Swazi baby

I reckoned I owe someone a ride report. If you have saddle sores, then clearly there are stories worth sharing. Man I can’t believe I left the tub of MarkII in cape town. Also if you take a bike to another country and ride it, it is your right to show off, gloat and share. Since this country was Swaziland, where the national flag includes a shield and spears, I’m going to do it in bullet form (if you’re reading this boss, well then I’m saving you time too)
• Load bike, paddles, etc + other AR paraphernalia onto 1Time flight. No excess charge to JHB, but they did leave the paddles behind. Total baggage weight = 35kg, total pairs of underwear = 1. Beat the partner Pete the Aussie to the homebase.
• Do some business in the big smoke, buy loads of grub and head off to Swaziland via our awesome second JP and his Pajero
• Swazi Xtreme – 60hours non-stop Adventure Race. Get some maps at briefing and tinker around before trying to sleep befoe the 5am start
• First leg is a run around the wildlife sanctuary before jumping on a mystery bus and ending up in Mbabane for some Urban racing. Doesn’t take you long to run out of tar and we end up in a cave. A dirty deep cave with a crawl section. Pete even has a bat fly into him. Helmets +1.
• Dirty boys do a swazi tv interview and run down to the river. To our bliss there are rafts waiting. Swim the grade IV weir, but miraculously jump back in. Shark Marais was there so there should be some concrete evidence
• We line up the compulsory mountain peak and halfway up decide it’s the wrong one. Hit another peak, no marshal. Charge down other side to find dam has disappeared. Go back to ‘wrong’ mountain to find it was right afterall. Eish pappa, at least we weren’t last! Down to dam to swim 300m. Still have helmet on as crocodiles choke on polystyrene.
• Paddle an Epic round dam before it sinks, leave JP to drain it. (an Epic is a moer heavy canoe that has no place in a race – but we got ours with hire charges waived..sweet))
• Jump on mtbs, been going 11 hours hard now. Have to skip lots of optional points as we’re behind sched to make cutoff. Charge through some forest, cane it down from a MTN tower to miss it by just 8mins. 1 point docked.
• Get some solid food down, mom’s 2l block of macaroni has thawed to a gore may. Jump back on bikes and head into forest with some dodgy maps (all updated in ’91), a river on our right and a rabbits foot.
• Make good time of nav and forest roads. Get all the optional checkpoints, even climb a waterfall. Last one took ages as we could not get out of wherever we were.
• Manage to grab 2 hours of our ‘compulsory sleep’ at the checkpoint. Wakeup at 5am shivering, Mixed pairs has its advantages.
• Head down the hill to some brekkie and, another bike leg. Will be 16 hours straight riding…It’s a mindless blast down valley and slog back up. Pete is starting to show his running strength.
• Put the shoes on for the ‘simple’ 8km hike. 2 roads on map, 40+ in real life and some dense forest which could hide a nuclear powerplant. We follow the firebreak around this valley.
• Transition at the end of the world, head down valley through some little villages, awesome riding
• Got option of doing the monster march up to a peak with optionals on adjoining peaks or biking up river for optionals. We go with bike first
• Criss cross river at least 6 times, only footpaths
• Do the march to the peak. Pete is starting to show his running strength.
• Find out we slept the least on night 1 – indicating hardcore status, 4 more hours to make up the 6. Checkpoint placements mean we’ll have to break it up. Head back onto the bikes and slog up the valley in the dark. Little school appears after too many unmarked rivers make themselves known.
• Go up 500m vertical in 8km in the pitch black to a plateau. Payback for this mornings downhill. Feel cheated
• Finally find the optional in this rock garden. Requires scaling a 30m high granite boulder in cleats. Jeremy climbs up the wrong split and jumps across. Eyes like saucers and he gives out the code to avoid anyone else being so stoopid!
• Settle down for some sleep in soft soft pine needle forest, marshall wakes us up at 2am and we try find the last 3 optionals
• Someone at MTN switched off the mast lights and we follow every road up the mountain, but none over it. Eventually throw in the towel and get a power nap in camp before the final leg. Only Cyanosis (winners) actually found any of those checkpoints. They make you earn them on the final day!
• Hike up another mtn to the mast, and pick our route to the kloofing. Blackjacks,lantanas and other thorned creepers unavoidable!
• Swim/scramble/treehop to a 40m bumslide. Looks like a fatal plunge at the end.
• Arrive at the granite cliff on other side of valley to do rope section. Scale the crack and clip in the jumars to climb over the dome. Little fuss as most of the traffic has already left ahead. Scratchy rope skills pass and we hit another peak before pulling into last transition.
• Leisurely lunch and then bikes for last time. 30km mainly on disused railway line, my left leg is not enjoying any walking but biking is manageable.
• Back brake tunes me nooit, but I manage to hodge it together with cable ties…(de)merits of V-brakes?
• Railway riding is awesome. Then aggregrate starts appearing, then sleepers, then rails, then trees. Confronted with bush. Luckily team Kinetic have spent an hour here and option C of heading down slope takes us to a road. Becomes a huge talking point and we find sense of humour all over the valley floor. Photographer’s girlfriend overtakes me up a hill on a makro bike with takkies, I must be tired.
• We find checkpoint in tunnel. Huge debate over how we’re going to get last three optionals on top of mountain. Maybe there’s a road, so I’m with bike, Pete is with foot. Argument solved when we see car driving down featureless mountain. Stand off averted and we snigger
• Take our time up top and scream down a good 400m classic into finish. Forgot about early cut-off and we make it with 5 minutes spare. Talk about getting money’s worth.
• Heaven’s open for a full hour 30minutes later, must thank Derek for organizing that postponement.
• Restaurant offers a R105 buffet dinner. Could be liquidated soon.
• Final four teams pull in hours later. Grumbles about rail sections (some of the optimists didn't have their lights on them!).
• Prizegiving next morning, we came 3rd in Pro Pairs and 5th overall. Not bad and it might have been close if we hadn’t royal jamboreed the first day’s hike.
• Cyanosis defended their title in the teams with Mcain Adventure Fanatics (the ‘b’ squad) just behind, good to see the real pros hammering and tonging for three days
• Distances guestimated: mtb 210km, hiking 70km, paddle 15km, swim 300m – altitude gain, must be everest + kili + aconcagua (give or take a few ben nevis). Race time, 59hrs, 55mins. Total rest: a luxurious 8 hours)
• Stoked that we had no issues with punctures or bikes in general. Pete was on a borrowed GF Tassajara that has done its time and then some. El cheapo Kenda Komodo even lasted the distance.

Go find some pics at
http://www.mccainaddicts.co.za/Race%20reports/Swazi2009/Swazi2009Photos.html