought that we had taken a wrong turn so we turned around at 178km. Turns out that we should have kept going over one more hill. Instead we rode some extra kilometres.

And that was that.

Instead of a picture of the Fish River Canyon or Namib Desert (which you can get off Googles), here is a picture of me, sitting in a tent because someone started to take it down because I was taking too long to get ready in the morning. Safe for work: I am wearing pants.

Windhoek, Namibia to Sossusvlei, Namibia

Day One - Windhoek to Horse Farm

Distance: 113.6km

Ride time: 5:01

Climb: 1085m

Descent: 1000m

There is a definite sense of the end times about the TDA now. With only two rest days and a thousand or so kilometres to go, it sure feels like I am basically done. I guess that this would be the classic way to get myself into a terrible pickle - especially since this Nambian section is meant to be quite hard.

Our route is going to take us south west out of Windhoek to Sossusvlei and from there down to the border of South Africa. Seven days riding; three before Sossusvlei and four afterwards.

So far, the riding has been ok. This morning we had 11km of paved road out of Windhoek before starting on the dirt. Unlike Northern Kenya, Tanzania and Dindir, the road we are riding is actually well maintained. Many of the roads around Yass back home are worse. There are some sketchy parts. On some of the descents, it was all to easy to get stuck on an unfavourable line. It never feels comfortable to be heading towards a big sandy patch knowing that you can't change lines without risking the front wheel digging in.

At the transition between the pavement and the dirt, Gerald had organised a group photo for the EFIers. Groups of us stopped and held up the 10000km sign. Apparently we smashed through that distance somewhere around Windhoek. We've come a long way, but it still feels a little like tempting fate to take an EFI photo so early. It was really neat of Gerald to organise it though. Something to remember for sure.

I'm not sure if we are in the Namib Desert now. Today we seemed to be climbing up to some sort of pass between Windhoek and the coast. Lots of hills to climb, which is a nice change from Botswana. Apparently when we drop down to the lower plateau tomorrow we will be able to Russia / my house / half of Namibia.

Day Two - Horse Camp to Solitaire

Distance: 122km

Ride Time: 5:50

Climb: 630m

Descent: 1323m

So. This Namib Desert thing. It is a desert. There are signs up in the Horse Camp bathrooms: "Namibia is a dry country. Adapt". Only thing is, its been raining massively since we turned up.

Late yesterday afternoon we could see the thunderclouds gathering on the far horizon. During the night it rained so hard that it was coming up under the fly and through the mesh of the tent.

In the morning, the thunderclouds lined the horizon towards which we were going to ride. It actually rained in camp for about 30 seconds during breakfast. This caused a bunch of riders to make a beeline for the lunch truck. It was kind of funny watching how fast they got their bikes up on the truck.

It looked like it was going to be a day of epic proportions. The hills here are exposed rocks with small thorn bushes growing on them. I felt like all it needed was a small Mexican boy pointing towards the jagged hills saying "There is a storm coming". The ride to lunch was all riding towards, up and through the hills.

On the way, I saw a dead snake. Its tail was all mashed up, so I decided to put it in a ziplock baggie for the ultimate prank. I threw a rock at it to make sure it was dead. Then I stepped towards it, hand outstretched, to pick it up. And the snake moved. It seemed like the snake wasn't quite dead yet. Suddenly, my practical joke had taken on a whole new dimension. I decided that I didn't want to die for the sake of comedy and jumped back on my bike to ride away. A little ways down the road I started to think that I should have just pinned its head with a forked stick and stabbed it in the brain with my pen knife. That was when I decided that I had become a crazy man and should think a little bit harder about things when I have been riding for a while.

After lunch, we had an unexpected highlight of the tour. Really, it was one of the best rides of the whole trip. A crazy 600m drop down to the next plateau. At times there were -18% drops and 16% climbs. Some of the road had been paved. Not tarmaced, paved with pavers. From the very top, it didn't look like very much - just a drop down with a good view. Only 100m down the road though, I could see the way the road wound down the side of the hills and got pretty excited.

After the drop, it was a bit of a grind to camp. Hail, big headwinds, rain and sand. The lunch truck brigade found this too unpleasant and pulled into a rest house on the way then got a lift the rest of the way to camp.

Day Three - Solitare to Sossusvlei

Although we had rain overnight and some sprinkles in the morning, we could see huge patches of bright blue sky this morning. It was an awesome feeling setting out into the cool morning with the dawn on one side and the heavy clouds on the other side. I felt pretty good and with a short day (83km) ahead, I decided to push it out for the morning. At one point, there was a pretty heavy headwind going up a hill and I felt that maybe I had overestimated my reserves for the day. Soon enough though the road turned again and headed downhill so I could wind it back up to >40km/hr.

By lunch I had caught up with Tim and Marcel who I figured were the front of the pack. They had slowed and stopped just inside the Namib Wildlife Park. They'd been lucky enough to see some springbok and orixes. Other riders saw giraffes and bat eared foxes. I saw springbok as well - they jump so high it is pretty hard to miss them. It was pretty cool to see all this stuff. The riding today was actually great all around. Awesome vistas of the desert and ragged hills. I wonder if yesterday had been blue sky instead of raining it might have been the same. Today's views coupled with the awesome, hair raising descent would have been unreal.

Somehow I managed to get to camp first. It felt pretty good to be the first wheel for a change. The only downside is that I can't blindly follow the tracks of the good riders in front of me I have to choose which line to take on the road. This can be a bit of a gamble at times. If you cross the road, bouncing over the centre corrugations and then find that the other side is just as crappy you can be pretty depressed. Having said that, the road was so good for most of the day that at times I could ride with no hands - maximising my air drumming abilities.