Subaru Sani2c Adventure 2008 - Day 2 - “Life’s not all downhill”

 The race slogan should have been ample warning, only its hard to believe 2200m of predicted altitude gain when flying down Nick’s Pass into the Umkomas Valley midway on 20km of sublime single track. But one goes down, must by law, come back up.

I’ve been racking my mind for descriptions doing justice to my in magical morning. It would be something like getting out on the world’s best most exclusive golf course, with the greens just trimmed, the sand perfectly raked. Crowds to cheer you, and no pressure. Dylan and I saw the highlights from last years Sani2c’s Day 2, and decided we had to hit the 20km single track section, ending with Nick’s Pass, in front. Our wheels were the first of some 4400 wheels to go down there over the next 24hours. We hit best conditions, we broke the spiders webs spun across the canopy, we spread the cowdung across the track, it was us.

Nick’s Pass was carved out the side of a valley by 12 local Zulu’s for 4months. Their efforts were not in vain. A roller coaster of banked switch backs and flowing twists and turns. Before I made it to Nick’s pass, I’d spent more time in the mud, identical to yesterday. Front wheel slid out on a moss green section of riding on egg shell’s. I’m clearly no good on egg shell’s.

Yesterday afternoon was a treat seeing some 1000 broken body’s fighting for limited shade supply. Mattrasses dragged to every corner of MacKenzie Cricket oval. The second challenge once you’d claimed our spot in the shade, was the excessive snoring. Impressively unbareable snoring. But the atmosphere was incredible, and the energy tangible. Evening laughs around a prize giving based not on positions but on humorous team names. Such as Stinky and the Brain. S.L.U.T.S. What the f#%k are we doing? And Beer made us do it. Brokeback. Rough Riders. (Hopefully not together). And then there was a comedian, Chris Forest.

It’s a strange sight seeing grown men, respectable men, walking around shamelessly in bid shorts at 3:30am trying to find direction. At first light, a few minutes after 5:20am, the A batch set off, with Dylan and I at the front end…

Around a game of poker, the EA boys bet us we couldnt win the stage. So we did. It was never really my decision, more Dylan. He had to decide how much hurt he was prepared to suffer for an Xbox 360… We went through all sorts of difficulty. Technical, physical, even sense of humour difficulty. Going up “Satan’s Hill”, I dont want to see a Nando’s sign board saying: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”. There’s a time and a place for everything, right? Haha.

It was a 4h50 racing day for us, and now, at 5pm, there are still teams crawling in. A long day in anyone’s book.

(In need of shade)

(Desperately in need of shade)

(Over night bike pound)

Tomorrow we’ll play and ride at the back, try to capture some of the stories on camera for you. A shorter more downhill day.

Apparently steaks are being served up at the marque. Today honestly was one of the sporting moments

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 7:03 pm and is filed under Mountain Biking, News, Sani2c, Sani2c Adventure, Subaru Sani2c Adventure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.