Distance – 89 km
Climb – 1695 m
Time – 8 hr 34 min
Av Heart Rate – 122 bpm
Max Heart Rate – 176 bpm
This blog is coming to you from Oudtshoorn, home to every ostrich in creation, and in the Karoo, which is a desert apparently. Desert my arse. Having ridden the Karoo, we now know that ostriches have long necks so as to avoid drowning when it floods following hail storms and torrential downpours, but more of that later.
We are riding from Wilderness to Cape Town on the roads less travelled to ride the Cape Town Cycle Tour. Some of us have left their training fashionably late to the first day of Tour, like Al Watermeyer, Jaime Selby and Andrew Chadwick.
So as to share his sense of dread and misery at the prospect of 1700 meters of climb on his maiden outing, Andrew posted a doom and gloom weather forecast on the chat group, predicting severe thunderstorms resulting in heavy downpours of up to 100 mm, strong gusting winds up to 80 kph, excessive lightning and small hailstones 1 to 2 mm in size. The report went on to strongly suggest we remain indoors and away from metal objects. It especially warned against going fishing or playing golf as fishing rods and golf clubs were both excellent conductors of electricity. It never mentioned bicycles.
None of the weather phenomena above are pleasant on a bike so I chose to ignore Andrew’s doom and gloom predictions and went with my far more cheerful forecast from my cellphone weather app instead, which would have us enjoying a largely balmy day with 0 to 2 mm of precipitation and a favourable tailwind of 16 kph. Accordingly, I packed dry lube only. Linda and Jaime went a step further and opted out of packing raincoats. Silly girls.
The day’s hard toil started almost immediately with a brutal 2 kilometer climb out of Wilderness, complete with 18% gradients. Misery personified, Andrew took time out at the 1 kilometer peg to consider the remaining 88 kilometers. Luckily Adam was on hand to capture the moment. As is his want, Adam was towing a full-sized Zimbabwean flag behind him and never noticed the climb.
We rode into George on the beautiful Seven Passes Road through thick pristine rainforests and over hundred-year-old narrow bridges. I saw Knysna Loeries flashing crimson and green above me through the tall canopy.
It started spitting and drizzling on the outskirts of George. With the daunting Montague Pass disappearing up into the thick cloud above, we stopped to hurriedly put rain jackets on, apart from Jaime and Linda, who put their dustbin bags on. Silly girls.
The old Montague Pass is a dirt road and epically steep from the start, almost as epic as the lightning show that Andrew’s doom and gloom weather report had laid on for us. The lightning strikes were just above us, and just around us. They were frighteningly close. I took much comfort from the fact that I was on an all carbon frame and on rubber tyres, until Gary Prothero told me that neither counted for diddly squat in a lightning strike. He also pointed out to Adam that his flag pole in the back of his bike was longer than a golf club, and as long as a fishing rod. The fastest thing all the day was the speed with which Adam ripped his flagpole off his bike.
Exactly as per script, the excessive lightning was followed by small hailstones 1 to 2 mm in size, but they seemed larger as they clattered down on our bike helmets. Thank God for helmets. The rain was freezing cold and I was almost officially miserable, but thankfully we climbed out of the rain and the hail. The vegetation we were riding through was stunningly beautiful with proteas and fynbos, heathers and ericas, I especially liked the ericas, and pink March lilies. Please be impressed by above of all things botanical, apart from the plants whose names I didn’t know.
The next foul-weather curved-ball thrown at us was the road was closed to all traffic because of flood damage and wash aways. We were buggered. Our only option was to ride back down the mountain, through the hail and the lightning, and then ride to Oudtshoorn on the main road up and over the Outeniqua Pass instead, or we could sneak through the Road Closed Barriers and carry on up the Montague Pass regardless. Suffice to say riding up the Montague Pass in the driving rain, and through beautiful nothingness of the Karoo was easily one of my most epic days in the saddle, although I could have done without the subsequent hail storm and torrential flooding.
We ruminated on having done epic over hot coffee, cream scones and delightful hospitality in the village of Herold.
With no more endless mountains to climb, the remaining 50 kilometers to Oudtshoorn through the Karoo on quiet backroads seemed comfortably anticlimactic, the perfect end to an epic day. Wallace met massive flocks of ostriches and Angora goats for the first time and was very taken with them. The only black cloud on our horizon was a massively dark and ugly black cloud on the horizon.
I was riding with Andrew, Adam and Jaime when the hail storm hit. We heard the hail first, it sounded like furniture breaking. I was confused, but not for long. The first missiles that struck us, like the opening salvo in a snowball fight, were golf ball size, and came whizzing in almost horizontally. Then they got bigger. Because Andrew is good in a crisis, I followed his lead. He screamed like a girl and flung his bicycle in the bush and bolted for safety of Jenny’s car. I screamed like 2 girls and followed suit. By then the hail stones were grapefruit sized but with lumpy stalactites and stalagmites attached, designed to inflict maximum damage. Jenny, Andrew, Wallace and I whimpered in the car and reflected on global warming as the hailstones the size of icebergs crashed into the car, exploding against the windscreen. How the windscreen never shattered I have no idea. Jenny’s car is rather pockmarked this morning but that gives it character.
There is only so much room for ice in the heavens, and the hail storm abated. We started riding again, just in time to be hit another torrential downpour. By the time we eventually rode into Oudtshoorn like drowned rats, roads were closed off because the dry riverbeds that run through the town had burst their banks. I blame Andrew’s lack of training and the attendant bad karma entirely.
Our first Dick of the Day tribunal was almost as intense as the hailstorm. Alastair, Andrew and Adam all received nominations, unfairly in my book. Despite a pathetic but vigorous defense, Adam went on to win the coveted pink wig and glittery tutu for trying to kill us by routing us through the hailstorm.
We are riding to Cape Town to raise money and awareness for Zimbabwe’s pensioners. The money raised will save lives and change lives.
Please follow the donate prompts below.
To donate overseas and on the internet –https://oldlegstour-gdg-j1141n.raisely.com/old-legs-trust
in SOUTH AFRICA please direct donations to the Mdala Trust
The Mdala Trust / Standard Bank
Account Number: 374 230 927
Branch Code (Fish Hoek): 036 009
Swift Code: SBZAZAJJ
*NB Please us OLT as reference on payment
In ZIMBABWE Please can you direct donations to
Bank – CABS Platinum
Swift Code – CABSZWHA
Account name – Old Legs Tour Trust
NOSTRO USD Account No – 1130018407
RTGS Zim Dollar Account No – 1130022072
Please follow our progress through the Karoo on Facebook and on www.oldlegstour.com but be warned, we ride slow like paint dries. Please join us at the Hermanus Golf Club on Thursday the 9th for some much needed refreshments and an Old Legs presentation. Until my next blog, enjoy, ride if you can but always wear a helmet, especially when it is hailing – Eric Chicken Legs de Jong.