Stage 2 Saasveld (George to Calitzdorp)

Stage started at a furious pace. A cyling peloton seems to have a mind of its own. Unfortunately its not a very bright one. Mark was showing his age early and we got dropped on Montagu pass.:-) He had picked up a heavy crate of grapes the week before and hurt his back. This came back to haunt him on the pass and the poor guy suffered like a dog with a really sore back. Fortunately he carries a small pharmacy in his back pocket and we soon had him high on drugs but cycling with less discomfort. Was nice seeing some enthusiastic Upington supporters at the top of Montagu Pass. Was able to leave my vest with them and get some sunblock.

The majority of the day passed quite quickly with some nice riding. There was however a sting in the tale. A real bitch of a climb in some really hot weather. My polar measured it at 39deg. Had some blokes strolling around on the mountain, their partners pushing the bikes seeing pink elephants. Took us 1hr15 after much wailing and gnashing of teeth to reach the top. unfortunately the descent off the top was even worse. What a nightmare!!! Loose stones scarily steep cement sections sharp hairpins you name it! Fortunately we made it off in one piece. Heard of quite a few brake failures and some spectacular crashes. In fact the whole Calitzdorp hospital was full of casualties.

Rumour has it that already 40 teams have had enough.

Well tomorrow its off to Riversdale. Traditionally an easier day and a fun stopover. (The school kids ask you for your autograph)

Tracking us in Real Time on the Internet

Remember, thanks to our sportstrack transmitter you can track in "real time" on the internet as we progress along the stage. Just click on the link to the right. We start at 7am everyday. So if you log on at anytime after that you can follow us on a google earth map. Zoom in using the +/- buttons on the top left. The "map" that we are tracked on can also be changed. Click on the tabs at the top of the screen. ie street or hybrid etc.

Stage 1 (Knysna to George)

Today was a good day. Not an easy day but a good day. Mark and I wanted to put in a good effort and see how things panned out. Things went well and we finished the 124.7km in 6hr42min. I'll be honest the 3100m of climbing was getting a bit much towards the end.

Had a bit of a giggle at one stage, we'd just come round a sharpish bend on a nice downhill just in time to see Eppie and bike coming out the bush, looking very sheepish. Not long after that, had some plonker get thrown by his bike on a high speed descent right in front of me. Looked quite dramatic and I was quite lucky I didn't go down as well. Wasn't sticking around to see if he was OK. Mark's response words after that were "did you see that yellow bi-plane". Missed the whole thing!

For the record Burry and Christoph took the stage in just over 4hr30. Kevin and David George got caned and dropped out of the top 10.

Just had a massage from Martie which will hopefully sort my problems before they become an issue.

Some photo's from before and after the stage. Didn't get a chance for any pictures during today's stage. Maybe tomorrow!

Prologue

Don't really know what to say about the prologue. It was nice to finally get this epic thing on the road. But I think everybody is nervously awaiting the extreme violation that the next few days holds, so this prologue thing was a bit of a "tease".

The route was pretty straightforward. Took us 47in42sec. Avg of just over 18km/h. All the Upingtoners had times in that region. Eppie and Dirk posted the quickest time so they get the Upington Yellow Jersey for tomorrow. We were 2min down on them. For the record Kevin Evans and David George won the stage in 31 odd min!!!!!!, putting over a minute into the second placed team.

Below are some photos taken today. The "beds" Mark and I are lying on are "Magnetic Mattresses". They are supposed to help all manner of ills including fatigued muscles. Oh well if nothing else at least we'll be "postively charged" for tomorrow's stage!

1 Day to D Day (B Day)!

Cape Town airport a circus. Still, managed to get an earlier flight to George and had Mark pick me up at the airport. Straight down to registration which really has been streamlined. Bought another Epic shirt which brings my collection to......a lot. It won't be long now and the Acid Heads will be able to do each stage of the epic in a(different) "official" shirt.

After hooking up with all the other Upington boys briefly we went up to our home away from home here in Knysna, The Wayside Inn.

The evening saw us attend the Amabubesi dinner. Nice to see some of the familiar faces again. Sat with Tony and Marcel from George and, Achiem and Coenie rom Kby.

We've come quite a long way with Coenie and Achim. They also rode the first epic together in 2004. And being the only other team from the Northern Cape we had a friendly rivalry going. Tony(Conlon)I met at my first To Hell and Back. He had a wicked crash that year, but he's in superb shape now and a serious contender for the Masters section. Mark remembers Marcel with some amusement as the bloke who chucked his bike into the bush at the Attekwas in a fit of rage after one mechanical failure too many.

Ended up buying the "Coffee Table Book", "Guts and Glory" which is a pictoral history of the epic interspersed with some "quotes" from the riders. And since 3 of my quotes made it into the book I felt almost compelled to buy it. That and the fact that while I was paging through the book considering the purchase, Christoph Sauser came up to me and just "sommer" autographed it! This attracted the attention of a photographer who had us "pose" for a whole bunch of photo's.

How to view the days stage.

You will need google earth installed on your computer. If you don't click on the following link to install it on your computer.DOWNLOAD GOOGLE EARTH

Following are step by step instructions for all you hard tail riders out there.

1) Click on the highlighted link for the day's stage in the Blog text.
2) This takes you to the site that hosts all the days' riding text.
3) Scroll down and click on the download file link.

Easy as that!

Finishing Touches

Received my SportsTrack transmitter/receiver together with a quick briefing as to how to use it from Robin this morning. Couldn't wait to go and try it out in the Tokai forest.
If you click on the following link ( http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/45e17ba385_0.01MB )you should be able to see the track of where I rode.You'll need to have Google Earth installed on your computer.I'll put a link on each day's blog entry during the epic.

Rode my uncle's Giant Anthem. Very sweet bike. (see picture above). Would never advise anyone to buy the SRAM X0 trigger shifters mind you. Even though the shifting is crisp and easy, the shifters dig into your thumbs while you grip the handlebars. VERY annoying.

Also went for a spot of physio. Don't really have any niggles but thought it might be a good idea to get rid of the 2 Oceans efforts of the weekend

Last Quality Session

Hadn't planned on putting a big effort for 2 Oceans this year. But it just turned out to be one of those days.

Initially encouraged Toy to latch on to the "sub 1hr 30 bus" and see how long she lasted. Maybe she could stick to the end. Honestly didn't think it was on the cards for me. But as the race went on I shadowed Toy and started feeling quite good. So I took over the pacing. Unfortunately Toy dropped back just a bit. With 10k's to go and 43min to get them done to break 90min, I decided to have a bash.

It meant leaving Toy behind but she still managed a 1hr32 and a PB. Probably because she was trying to catch me and tell me what a "*!!?*&%$ I was for leaving her behind. I managed 1hr28 (not quite a PB) but at the cost of a 87% avg HR. Oh well the silver was worth it.

What luck

For the second time EVER, Toy and I nearly missed the flight to Cape Town. In fact if the plane hadn't been late, we'd still be driving down to CT, and with a "well negative" attitude.

Other than the initial excitement spent a fairly relaxed day. Went and registered for the Two Oceans HALF! Mark looks down his nose (and over his moustache) at the "light" version of the 2 Oceans. Says he doesn't want to start up the "dorsmasjien" for one mielie. I just think he's being a bit of a naf!

Came across an exciting product at the expo. The SportsTrack is a GPS unit that provides specific data about the position of the unit. In other words once you've attached it to your bike it transmits info re. where you are, how fast you're moving, the gradient of the terrain,the temperature etc. All this info will be plotted in realtime on google earth and can be viewed by anyone if they have the units unique code. (Check out sportstrack.net)

The unit is crazily expensive (R5k) but I've been able to rent one for the week of the epic for a fraction of the price (R600). I'll attach a link to this blog, so you'll be able to monitor us as we move along on Google earth. So those of you hven't already done so, do yourselves a favour and go to Google Earth and download the software (Japie, Kannetjies?!). You'll even be able to zoom in on the terrain. I'm quite excited about this little gadget. And I do so enjoy gadgets.

Pimping the Ride

Spent today closing my eyes and throwing some money at my already extremely schweet Specialized S-Works Epic. My old XTR "paddle shifters" served me well but my fingers were breaking off every time I tried to shift onto the big blade up front. I'm going the SRAM route this year and have put on grip shifts X-9. Meant changing the rear derailleur as well. Again am going the X-9 route. Massive price differences between the X9 and X-0 sort of made up my mind for me. Hope the differences are mainly cosmetic. As far as brakes are concerned, was "lucky" enough to pick up an almost new pair of Juicy Ultimates. Add all of this to a new cassette and chain and you can guess that the numbers are getting quite big.

Mark will be on his Scott Ltd. What a "weapon". The thing is lighter than his hard tail. On the subject of hardtails (ht's), so many guys are considering riding them instead of their full sus rigs. I'll be surprised if they don't express a few regrets on more than one occassion. Check back regularly to see how things pan out

I'm off to finish my packing now. Flying down to Cape Town early tomorrow. The holiday starts NOW!