OK, I will add my 10c worth to this one... Left Centurion at about 14h00 on Friday. The wife and kids are excited. We booked a few camping sites at Mbizi. Everybody looking forward to a 5 star camping weekend away. Not the usual budget parks we usually stay in when going on a cycle weekend!
Friday evening was COLD in the tent. Not the best night before my first 80 km race in a few years. Well now that I think about it, I never finished a 80 km ride before... I did the Sabie Classic, but lost my way at the top and almost lost my bike. DNF. Then I did the Caroo2Coast with a few friends. We were a bit slow so we missed the cut-off - DNF. Then I did the Sabie Shenanigan with a friend - he only finished the day section. I rode the night section with another team - I finished but the team got a DNF. Then I did the Slanghoek Mountain2Mountain - I officially came last on the 55 km race with a time of 5 hours 30. The guy that finished just ahead of me was Koos van der Merwe - no joke! As my wife mentioned in her infamous wisdom, at least I am back on the upswing - I finished a race! Sing with me: "Caaaan yoooou feeeeeeel the loooooove toniiiiiiiight....." Well, back to the Lionman. I did this one with my Heavy (swaer in afrikaans). He got an entry just in time (do not know where - entries closed long ago!) and did not had enough training time, but he is such a natural and extremely strong, so he ended up waiting for me after about every climb and on the long false flats. The only sections I managed to stay with him were on those awesome rocky downhills!! We left Mbizi at about 7 am. Arrived and parked a long way down the runway. I had to go to the tupperware toilet, so I left in a hurry. Arriving there I was bitterly disappointed. Only 5 tupperware loos and about 50 people waiting. I did some quick maths - 10 people per tupperware, 2 minutes occupation per individual, only 20 minutes before the start of the race! I left and went to the starting chute. Saw Hardy and QT there. Posed for a quick pic, got a nice big hug from QT (thanks QT!) and never saw them again. First bit was nice and fast with some horrible patches of beach (must have been low tide, cause I never saw the waves) mixed in. At least these patches made for some hilarious entertainment as you loose the preferred line and fishtail all over the place. Sometimes you made it and sometimes not. Sideline note: My sister in law did the 35 km and lost her way in one of these. Apparently her handlebars got stuck to another rider's bars and they both went down. She broke her Aitch Bone (Google says this is the English for "Stuitjie", and what google says must be true!) Big surprise to see the Kalahari Pub on the 35 section of the route! I thought it was part of the huge climb in the 80?! Well, this is when we realised the route is different from previous years... So, obviously there must be a surprise somewhere... We went past the 35 and 80 km split feeling strong. As soon as we went to the other side of the runway, the terrain started to change. Saw Flash on his 29'er flying past. We made some good ground on the flats and slight uphills. Then at 50 we hit the first nice climb. A lady lost her way in front of us and forced us to stop and could not get going again duo to the lost gravel and incline. Well, the walk did us the world of good. I also discovered a broken spoke and got it out of the way. Managed to start riding halfway up again. Nice granny climb all the way to the water point. Saw Dirt rider halfway up the hill - made a comment about him being this far back in the field. We shared a chuckle and up we went. Water point provided a banana and I mixed another bottle of carbo drink. It gave me the oomph I needed for the next long slow false flat. A few water crossings made it interesting. A few mud baths saw a few guys taking the plunge. One guy just in front of my riding partner lost it halfway through one of these. Jannie just had to duck to the right to miss him and ended up nice and dirty as well. The cleats just did not want to release after the amount of mud, water, sand and abuse of the previous 60 km's. One of these pig's playgrounds got me cramping after I had to pull a bit hard to avoid putting a left shoe in the mud. A few Enduren tablets, a sachet of Hammer goo and a few km's later it was easing - just in time for the CRUELEST climb I ever encountered. Note to self: This was the surprise, I guess. I had 77 km's on the clock and was looking forward to easing into the finish when we got this nasty thrown in our way. We managed to get about 75% up before we had to disembark and slog our way up there by foot. Good news was that there were the most awesome technical downhills just after the climbs. The bad news was that there were a number of these sharp, rocky climbs. One guy gave in to gravity just ahead of us and fell on his handlebar - OUCH, not a pretty picture. He managed to get up and we continued. Halfway down the big daddy I passed a guy on the cement part and was aiming to exit on the left when he shouted from the back - "NO BRAKES". Damn, I had to get out of his way or both of us will go down in style. It was not something I wanted to consider after almost 80 km and not at the speed we were doing down that cement path! I ducked to the right and gave one massive bunny hop to clear the ditch and rocks. I almost made it. Managed to keep the rubber down and the helmet on top. The other guy stopped his momentum by using the lighter side of a bush on the left. We cruised the last bit and finally rode in at the finish as they called out the name of the second guy during the prize giving. We felt like kings. We conquered the Lionman and I managed to avoid another DNF. Time 5 hours 13 minutes. I was pleased with my performance. Thanks to my Heavy for waiting for me. Well, I got on the plane on Monday and flew out to Ethiopia for a week of workshopping. Hopefully I can get a jog in this evening. At 3500m altitude I hope I will last at least 30 mins before dying... This is the Russian signing out from Addis Ababa. See you some or other Thursday night on the dirt. Hope it will not be another year before we get there... ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Donald Klopper (GMail) [[email protected]] Sent: 18 May 2010 03:14 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [D&D-chat] Lionman 2010 Awesome thanks DirtRider !!! LOVED THE REPORT. One of these days I'll enter a race again. On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Leon van der Westhuizen <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Nice, thanks dude :-) I've done the route the other way 5 times now, and didn't feel like it again. I only heard about the route change long after entries had closed. I also therefore hope they do it this way again next year :-) -----Original Message----- From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: 18 May 2010 14:14 To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [D&D-chat] Lionman 2010 I have been waiting now for 2 days to read a report on this race !!! It seems I will have to bore you all with my account of events . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DarkAndDirty" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/darkanddirty?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DarkAndDirty" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/darkanddirty?hl=en.
