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You’d think with five previous Arguses under my wheels there’d be little noteworthy about this year’s race, but even before the race began pretty much everything was already different. My first ever single letter seeding (Q) and offered a tantalising prospect of a first sub 4 hour time. The much earlier start time also resulted in me rolling into a dark Cape Town still wearing it’s pre-dawn shroud. The dimly lit street of empty parking bays with hardly a soul around suddenly didn’t feel like a good place to be unloading an expensive road bike alone. In previous year’s I’d usually been hunting the last free bay in this road as long rows of cars disgorged their riders and bikes. So I wound my way back to the main road, and found a parking bay with at least a few fellow riders around and a friendly parking guard who introduced himself as Ben. As I pedalled down Somerset Road towards the start area, I wondered if he’d still be there when I got back.

It was still dark when I reached the start area, visited the least offensively smelling portaloo I could find, and shuffled into my start chute, after some minutes wandering around seemingly finding every lettered chute except my own. Fortunately, being ever the obsessive planner, I was in plenty of time and ended up close to the front of our group. The cool dark morning was a refreshing change to the usual routine of hunching down over the bike desperately seeking out some sliver of shade to hide from a roasting sun. Rather less welcome was the nauseous bloated feeling that gradually welled up as we waited. Too late, I realised I’d broken a cardinal rule of races – I’d changed something without trying it. I had eaten Future Life for breakfast before a ride, and it had given me great energy, so it never occurred to me that drinking it as a shake would be any different. But the extra cup or so of milk now sloshing painfully around my tummy was doing nothing to settle my nerves and make me optimistic about being able to keep up a fast pace.

“Everybody say Hoopla!”

The starter’s familiar battle cry began to ring out at regular intervals as successive groups ahead of us got their race under way. Before long we were also rolling slowly forward, following the advancing green tape held by the marshals allocated to our group. With just one group (M) between us and the line, an odd and rather magical thing happened: I found myself staring beyond the riders ahead and the fiercely bright spotlights down the mouth of the start tunnel ahead of us. A dim grey dawn spilled through the tunnel, lighting it’s angular sides, it’s rays also picking out a few lone scraps of paper fluttering on the rising breeze. All sound seemed to fade away, there were no riders around me, I was alone – just me and the road ahead. For a moment, time and space seemed to expand and I wasn’t just looking at a few meters of tunnel, it felt as though I was literally looking at the whole ride ahead of me, the far side of the end was the finish line itself. My nerves settled down, and some inner voice was finally able to make itself heard – “you’re going to do it“. I’ve heard of 100m sprinters talk of focusing down their lane to visualize the finish, but haven’t experienced first hand what they actually meant.

I’ve never crossed the mats and started up the rise towards Hospital Bend with such a feeling of confidence in my ride. It was ludicrous really. Quite apart from the ever present chance of a mechanical messing up your time or worse, part and parcel of the Argus is massive bunches of riders, some of them inexperienced, creating a significant risk of a ride ending accident. As if all that weren’t enough, I was hoping to knock at least 35 minutes off my past best time, on what now looked set to be a windy day. Confidence at this stage seemed a foolish and dangerous feeling to be riding with. But it was there – I was pedalling easily, the pace was good, and the tightness in my legs was no worse than normal for the early stages of a race.

Once over the first real climb of Edinburgh Drive, the pace picked up and still with my fellow Q group riders we barrelled full tilt into the descent. There were a few scary moments as we overhauled some slower recumbents and parent-and-child tandems from N, and the odd straggler from M, but the bunch was disciplined and my speedo was nudging up to 50km/h for much of the charge down the Blue Route. There was just one small problem – my bike sounded like it was going to fall apart. What started as a small creak at the start, had been amplified by the bad road surface into Muizenberg and was now a loud and rapid knocking. It sounded like we were being strafed by machine gun fire, perhaps from the naval base just ahead. A quick assessment revealed two things: my bike hadn’t yet fallen apart; and stopping to find it would certainly waste time, and may not alter the chance or point at which it did fall apart. It was hard to ignore, but I knew the only practical policy was to ride as hard as I could until I either saw the finish line, or something gave way beneath me.

My average speed through Simonstown was still around 31km/h, and it was tempting to dream of a 3:30 time, but at Millers Point we came upon an impassable plug of riders stretching far ahead and spanning the full width of the road. There was just no way to get past without risking a crash, and so we dawdled along for what seemed like an eternity, sometimes only just above 20km/h. It wasn’t until the first proper ramps of Smitzwinkel took their toll on slower riders, and the plug broke up allowing me weave through the debris and pick up the pace again. I couldn’t recall the split time for the top of Smitzwinkel, but my average speed had dropped to around 29km/h as we crested the summit. I was fairly sure the fleeting chance of a 3:30 had already gone. It wasn’t a bad feeling to be honest. I knew that sort of time would be at the limit of my ability even without the Argus’ other challenges – that elusive sub 4 had really been my main aim for this year’s ride.

The fast and relatively easy riding across the top of the peninsula and before the descent into Misty Cliffs gave me some thinking time too – why had the knocking suddenly appeared today, when it wasn’t there on my loosener ride yesterday? Crap! I’d committed that cardinal sin not once but twice – I’d changed something. I don’t normally ride with a CO2 bomb. I don’t seem to get many punctures, and can fix them quickly even with a pump. But I figured with a tough target time, maybe a bomb could save a couple of minutes and squeezed one in my already tightly packed saddle bag. As the only thing on the bike I’d changed, it had to be the cause. Sure enough, grabbing it with a hand under my seat immediately silenced the clattering. A couple of mad thoughts went through my head: could CO2 canisters explode if banged repeatedly? and if not, could the banging find a weak spot on my Titanium seatpost? Neither seemed likely, but now I knew what was causing the noise the prospect of riding the remaining 50km in peace and quiet was too tempting. At the start of the descent into Scarborough, I stopped, quickly removed the offending bomb into my jersey pocket, mounted up and was on my way again. Despite the minute or so lost the silence, as the saying goes, was golden!

We’d been battling squally and unpredictable winds for most of the ride, but on the long stretch through Ocean View we get the full force head on. This is my least favourite stretch of any Argus, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed a nice sized bunch slowly overhauling me, so I latched on as they came past and they quickly pulled me up to the group in front which I’d been just failing to catch for the last few hundred metres. My speedo was showing somewhere around 2:40 as we passed through Noordhoek onto the start of Little Chappies. I did remember the splits for the top of Chapman’s Peak – it’s pretty easy, around an hour earlier than your finishing time at these sorts of speeds. So clearly a 3:30 was now gone, but the sub 4 was very much still on. I figured that crossing the top in the next 10 minutes would give me leeway to make it even if I picked up a puncture over the closing stages. I’d gone about as far into the cave as I felt I could so, reassured on my progess, I backed off a little before the lights went out. Dropping a gear I span easily up Chappies and must confess to feeling a little smug with my pacing as I started to roll down the descent with exactly 2:50 showing on the Garmin.

Through Hout Bay and up the dreaded Suikerbossie there really wasn’t much left – the wind had died, and it was a hot and painful slog for legs that were beginning to threaten the cramps which have blighted previous Arguses. Fortunately, barring mechanicals, the summit is really the end of the Argus – the remaining 18km aren’t completely free-wheeling, but no one gives up and fails once they start the glorious downward rush into Camps Bay. As with Chappies, it’s also an easy split too – around 30 minutes or less to go to the finish. The Garmin was reading around 3:20. Holy Shit! The sub 4 really was still on. The last few Km passed in a flash – a couple of Wannabees club riders passed me on the way down, the last being Annemieke who I chatted with for a while until she pulled away. I was going well enough at around 35km/h, and without much extra zip in the legs was content to just keep steady rather than race for the line. I sat up and looked around over that last 2Km, enjoying the views and savouring the crowds and the atmosphere, hoping to remember this moment for a while – the day I rode my first Argus in under 4 hours. It had been a lot harder than I imagined, but at no point on the way around had I doubted that I would do it. Rounding the last bend, the real finish line came into view, confirming the prophecy of it’s earlier apparition – the clock stopped at 3:50.

After sharing a couple of quick beers and war stories with friends from the Wannabees, I headed back to my car. Ben the car guard was still there, patiently waiting for in the hot sun. I’m sure he would still have been there hours later as the last few finishers reached their cars too. Feeling in top spirits, I doubled the tip I’d normally give, loaded up the bike and headed home to celebrate properly with my family.

All photos by author.

You might be wondering what pictures of a train are doing on a cycling blog, and I have to confess the reason is a little tenuous. The last few days have been spent on practically every form of transport except a bicycle, starting with a flight up to Victoria Falls, and concluding with a train journey back to Johannesburg on the Rovos Rail, shown in these pictures. The owners bill this the Most Luxurious Train Journey In The World, and after three days and two nights of pampering I would concede it’s not merely marketing hype. It really is (or was for us) a faultlessly indulgent experience. An equally tenuous reason for including pictures of what has kept me from riding is my Dad. I’ve mentioned before how his stories have been an inspiration to my cycling, and trains were another of Dad’s great passions.

As wonderful as the break was, it’s also something of a worry at such a pivotal time in the leadup to this year’s Cape Argus. The previous weekend I made an impulsive entry to the Medallion Tour de Stellenbosch. I’d never done this race before, and even though it wasn’t in my original plan it seemed like a good way to get a few more race kilometres under the wheels before the big day. Unfortunately, for the second event in a row, my pacing was hopeless and I failed again to temper the early enthusiasm. Racing too hard to stay with a bunch well above my level, the result was predictably similar to the 99er – I suffered a serious bonk around the 35km mark, and slowed considerably over the next 40km or so. The difference with this race was the 35C heat. Although I did manage to recover some pace back in the last quarter, my finishing time of 3:26 was around 15 minutes slower than I had a realistic hope of achieving.

It was only looking at the ride stats later on Strava that I was able to gain some perspective. With an average pace of 28km/h, it had actually been my second fastest race to date. Looking at the stretch from Paarl past Fairview winery and up to the R44, I could also see my error. That section of road is a much more significant vertical ascent than it appears when riding, and sticking with and even leading bunches averaging more than 30km/h along that lane was a far higher pace than I could have hoped to sustain. The rolling hills which follow that part of the ride were the sucker punch – sapping the remaining energy from legs and breaking the spirit. Another lesson learned – check the route profile of any new ride before the event!

Having rationalised the disappointment, I headed out for the regular club ride on the following Wednesday feeling upbeat again. I was rewarded with one of my strongest training 100km to date, finishing the last couple of hills at pace and feeling loose. In some ways it was a perfect place to pause for our vacation, but in others I just didn’t want to leave off training and risk falling back in fitness and speed. Whether, in fact, it’ll have any effect on my Argus in a week’s time is of course impossible to judge. What seems now like an untimely break may in fact have been an ideal taper to let muscles and body recover before the last few loosening spins leading up to the ride. 

I guess whatever happens on Argus day, I’ll probably have a nagging thought that maybe I could have gone a few minutes faster without a break in training. There are a couple of overriding thoughts to help me put that doubt aside. Firstly, these last months of riding have never been about a fast Argus time – being in good shape for that is merely a welcome side effect of needing to step up my training distances to prepare for LEL. The second thought also revolves around LEL – at times the commitment to my training has been just as hard on Yoli as me. Some quality R&R time together was a perfect way to recharge before heading into the final three or four months of long preparation rides.

Rovos Rail train photos by Yolandi Boshoff
Medallion photo courtesy of Wannabees club page.

It was great to receive a good seeding for this year’s 99er, even if it did mean an even earlier alarm call than usual, together with the chance of finding myself outclassed in too-fast a group in what is already a very difficult race to judge your pacing.  The forecast was for rain mid-morning, so it was something of a shock to feel the first drops falling as I kitted up and wheeled the bike through the car park towards the start. By the time the group H chute was loaded a moody grey dawn was just breaking, and the slight drizzle had settled into solid sheets of rain. There was some comfort in seeing friendly Wannabee faces – Hendrik a couple of rows across in the group F chute, and Estea and Tom also in group H with me. Nice as it was to see them, it also underlined the worry about being seeded too high – both of them being faster riders than me.

A few minutes later and we were on our way, the smooth wet tarmac jetting streams of spray off the wheels of every bike in the bunch ahead. The first few sharp left and right turns were very nervy – one wheel carelessly placed on a road marking or manhole cover through the turn would not only bring your own bike down but also all of the thirty or more riders behind. As the pace of the bunch picked up to 35km/h and above, there was little left to do but concentrate, steel your nerves, and stick with the bunch.

The crossroads with the R304 came up quickly, and once over the first of the rollers started. The pace was fast, and the bunch starting to break up. Ahead I could see a small group of maybe 10 or so riders had opened a sizeable gap, or maybe it was some stragglers that had already been shelled from the G group ahead. In the middle I could see Tom riding solo in a bid to bridge to the gap – he was looking strong, and I’m sure over the next few kilometers he reached and possibly passed them.  For myself, the early pace was starting to tell already. With barely 30km on the clock I could feel a tightening cramp in my inner thighs. Despite numerous calls of SHUT UP LEGS, I was slowly getting dropped from the small group of eight or so riders at the head of our bunch. I wasn’t alone though, and many small sub groups with a handful of riders gradually got stretched out along the last couple of kilometres before we swung left onto the R44.

With around 35km on the clock, I knew I’d pushed too hard too soon. I was soaking wet, the rain was harder than ever, I was battling an evil cross wind solo, and my legs were trashed. I came very close to quitting right there. The only thought which stopped me was realising that all I would achieve is swapping sitting on a bike in the rain, with standing by the road in the rain, with the added misery of giving up. So I pedalled on. What was a little strange, and rather encouraging too, was the few times I did look down at my Garmin, my average speed was between 25 and 35km/h, even with the rain, the wind, and the rolling hills. I began to wonder if it was an error – those kinds of speed are faster than I’d normally ride on a good day, so it seemed very odd to see them after backing off the pace to recover my legs.

One, or perhaps two more bunches came past on the long hard section from Voor Paardeberg back to the R304. I have a feeling that unknowingly, I’d been giving them a tow too. My head was down and I hadn’t looked around, but I’d definitely felt the presence of riders pacing behind me along that lonely stretch of wet and windswept road. Perhaps a kilometre or so before the junction, the groups that had passed seemed to coalesce, and we took the left turn and headed back to the Silos as one large bunch. The King of the Winds sign proved meaningless on the day, and the psychological lift from the unusually absent headwind was enormous. The bunch surged ahead, and a split immediately developed. Myself and a guy in an MTN Qhubeka  jersey jumped past the riders in front of us and into the gap, determined to bridge up to the group of riders breaking away. By now, my legs were loose again and we sprinted at full tilt, gradually eating away the distance to the group ahead. It took all of the 5km to the silos to reach them, and I don’t think our speed dropped below 45km/h the whole way. It was a fantastic feeling to be flying along again, with the cramps and pains gone.

I realised just how much ground we had made up when I saw Estea on the rollers towards Van Schoorsdrift. She had passed me in the first bunch that had gone through after we turned off the R44. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to bridge back up to someone who has passed me, let alone a rider who is faster than me. It was an enormous lift, and came at just the right time as energy levels began to flag from 80km of hard riding.
We passed each other a couple of times, and also road along together and chatted for a short section, before she finally pulled away as we battled the starting slopes of Vissershok. I’d love to have had the power to keep up, but by that stage my sole focus was staying on the bike and refusing to give in to the gradient that had beaten me in every previous year.

My initial goal of 3:30 was already gone – an unrealistic target really, having been based on my average speed on Die Burger, which is a much easier ride. Rather more worrying was the snail’s pace I crawled up the fearsome slope ahead. I realised that I’d have to push hard to even make a sub 4 hour time. Cresting the top, I saw Hendrik again briefly – who proceeded to charge at the descent with far more bravery than I could muster. My approach was more measured, studying the shining slippery road for holes and bad surface sections. Even so, I still carried a decent speed down the slope, and was soon at the right turn into Odendaal Street. This is the 99ers real sting in the tail – a savagely steep final 1.2km to the finish line. You often hear talk of chewing on your stem in racing reports, but nowhere on any race in the cape is this line more apt. The cramp in my legs was severe. I thumped on the pedals, alternating standing and sitting until the top of the hill and the finishing mats crept into view. By some miracle, I’d managed to just scrape under 4 hours.

Finally managing to beat those last two climbs after three previous failed attempts was great, but oddly it didn’t feel like I’d had a good ride. It’s only in hindsight, looking at the ride stats, that I realised it was actually a pretty decent performance. Not only had I blown apart my previous best time for the ride, but according to Strava I had set an unprecedented 10 personal best times on segments of the ride. Not bad for a rainy Saturday at the races.

Due to the rain, very few photos have appeared. Headline photo courtesy of Wannabees website. Will update with additional photos if they become available.

This week’s rides have seen the first of what I suspect will become a regular occurrence over the coming months – testing the components and ideas I have for LEL bike setup to see if they work as needed. It’s rather an odd convergence of my cycling passion with my day job, since that also involves testing, albeit there I’m creating tools to help other people do their testing.

Pictured right you’ll see the Ortlieb 2.7L handlebar bag mounted on Jolly, with a Lezyne Super Drive XL and my 8 year old Garmin Etrex Vista C peeping out over the top of it, mounted on a Topeak bar extender. This represents the greater part of my planned handlebar setup, even though I hadn’t intended to mount all of it quite so soon. I started out just wanting to see if my old Etrex suffered the “power off due to battery jitter” that I’ve read plagues many units. The Garmin bike mount would not fit direct on my bar though, which led me to mount the bar extender, and before long I realised I may just as well mount the whole lot to make sure it all fitted together.

Having mounted the Lezyne light, it made sense to leave earlier than usual so that the morning was still dark enough to tell whether the beam was bright enough and projected high enough over the Ortlieb bag to be usable. On LEL this will be my backup light, the primary light being a dynamo powered SON unit mounted on the fork crown and shining out under the bar bag. Testing that will wait for a future ride though, for now my main goal was to prove the backup would be effective if needed, and also get an idea on whether actual battery life was less than claimed. So on the rides today an Wednesday I’ve left at 5am to crank out a quick 18km extra distance ahead of the club ride start of 6am at Waterstone.  My concerns on the light immediately vanished – a tiny amount of beam gets clipped by the bag top, but what is left is plenty bright enough on both medium and high settings, and usable on it’s lowest setting if the worst happens and I need to ride long hours on backup light alone.

The Etrex took a while to find satellites and start trip recording, but once it did the figures it logged matched exactly with my normal Edge 500. Both can be seen right in the top view of the layout. On LEL, the Edge will not be present, it’s place on the stem will be taken up with a clip for printed instructions as backup to the GPS, should that fail. But for now, it stays there to see if I can rely on the Etrex.

At this stage, I can cut to the chase and say that after a 115km ride on Wednesday, and another 100km today, the Etrex has performed spot on. I’ve no idea if the jitter is something which develops over time, but for now it looks like the Etrex has been retrieved from the back of the spare gadgets cupboard and has a new role to play helping me on LEL.

Another thing that has been a pleasant surprise is that the setup doesn’t seem to affect bike handling too badly. The weight of the front end is noticeably higher, which of course you start to feel on hills and as the rides get longer. It also makes the steering a little twitchy – a slight veer of the steering has a tendency to become a major swerve and you need to quickly correct it to avert disaster, especially when riding two up in group formation. But it didn’t take long to get a feel for this, and by today’s ride I wasn’t wobbling around any more than usual. I’m sure the bar bag adds a bit of wind resistance too, but given LEL is not about racing speeds, I don’t think this will matter much. I am glad I didn’t go with the bigger 5L bag though, I reckon that could be a handful and not really worth it for the extra space.

So all in all, a decent first week of LEL preparation and testing. Physically and mentally though, I’ve probably been the weakest link these last two rides. Motivation to get out of bed and out the door has been lacking, and I’ve doubted myself towards the end of both rides. The energy sapping high temperatures haven’t helped though, and nobody said training for a 1,400km ride would be easy!

The first of the logs below was direct from the Garmin, second was from the Edge 500, but could have also been from the Garmin if I hadn’t wanted the heart rate data logged.

All photos by Rob Walker

It’s been a bit of a battle getting back to blogging since the start of the year. I could blame being too busy with friends and family staying, getting back to work, getting back to cycling, or any number of other excuses. But they would be just that, excuses.

The real reason is pictured right – the memorial ride that our club joined in Stellenbosch last Sunday to mourn the tragic death of Burry Stander, knocked down and killed by a taxi driver whilst riding back from a training session on 3rd January. The cycling world and South Africa lost a true hero of the sport, and suffered the worst imaginable start to the new year. The lightest of breezes blew across the thousand or so riders gathered together on The Braak, with tributes spoken over the somehow fitting sound of bells from surrounding churches. I doubt a dry eye left that field for the short ride to lay flowers and mark Burry’s passing at Jonkershoek gate. It’s hard to find a more beautiful stretch of road  than those few kilometers along the valley rising up from Stellenbosch, or a worse reason for riding them. A solemn and painful reminder that when we get on our bikes to enjoy the sport we love, we are all Burry, or Carla Swart, or any of the too many victims killed on roads here and around the world – fragile and vulnerable, hoping that the drivers today will see us and give us room.

The start of 2013 has at least also included some happier personal moments too – top of the list being my son’s fourth birthday, followed a day later by successfully securing an entry for LEL 2013. Yoli thought I was barking mad when I set the alarm to wake me at 3am on 5th Jan, and trudge bleary eyed to my PC to go online and book my place. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that the web site had opened two hours earlier than planned, but luckily there were still places available, and by 3:30am my payment was made and entry was confirmed. 

Despite Yoli’s doubts over my sanity, I was glad I didn’t just wait for Saturday morning – I’ve read since that by 7am, all of the places had sold out, despite the number of places being increased from 750 to 1000. Who would have figured that there are 1000 people in the world mad enough to consider entering such a ridiculously hard event, let alone get up in the small hours of the morning to make sure they didn’t miss out. Sad to say, it seems that of the 13 or so other SA riders that I’d heard of expressing interest, only 2 others also managed to get in early enough to book their spot. Having swapped a few emails over the last few days, it does sound like there will be at least one or two local Western Cape cyclists interested in joining in on some long training rides. This last week has made us all even more painfully aware of the dangers of riding alone. With a need to start building up to 300km rides, and back-to-back training days, the risk increases proportionally with the amount of time spent on the road, especially the dark hours at either end of long riding days.

Which brings us back to where we started – in a field on a bright summer Sunday, mourning in Stellenbosch. None of us want to dwell too long on what might happen to us while out riding. None of us will forget Burry either.

All photos by Rob Walker

My training log for 2012, according to Strava, stands at 5,713km and 292 hours out on the road. At just over 100km a week, that’s not a huge mileage compared to what really dedicated riders might put in. But at probably five or six times the distance I’ve covered in previous years, it does represent a pretty big increase for me.

There’s a lot more hidden beneath that headline number though, as anyone who has followed this blog over the past twelve months will have realised. This time last year, I had invested in my first decent set of road wheels, and with them had managed to put in my first sub-4 for a 90+km race. Beyond that though, my cycling aspirations were hardly different from any previous year: stay fit; ride a good Argus; and then do some mountain biking through the winter until the road season started again. And then I stumbled across a short forum post on The Hub, and everything changed.

I could hardly have imagined reading that post would lead to such an active and memorable year of cycling, which included me spec’ing and building a complete new bike, joining a cycle club, undertaking my two longest rides to-date (The One Tonner and the DC), and finally crossing the line of Die Burger with an even bigger smile than last year’s sub-4 when I stopped the clock at under 3 hours.  this year, whereas the previous year. None of those had been remotely in my cycling goals for the year when 2012 started, which I guess bears strong testamony that even in this digital multimedia age, the power of words to inspire and motivate remain as strong as ever. Those few short sentences in an inocuous forum posting literally changed the course of my year.

Hidden within the wonderful cycling moments from the last year, there are also quite a few smaller, but no less significant events. Since Jolly has been finished, I’ve only suffered cramps on one brief stretch of one ride, and that was after pushing myself way above my training levels. I always felt that my annoyingly persistent cramps were a sign of a general lack of fitness and practice, and I’m happy to say that seems to have been proven to be the case. Training harder, coupled with a bike that fits me properly, seems to have banished that particular suffering to the darkest depths of over exertion. Nutrition is something I’ve continued to learn and understand better, and specifically the need to look at what I’m eating when off the bike, as well as making sure I have the right sort of fuel when out riding. Taking more care to up my calorie intake during more intense training periods, and especially in the recovery hour after a tough ride also helped eliminate a bad sequence of bonking on rides, at least for now anyhow.

I had hoped to get one last ride in for the year today, but family commitments and a nasty chest cough sadly saw me scrapping that idea and canceling my alarm clock. So here I am at my desk instead, remembering some of the highlights of a great year of cycling, and looking forward to what lies ahead in 2013. Certainly, everything that I have learned about cycling and myself this year makes me feel confident that when LEL entries open on 5th Jan, I’ll be at my PC ready to try and book my place. Well as confident as anyone can be about entering a 1,400km ride having completed nothing longer than 202km previously.

NRG = No Relying on Gel ….

It doesn’t really mean that at all of course, at least anywhere outside my weird imagination. Reading the letters aloud does sound like the word “Energy” though, which is the real subject of this article, and something the above mnemonic helps me keep in mind.

Before that though, let me say I have nothing against any brand of energy gel, from Gu through Hammer and all the many other options. I’ve used them a lot, perhaps almost too much, in the past and my reliance on them may have obscured other factors I should have been paying attention too in my riding. But they can definitely have a place a riding energy plan, as long as you understand that place and have the rest in balance.

If you’ve been reading this blog from the start, then you’ll know about my first great bonk when trying to ride on water alone. After that I entered my “second phase” of training and riding, where I understood the need to supplement my energy before, during and after riding.  During this phase, I tried a number of different drinks and sachets, but the overall approach on a race day was always the same:

• ~500ml of energy drink in car on way to a race
• Gu at the start (later on I swapped this for a Hammer Gel)
• Energy drink in 1 bottle on ride, sometimes in both
• More gel’s spaced out during ride
• Occasional snack bar, banana if I felt like it

During training days, I just usually took one energy drink bottle, and one plain water – and a snack or two.

By now, experienced cyclists and nutritionist are probably laughing their backsides off, or cringing silently. You see there is a one vital elements their missing – Real Food. If you ride long enough even stubborn headed mules like me eventually learn this, or someone tells you. Unless you have an iron constitution, no amount of supplements can make up for a lack of real food and eventually your body ceases to be impressed by all the liquid carbs being thrown at it and starts to complain in painful ways. Anything from stomach cramps to things indescribably worse to deal with on a bike ride, with chemical toilets once every 30km or so if you’re lucky.

In fact, the real food approach isn’t really something new to me either – I took new potatoes on my first Argus, and they were one of the nicest things I ate on the day. But in amongst the training I’ve had a tendency to look for solutions in energy drinks, or tinker with extra bars or gels rather and overlook carrying plain and simple stuff to eat.

A few weeks ago though I was forced to step back and re-assess. I bonked badly on a couple of training rides leading into the One Toner, struggled over the last 50km of the race itself, and then had my worst bonk ever at the end of the following DC training ride. I’d had a slight suspicion of suffering a bug, but nothing ever really surfaced. So rather than blaming a mystery illness, or falling back on the all too easy “over training” explanation, I put the spotlight on my nutrition. A number of people, including Penny and Andri had suggested it as a possible cause, so it definitely seemed worth a look.

Almost as soon as I started to focus on this, one glaringly obvious thing jumped out at me. Since June I’ve increased my normal training level massively, tripling and more my training kilometres from previous years, not to mention the gym sessions. But I was eating exactly the same during the week. The nett effect, I suspected, was that although the 10kg I’d dropped was definitely weight I could afford to lose, it also seemed that my training was burning calories I wasn’t putting back, leading to fatigue at the end of longer rides

With not many weeks to correct things before the DC, I attacked the problem on multiple fronts. The first part being to eat a lot more during the week – big bowl of ProNutro or muesli before I hit the coffee, and then both mid morning and mid afternoon feeds in between normal meals. The second part of the attack was packing twice as much food on rides, the extra food being potatoes bananas, and low GI health bars. And not just taking this along, but making sure I actually ate them rather than coming home with them untouched in my jersey. In addition to what was packed, I also bought and ate snack bars, and chocolate milks at our midway stops too. The last change was to stuff my face at the end of a ride too, making sure to put in plenty of fuel to replace what the ride had burnt up.

The bizarre thing is that despite eating a lot more, I’m also now perpetually hungry – I just seem to have become an eating machine. Yoli has started calling me her ‘ruspe‘ (Afrikaans for caterpillar). But at least so far, the results have been good – no more bonks, and finishing training rides with something left in the tank. The DC this weekend will be the real proof though. I have to confess to being nervous as hell at the prospect of my first 200km ride, even with better training and eating of recent weeks, I am all too aware that the last 50km will be completely unknown territory for me. Here’s hoping I’ll have the energy on the day.

My Garmin was reading 51km as our group of riders paused briefly to agree the rendezvous point before we tackled the pass ahead. We’d done about 3 or 4km of very gradual incline since leaving the Paarl but the real work was still ahead. The Garmin would roll forward another 30km before we would all met up again at this spot.

Despite a number of fellow riders re-assuring me that Du Toitskloof Pass was long but not steep, I was very definitely daunted. In fact I’d been nervous at the prospect for the last  few days – I didn’t have any doubts that I would make it, but I was much less confident how much would be left in my legs afterwards to deal with the remaining 50km to home once the climb was behind us.

My nervousness wasn’t helped by a nasty crash in our bunch earlier that morning, less than 10km into the ride. The warning signal for a pothole hadn’t passed back to the tail of the group and Des went down as his front wheel pitched into it. John was close on his wheel and, being unable to avoid the fallen rider, ran into him, somersaulting bike and all to an equally hard landing on the road just beyond. Des immediately pulled out but somehow John rode on for a few kilometres. Frankly I’d have been too battered to continue but John either knows how to fall better or is just plain tougher than me. Sadly his bike wasn’t so tough and it soon became evident that his rear derailleur was too badly broken to continue, forcing a second early retirement before we’d even reached Stellenbosch. As if that weren’t enough, to cap off my unease was the knowledge that the temperature was forecast to be over 30 degrees by the time we started the return leg. And that forecast was for Somerset West, Paarl is frequently hotter by several degrees.

The moment was here though – no longer any point worrying, it was time to get cracking and get the job done. Having driven the road a few times before I already knew what a majestic sweep of tarmac lay before us, and how fabulous the views over the Paarl winelands were for the whole of the journey to the top. So if the legs or lungs started to falter, a quick glance at the jawdropping scenery to the left should at least provide a mental boost to my efforts. The downside of having driven the pass before was knowing exactly where the top was, and it’s appearance high up on the distant hillside was a sobering sight.

Over the first couple of kilometres I was surprised to find myself not far off the leading group, but I knew that would not last even before Penny commented that they’d start accelerating soon. As the road swung right into the cool shadow of the deep horseshoe corner before it’s straight ascent up the side of the mountain, I dropped a gear and settled back into a steady pace which I hoped would be sustainable for the rest of the climb. Even before the road swept back left out of the hairpin both the lead group and Penny were already matchstick figures across the widening gap, and I began what I imagined would be a solo battle to the top against the sudden blasts of a gusting wind. I was wrong though.

“Latch on Rob“, came a friendly call from Paul and Alita as they passed me.

“I think I’ll just need to grind this one out to the top“, I replied and prepared to watch them slowly disappear as well.

I’m not sure what changed to be honest. A couple of minutes went by and they were a few metres ahead. A few minutes more though, and the elastic semed to have stopped stretching. I don’t really remember altering my cadence, or shifting gears, but I must have because I gradually began to reel the distance back in. Without really intending too, I reached Alita’s wheel and latched on. I doubted I’d be able to stay with them the whole way, but I resolved to do my best to hang on as far as I could. I wasn’t sure the guys had realised I had kept up until Paul called back a few minutes later:

“Doing ok Rob?“

“Yes thanks Paul, hanging in for now I think. Not sure I’ll be with you all the way but appreciated the help” I responded. Maybe I hadn’t really caught them, maybe without looking back, Paul had slowed ever so slightly to encourage me join them. Either way, I was very grateful of the company.

Just as John, Penny, and everyone had predicted, the climb wasn’t steep. It was relentless though, and long. I forget which of us remarked first on how cool it was to be tackling a climb of similar length to those you see on mountain stages of the Tour de France, albeit with a considerably kinder gradient and lower summit. I also remembering commenting that I’d been looking forward to this ride for weeks, although now I was actually on it, sweating and puffing like a broken steam engine, I wasn’t quite sure why.

Somewhere, I’d guess it was a little beyond half way, we caught up with Graham, and as we briefly became four riders I decided I had to at least make some token gesture of helping the cause and took the lead. We dropped our pace a little but, struggling with a chest cold, Graham told us he wanted to go at his own pace and we must push on ahead. I picked up the pace again, and stayed at the front for a little while longer.

Some time later we saw a group of bikers parked on the left, and it wasn’t until I saw the road’s final sweep right across rather than up the hill, and noticed two of our riders under the shade of the tree that I realised we’d reached the top. It had taken about an hour to get there, but the company, the views, and the steady effort, had compressed time so much that it actually seemed like just a few minutes.

“Made it” was the simple text I sent to Yoli, with a photo attached just to prove it. Behind those two words though was a great sense of relief and more than a little satisfaction at having ticked off this fabulous climb from my list of must-do rides.

After a quick stop for a breather we started the rewarding blast back down. Even at my cautious pace, it took less than 20 minutes, but in another bizarre warp of time and space the journey down seemed to be about twice the distance of the route we’d cycled up.

The ride home was in fact hotter than the forecast had promised, and I was very glad of the stop in Paarl to fill up water bottles. A couple of weeks back I started upping the calorie quota in my energy drink bottle, which definitely helped keep me going longer and stronger over the last stretches of the ride home. We’d kept together well as a group on the way out and the initial stretches home through Paarl, but our pace quickened along the later stages of the R101 back to the four way stop at Klapmuts. Without John’s leadership, the inevitable happened and the group split was we started along the R44. I just about clung on to the fast bunch to the top of the Wiesenhof hill, but with 30km still to go I knew my legs would last at their pace, and so once again I settled in to what I imagined would be a solo effort home. 

Again I was wrong, and again it was Paul who proved it. This time he was ahead of me but as we reached the outskirts of Stellenbosch I realised I’d steadily been gaining on him, and with the gap down to less than a hundred  metres I put in a few quick turns on the cranks.

“Not much left in the legs, I reckon it’s time to take it easy for this last bit” I said as I pulled alongside.

Paul hardly had time to respond, before another rider, also called John, joined us and again we were three for the last small effort home. I was pleasantly surprised how little pain and cramping I was suffering and how much I had left in my legs for the last ramps up Yonder Hill and then Irene Avenue. I’d paced my effort well over the 130km and finished tired, but not exhausted and only a little sore.

Du Toitskloof Pass had not disappointed either. It took more than two centuries from the original idea for the pass in 1725, to it’s completion in 1945. Numerous passes with lesser engineering challenges were built in the interim, including the nearby and equally majestic Bainskloof which is also high on my must-do list of rides. Having been superceded in 1988 by the Huguenot Tunnel, the pass now seems to be mostly used by trucks, presumably looking to avoid the toll, and bikers enjoying the thrill of speeding through the snaking corners. And of course cyclists like ourselves this weekend, looking for thrills of a more energetic kind.

It’s so glaringly obvious that it’s surprising how often we overlook the fact that we literally owe our lives to our parents, whether those lives are good or bad. Quite apart from the genetic material that became fused and handed down to us in a miraculous instant of biology, are the formative years from birth to early adulthood: where we lived; who we had around us; how our parents treated us; what education and healthcare we received; and whatever preparation and contacts they helped us form as we made our first tentative steps towards independence. As I said, this stuff is so obvious we forget it pretty much every day after we fly the nest, assuming of course we hadn’t already lost sight of it. A couple of things have helped change that forgetfulness for me in recent years, the first of those was becoming a parent myself. Through the amazing highs and lows of the sometimes terrifying parental roller-coaster you realise exactly how much hard work and sacrifice your parents had to go through to bring you up. Suddenly all of your flaws and mistakes, however well intentioned, affect another life that for the next few years is utterly dependant on you. It’s humbling, and if it doesn’t extinguish the last embers of the ungrateful child in you then you’re missing something.

The second big change was when my dad died a couple of years back. I’ve heard it said that losing your parents is one of life’s rights of passage, and I can say for me that was all too painfully true. In amongst the grief, something so odd happened to me at the funeral that it’s a struggle for me to put it down in words. During the moving eulogy it was mentioned how much Dad loved to go to the beach with my sister and I – another thing which I had forgotten down the years. A little later as we went to drink a toast at Dad’s wake the bizarre event  occurred. I pulled out my phone and the background wallpaper had changed to a photo taken of our son Ben a couple of weeks before – at the beach. There he was sitting in the sand beside his ball, looking back at me. I’m sure I had been fiddling with the phone in my pocket during the service, because I am an obsessive fiddler. But to get all the way through the menus, select that one picture and then set it as the wallpaper took so many clicks on my old phone I could barely manage it even when I was holding it in front of me. To have it happen blind in my pocket based on random fiddling seems incredible. Despite being a normally rational person, it feels like some remaining spirit of Dad guided those fingers with a purpose – to send me a message that he had shown me everything I needed to be a good dad myself, and all I needed was to follow his examples. Get out there, play, go to the beach.

I’m willing to bet that as Bradley Wiggins crossed the line in the yellow jersey this year, he thanked his dad, probably both his parents, for helping him to become the first ever Brit to win the Tour de France. I can’t pretend Dad had anything like that influence on my late developing interest in cycling, but there are some cycling related things I remember clearly from my childhood. One of these was that both my parents believed bikes were not gifts for birthdays or Christmas – but represented transport and independence for us as growing kids. As a result, we always had a bike that fitted and worked, and it got replaced when it became too small or worn out. The first bike I recall properly was my first “big bike” – it was a bright gold and red, and I think it was a Raleigh. I forget if it had gears, I have a vague memory of a three speed Sturmey Archer with a twist grip change, but maybe that was one of my friends’ bikes. I fell off it the first day I rode it, but after that shaky start it became much loved and abused. Funnily enough, in later life I fell off each of my motorcycles exactly once too – and they also became much loved. The last bike they bought for me was a blue and red Dawes, with front and rear dérailleurs with old school, non indexed shifters either side of the down tube. I think it was a 10 speed, even though that seems ridiculously few compared to modern machines. That bike lived up to my folk’s belief in bikes as transport, and got ridden to and from my secondary school many times in good and bad weather.

Another cycling influence which came from Dad is stories he told to me of his own adventures as he was growing up. These have taken on a greater significance to me in the last couple of years since his passing, and as the time I have spent cycling has increased. I wish I’d listened more carefully to him telling them to me as a child, although I guess what I really wish for is that he were still here to re-tell it to me. I’m fortunate though, Mick Milward was one of Dad’s gang of friends, and he has kindly shared with me his recollections of one their greatest cycling adventure to add some meat to the bones of my own sketchy memories of Dad’s tales.

At this point I’ll let Mick’s words take up the story ….

That Cycle Trip in 1948

I have written out the cycle trip for my own ‘history’ which I keep saying I will write. So it is a bit longer than I thought it might be.  I have added a map, which is a modern one with motorways – they didn’t exist then in 1948.  In the description in my diary there was a name against each day – maybe we took in turns to be the leader, but I don’t really know.

Wednesday August 18

            From West Bridgford to Holmfirth YHA                                 Derek         67 miles

            The route would have been through the Peak District.

I remember that when we arrived at Holmfirth town we then had to ride (or push) 2½ miles up a steep hill to the hostel.

I described the hostel as ‘indifferent’.

Thursday August 19

            From Holmfirth YHA to Barley YHA                                      Mic              45 miles

This must have been through places like Hebden Bridge, Todmorden, and Burnley to reach this small village in the shadow of Pendle Hill.

‘Very good hostel’.

Friday August 20

            From Barley YHA to Arnside YHA                                         Geff            53 miles

The obvious route would have taken us over the Trough of Bowland and then up the coast into Cumbria (Cumberland).

‘Good hostel’

Saturday August 21

            Day of rest, looking at the sea, maybe a bit of train spotting.

Sunday August 22

            From Arnside YHA to Askrigg YHA                                       Derek         45 miles

Route via Kendal, Sedburgh and Hawes with quite a few hills through the Yorkshire Dales.

‘Hostel poor!’

I seem to remember going to a film show in the village hall in the evening.

Monday August 23

            From Askrigg YHA to Malton YHA                                         Mic             63 miles

A fairly level ride through Wensleydale, then via Masham, Thirsk, pushing bikes up Sutton Bank and on to Malton.

‘Indifferent hostel’ – but I made a note in the diary – ‘Beware Warden’s wife’ – these were the days of doing jobs at hostels – she was probably a dragon in her kitchen!

Tuesday August 24

            From Malton YHA to Bridlington YHA                                    Geff            30 miles

            A short journey across the Wolds.

At this point Derek went to stay with his Aunt.

‘Indifferent hostel’

Wednesday August 25

            From Bridlington YHA to Tickhill YHA                                    Mic             73 miles

Geoff and I continued our trip down main roads via Goole (no Humber Bridge then), and Thorne to the village of Tickhill, near Bawtry.

This journey was memorable only for a strong head wind which absolutely exhausted us.

‘Bad hostel.

Thursday August 26

            From Tickhill YHA to West Bridgford                                                       40 miles

Presumably the wind had eased off a bit as we travelled down the A60 through Nottingham and back over Trent Bridge to West Bridgford and home.

Derek must also have returned by the same route as Geoff and I a day or so later (unless he returned in luxury by train!)

                                                                                                Total    416 miles

You have to remember the date when Dad and his gang undertook their ride. Forget busy roads filled with too many noisy cars and smelly trucks, and imagine a quieter more rural age, with quiet empty lanes, and with cars being outnumbered by trains, horses and agricultural vehicles. As Mick points out, the M1, the world’s first motorway,  hadn’t even been built yet. Even on today’s busy and sometimes smelly roads, my heart soars when flying along on a beautiful day in, and I have some sense of how much freedom they felt from riding on emptier and quieter roads in my own childhood.

The part that remains vague, despite Mick’s detailed account is exactly where and when Dad did his 100 mile ride – his One Tonner. This was the part of his story which which had me most in awe as a child, wondering how anyone could possibly ride that far. It was pretty close to exactly 100 miles from Dad’s parent’s house in West Bridgford, a suburb of Nottingham, to his Aunt in Bridlington and I am quite sure this was where he rode. But I’m also sure the ride can’t have been on the way back from the 1948 youth hostelling trip after they parted ways in Bridlington. The reason being that I do remember him telling me he tried to ride back to Nottingham from his Aunt’s once but it was so windy around the Humber, he turned back and got the train home. So I think it most likely that his One Tonner was a ride to Bridlington, and therefore took place on a different occasion. 

Many thoughts pass through my mind during the moments of peaceful contemplation when out cycling, and Dad and his cycling stories are often among them. They’ve just announced that the date of the PPA One Tonner for this year will be 14th October. It’s a ride I have wanted to do for a number of years, and if fitness prevails, I’ll be joining my DC Team on it as part of our training. Even though we’ll be working as a group, probably at a pace above which I’m completely comfortable I’m sure thoughts of Dad’s One Tonner will be with me along the way. I also hope that one day, something of what I do or a story I tell serves as such a fond and enduring memory to our own son.

Many things were civilized about today’s ride to Franschhoek: the 8am start, not only an hour later but lighter, and with much less traffic; a beautiful day with sunny blue skies; a relaxed and friendly pace in our small group of mid-week riders.

Top of the list though has to be the midway coffee stop, and very specifically the excellent chocolate filled croissants. I need to backtrack at this point and explain that on our last ride to Franschhoek I foolishly let John guilt me out of ordering one. Excellent as the bran muffin was on that occasion, it left me hankering after a croissant ever since. The Betty’s Bay coffee shop makes a great coffee, but on our last trip out that way they only had muffins. So today, nothing was going to guide me away from some seriously loaded patisserie. Fortunately, it didn’t disappoint – fresh, light and delicious. The perfect accompaniment to a decent cappuccino.

The ride back was a joy – the wind which had slowed our progress into Franschhoek was firmly on our backs and made for easy riding back to the turn towards Helshoogte. On the steady rise up through Pniel, the day warmed noticeably, and with the strenuous and sweaty final climb still ahead of us we stopped to shed the last of layers of wind protection. My legs just didn’t have any drive in them today – Sunday’s 90km DC ride, followed by Monday’s hamstring exercises in the gym had left my legs heavy acheing. I just about managed to cling on to Penny’s wheel through to the summit of the pass, but there was no sprint left in the tank for the final stretch. The ride and day were far too nice for that to bother me though.

We kept up a nice steady pace through Stellenbosch and back to Somerset West and the ride was over all too soon. A great last ride before our vacation, one that leaves me looking forward to a nice break and the DC training programme kicking off in earnest when we return.

All photographs by author.