J2C 2&3: The Ride Stuff

The first three days of the Old Mutual joBerg2c are long, flat and arduous if you’re not in the right frame of mind for that kind of riding. Being a LOPPer, a Legend of Plum Pudding (self-proclaimed, of course, by the eight of us who ride up and down the steep Plum Pudding jeep track behind UCT in Cape Town), I’m not used to flat stretches of speedy riding.

In Cape Town we go up and down. At the joBerg2c you do too – eventually – but first you have to get out of the Eastern Free State. To do that, you cycle first from Frankfort to Reitz (day 2) and then from Reitz to the massive Sterkfontein Dam (day 3). Monday’s day 4 is a 114km trek from the dam to Winterton in KwaZulu-Natal.

Day 2 was fairly unremarkable; made up mostly of district road. Day 3, apart from some smashing singletrack down Mt Paul, is much of the same.

To get through the long days you need to set goals – mine was simply to get from water point to water point. To do that you need to jump on the fast moving buses of focused mountain bikers. Unfortunately, like the classic London Bus joke, there’s never one around when you need one, and then when you don’t (like when you’re sitting at a water point chomping on some serious boerewors), two come flying past.

The highlights of day 2 and 3 are definitely the water points. The local farmers go all out to provide riders with as much nosh as humanely possible. Because of that, it’s almost impossible to leave the festive tables to jump on another bus. On day 2 you also pass a wolf sanctuary where abused and abandoned wolves are cared for. If you’re lucky, they start howling as you go past.

Each day of the joBerg2c gets better as the ride goes on. Today the singletrack tasters were just a warm up for what comes on day 4 – a drop off the escarpment after riding along the top on a section called Great Wall My China. From there it’s some literal ups and downs interspersed with some of the most incredible riding in the country.

My partner, Andrew, has been strong so far and he’s basically pulled me from Heidleberg to Sterkfontein. He very generously asks if I want to go in front on the singletrack, erroneously believing I’m ready to bomb down when all I want to do is catch my breath.

The goal for tomorrow is as ever, water point to water point. Though it comes with a small caveat. Andrew has to leave the event for his daughter’s 21st – (thanks, Chloe!), so we need to be in Winterton by 1:30pm. It’s either going to be the ride of my life, or the most spectacular blow out since the Hindenburg.

Read all Dave’s J2C blogs

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