Team J&B’s onslaught on “The Dash” for 2009:
Riders: Jan Nel & Brendan Dawson
Driver: Henk van der Merwe
Firstly I have to extend a sincere and heartfelt thanks to our driver
and friend Henk. I can’t believe he agreed to do this again knowing
what he let himself in for – last year we could still make destination
Swakop sound attractive, but this year he knew all it is for him is a
long night without sleep, dodging tired cyclists on dusty roads
followed by a long sleep on Saturday at Swakop. Thank you, Henk. Not
only was he focused on what we needed at the changeover stations in
terms of support, but got so involved, it was great getting in after a
stage and have him exclaim “Ons is voor, daar’s miskien 10 spanne voor
ons, ons doen great” – the involvement and feeling that he was part of
the team really was inspiring. The only problem is that we will
probably be losing him next year to the bike – the man has urges to
“trap” now – anyone want to ride support for us in 2010 – it’s a free
ride to Swakop, with beautiful beaches and german cuisine….. :-)
The Race:
For a full description of the race, go to www.desertdashnamibia.com.
The event is held on a 340km route from Windhoek to Swakopmund at the
west coast every year. Teams of 4, 2 or 1 may enter, and have 24h to
complete the route. Assistance is only allowed at the stage
endpoints.
Our ride started at 15:00 on 18th December at Whk Country Club as
always. The day was a scorcher, 37-odd degrees C, but at that stage
at least windless. I think the heat put a lot of people off, as there
were an unprecedented number of DNS already. Many poor people had
arrived only a day earlier to be surprised by the incredible heat and
dryness on Windhoek in one of her driest Decembers yet.
We decided to take the first stage, a long klimb up Kupferberg Pass,
easy, as the heat was incredible, but somehow ended up at the top in
1:34, 16min faster than last year in the cooler weather, so obviously
we were in better shape than we thought. Getting to the top we could
see the trouble, almost no-one was ahead of us, and Henk’s excitement
started.
>From there I topped up bottles (mental note – 8min was wasted when we
could have rather had extra bottles ready) and started my 70km sunset
chase to make sure I reached the awesome 10km drop near the end of the
stage before sunset. Hardly off and I realized I was in big trouble –
the wind of about 30km/h was pumping head-on. The first 20km was
hell, at which point a bunch of 5 riders caught me and suggested I
work with them. This helped, and I saw the average speed starting to
at least pick up to about 20km/h, still much lower than I’d hoped for
this section. Unfortunately 15km further the chaps had blown up in
the heat and I pushed on against the wind again. The pass was
awesome, and I looked forward to reaching the valley which should
offer respite from the wind. Anyhow, sunset was approaching and the
wind always dies down after sunset. Unfortunately someone forgot to
tell the wind this, and I arrived at the Kuiseb River bridge wind-
blown and only about 20min faster than last year.
Sign in, see off Jan into the night, begin the drill: Bike on rack,
Drive to next stage start, Recovery drink (1l milk), eat, try to nap,
get dressed and prep bottles and shirt pockets for next stage’s
nutrition, and wait for your teammate to come in while trying to nap.
This is where being near the front was a great help – we could park
near the officials tent on the road, lie in the car and nap, my
teammate then simply shouts as he passes to the sign-in tent, and off
you go. Waste maybe a minute, but you get more sleep in.
Stage 3 was a nightmare, not because Jan said so, but because of what
I could see. Driving it, I realized the road had been badly damaged
by rain, and Jan took about 15 or 20min longer than last year. The
wind didn’t help either, although it did at least eventually die down
at some point during this stage. Stage 3 is infamous for being by far
the worst stage of the ride, 2 years ago, in much better conditions,
I did this stage and came across cyclists standing in the road in the
middle of the night who had just decided they cannot go on.
Stage 4 is what I was stressing about – last year I got on the bike
after a reasonable stage 1 & 2 only to find my engine was seized – I
had run out of fuel, and limped to the halfway waterpoint where, after
a banana and some cooldrink I felt a new man and could press on at a
more reasonable pace. I’d made the mistake of forgetting my nutrition
in the car for the first 100km (stages 1 & 2) and thus ran on wine
gums – ok, but no good for recovering to do another stage. So I was
really chuffed to find the legs doing great and only patches of gravel
to contend with along the route. I ended up wasting about 10min
changing batteries (useless brand-new Panasonics) cut and replace
cable-ties on the helmet, then I was off, and finished about 40min
faster than last year on the stage as well.
Now we could really see the impact of the wind and heat – when we
stopped at each stage there were now only a handful, about 10-12, of
the ~160 support cars, the rest obviously far behind (except for the
one or two cars supporting madmen who were a distance ahead of us,
riding solo as if they were on a 10km race).
Stage 5 was uneventful to Jan, being beg and powerful really helps,
but he had to contend with a really cold headwind for 70km, with no
change in profile so no downhills to even think of stretching your
legs. He nevertheless managed to top his awesome time of last year by
a few minutes for this stage. He was taking some serious strain on
the under-carriage though.
We started Stage 6, the home run, cold, around sunrise (6:00), and
realized that we were feeling much stronger than last year at this
point, so pushed the pace a bit to try and catch some riders who might
be competition to us up ahead. We needn’t have bothered, it was a 4-
person team that had obviously pushed a bit too hard, as we hit the
sand outside Swakop the guys started falling over from sheer
exhaustion. Soooo close. But the last 10km or so seems to take
forever. Jan’s undercarriage was bothering him enough at this time
that he was powering thru the sand rather than ride the harder dirt-
road – what a powerhouse.
We came in at 16h35, about 55 minutes earlier than last year, and I
thought we had a chance to win the Vets cat, which we came 2nd in last
year. Our time would have given us the spot, but the competition was
much higher this year, and we ended up 6th.
What was awesome was that Arno Viljoen of Mr Price GT managed to solo
the ride in 14h07! Wow! And the fastest 2-person team this year did
13h20, so we were way off the mark for that one! Incredible.
Some Stats:
Team J&B overall time: 16:35, overall Position: 11th of 42 finishing
teams, 6th Vets Team in (winning 2-man was also a vets team -
competition was high).
Depart: Windhoek 18th December 15:00 temp 37.6deg.C (shade, highest
temp for the year according to the Whk Met Office), West wind ave
speed ~28kph (yup, a headwind).
Solo: 83 Riders, 53 Finished
2-Person: 44 Teams, 42 Finished
4-Person: 27 Teams, 24 Finished
2-person team format:
Stage 1 - 30km Whk to top of Kupferberg Pass Riders
1 & 2
Stage 2 - 70km Kupf Pass to Kuiseb River
Rider 1
Stage 3 - 70km Kuiseb River to Khomas Safari farm Rider 2
Stage 4 - 70km Safari farm to Blutkopje crossing
Rider 1
Stage 5 - 70km Blutkopje to Walvis Pwr Stn Rider 2
Stage 6 - 30km Pwr Stn to Swakopmund Riders
1 & 2
Total Distance 340km, 200km per rider due to 2 x 30km overlaps.
What I have learnt from the 3 “Dash’s”:
- Even the 4-man team ride is hard, still 130km per rider, and the
conditions are always non-ideal.
- Keep your headlamp as light (no pun intended) as possible.
- Nutrition from the start is all-important for recovery for the next
stages, you cannot eat much and sleep in the 3-odd hours between
rides.
- A good driver/support is worth more than good gear for this event.
- My hardtail 29er is probably the best bike for this event and made
sure I came in feeling only tired, not damaged. Other than the
patches of gravel the bike rolled smoothly over everything – sand,
rocks, etc.
- Because of the heat I chose not to ride a hydrapack and instead
opted for 3 bottle cages. Two problems – 1 – I had to keep checking I
had my bottles while trying to enjoy the passes, and 2 – I ran out of
water on the first 35km part of my first 70km stage and had to stop to
refill at the waterpoint which probably wasted ~10min. BUT I’ll use
this again if I find better cages and use a 4th bottle in my shirt for
the first stage.
- Take cramp prevention tablets early and often – I forgot this but
fortunately caught the cramp early and saved it with a bit of spinning
and cramp-prevent tabs.
- Wax lube is the best for the dusty conditions.
- Don’t try anything new (obvious, I guess).
- Don't count on the water points for anything but water - If I
had food I would have had a major problem - the bananas were seriously
green and untouchable by myself.
- You cannot absorb enough water fast enough to replace your sweat
during the hot climbs, there must be electrolytes of some sort in the
drink.
- The ideal nutrition for these events for myself:
o On the bike: banana, small boiled potatoes, apple,
Perpetuem, biogen/EnerG & water, biogen cramp-prevent;
o After each stage: 1l milk, basic ham/cheese snackwich, 600ml
EnerG, babanabread.
I don’t bother with Gels and so on as the pace of the ride is
endurance, not race. However, I think a gel or 2 could have been a
good idea before the start and during the long climb up Kupferberg.
This is our 3rd time doing this ride, and as we have had no
mechanicals I cannot give good advice here, but as you have to be
entirely self-sufficient during stages I always carry:
- Multi-tool with chain-breaker
- Spare powerlink
- Gators (I ride tubeless)
- 3 bombs
- Spare tube
- A bit of tape somewhere on the bike
- A few really long cable ties
- An extra ziplock of Biogen in case I really bonk.
Well, I guess 2010 is going to have to be a solo attempt – any
volunteers for drivers? Please?
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