Hours to Launch

Bokspruit - it would be dark when we passed through

The lack of choice through disciplined packing is remarkably liberating.

All of Batch B arrrived in Rhodes within half an hour of each other, to a warm greeting from the race organisers, Meryl and Glenn.

Leon and Coen had driven up from East London, Annie & Stewart from Centurion, Craig is currently based in Ghana which left Carl from Pretoria East and myself from Johannesburg.

Underweight Santacruz

We spent an hour or two prepping bikes and the one thing that stood out for me was how underdressed mine was. The only weight on my bike was the bottle with spares beneath my saddle. The other bikes had an array of bags on handle bars, saddles and top tubes.

The debate on where to load weight is one that continues to vex Freedom riders. In the end it is always a personal choice and I had no need to regret mine over the next five days, especially when scaling fences.

To my horror, I had left my charger cable for my GPS behind. Let me point out quickly that there were no routes loaded on it. It was merely my speedometer and I wanted to record the routes to see where I had gone in the great expanse of the Karoo. (I cannot tell a lie - I also wanted the data for my Strava challenges! There I admit it)

But without a detailed distance measuring device, I was in trouble.

Ready for action?

Luckily Craig had a cable and Glenn had a spare. Disaster averted. (Note: I had wondered whether I should take a battery operated speedo just in case but decided against it. If it had been RASA, I would not have the GPS at all but just a reliable old fashioned speedometer.)

Lamb was served up for dinner but Meryl took pity on me and organised a chicken schnitzel.

There was short race briefing and we would all meet in the morning for a 5am departure.

The soul of mountainbiking indeed