Stage 3
Kakamas To Springbok
Liaison: 270km
Special: 252km
It looked to be a great day. Bit of a bite but clear sky. Breakfast was as good as supper, it was all rolling along super smooth. Just the nagging thought of 500 plus k’s and a big special. I like this part of the world so I wasn’t so worried…
Last checks, broken Sprinbokkie in the background.
Roberts new anti-stress pill – a banana taped to the tank.
Mr and Junior Baragwaneth. Jnr is flipping quick!
The quality of banter at times like these was brilliant.
I don’t know, your guess is as good as mine.
The bonus was that Robert and I were to be riding together for the liaison to the start.
There’s something about riding with another guy for miles on end, yet in my own thoughts. The difference to a social ride is the tension of being in a race and having to observe the limits and rules.
Mark would have a long day…
Yes Master, try I will!
A strong goal that I had set myself was to be hugely more disciplined this year with regards to the navigation. Last year I had more than 2 hours of penalties, mostly for speeding and waypoint infractions. It is so very easy to collect them. To this end I thought I had been pretty good, so it was a bit of a bummer when we came upon albert later in the liaison tootling along at 60 whilst we were doing 80. It was a really short section, so we might have got away with it. Nevertheless is was quite comical the hand signs; us doing a what the hell is wrong? And he slapping his wrist and shaking a finger. Us then scrolling backwards and forwards in the roadbook to frantically see who was wrong.
We were.
Ahhh!
The liaison took ages, a quick refuel in Poffadder with last minute checks, then off to the start.
There’s just something great about getting counted off to start. Must be a subliminal thing having watched too many Dakars.
Rudi and a few others would also have an epic day
Gideon would win the stage, he’s really, really quick,
Eddy would have a tough day at the office
Not sure if he did…
He was playing fuel miser games
The first section was hectically quick. There was a few tricks with the navigation and many guys had already made a few errors. Robert and I were doing pretty well.
Close to the Orange river there was a flash flood that had ruined the road. I got a bit stuck after having been bounced into a thorn tree. In the video you can see all the drama.
I didn’t need any more of those!
Along the Orange River for only a few K's and then unexpectedly we turned up a river bed. I had thought we might follow the Namaqwa Eco Trail but sneaky Alex had other plans. It was a great off piste stretch that led over a watershed to a bit of a scramble down some rocks and towards the Klein Pella farm for a bit of a top up with fuel.
With less than a km from the farm I mistimed a turn and hit a sharp sticking out rock. At first I thought I had gotten lucky but soon the sluggish steering told me otherwise. I had a snake bite puncture.
I’m not anxious about much to do with bikes mechanically or riding, except mud and punctures. Mud is not predicable and punctures I've only ever had 3 and I’ve yet to fix one successfully believe it or not. Each time i've either had to be rescued or rode home on the puncture. One of the three I was rescued by Jaco who brought me a fresh front after I holed mine trying to get it in. I holed that one too, so rode home 60k's on a flat front. I have a bit of a block about punctures.
I pulled over and waved Robert on. He was having none of it. He seemed to think this would take but a second or two. Me, I really didn’t know what was going to happen. I needed an attitude adjustment.
Luckily for me, he did stay because like a premium amateur, not only do I suck at punctures, but I somehow had only 2 18 inch tubes for the rear instead of one and one 21 inch for the front.
I managed to bum a tube off of Willem, a massively big thing to do with 300km to go still. I promised him my wheel if I came across him later.
Robert had helped me get the tube in and we had cut the heavy duty one up to line the tire too. Sadly, meters from the repair I was stopped again. I had pinched the tube! Chalk another puncture failure up 4 for 4! This time I insisted that Robert go. He lent me his patching kit and took off. He’d sacrificed more than an hour of his race to help me out. It was a very generous thing to have done.
It was still a bit of a comedy. My bike fell off the centre stand whislt I had the front wheel out. The last competitor past helped me set it up again. Now I truly was on my own.
So, there I was, last in the race and falling further behind all. At least I had tracker, but no radio (remember I had lost it on day 2).
Then the day turned.
Happily whilst digging in my back pack for my hand pump, what should appear but the radio and batteries I thought I’d lost. Weyhey! Maybe my luck was changing!?
I held my breath on pumping the tire and gingerly rode off to the farm. The whole fiasco had taken 2 hours and 10 minutes. To prevent more pinch flats I was now at 2.6bar. I was willing to swap traction for less punctures. It felt pretty shitty but at least I was mobile again.
I gave myself a talking to; Ride smart, be REALLY good to the front, have fun, look up at the world from time to time to appreciate what a privilege I am lucky enough to be having.
A few hours later I bumped into the last but me, Eddie on his HP2. He had just come through a riverbed with a steep rocky bit and was taking a break. I cast a keen eye over him and really watched him as he spoke to see if he really was ok. He had lots of water and seemed quite fine. This part of the world is super hard and not at all easy to have an issue in. I bid him good riding a carried on.
For the next few hours I was having a ball. This part of the world is just stunning riding. Massive vistas and big desert mountains. The bike was singing and seemed to be making up for the puncture.
Except when I got another fence in my wheel
There were tracks all over the place and they couldn’t be relied upon as cues. Often there were half and half going either way on most splits in the road. On previous Amageza’s I’ve ignored the CAP headings in the roadbook. CAP headings give the heading that you should be on once you’ve made a turn. They are hugely helpful but can be tricky to master. This time though I had them working and wasn’t making many errors and the ones I did make were very quickly fixed. Also, a difference to the previous years I wasn't doing any guessing and hoping. I felt I was really getting this navigation thing.
One pretty good error though occurred close to 3pm. After asking the local sheep guys, it was clear that even they couldn’t make out which way all the people had gone. They said that many groups had come and gone in all directions. I had to backtrack for a few minutes to get right again. It's error after waypoint 104
That bit at the top is in a riverbed. It caught a lot of guys. There were no real indicators to the hard left turn, just faint tracks. The only way to have got it right was by keeping track of the distance and turning when the roadbook said you should.
Late in the afternoon, I started to catch a few groups of guys. I’d run out of water but was feeling pretty good. I had had two water bags but had to use the one on day one for petrol so only had 3 litres to start the stage with. Just when the water thing started to bite, a manned check point popped up with some water. What a blessing that was.
At one point the trail seemed to be doing circles, it was a bit irritating compared to the high speeds of the previous days.
The last major obstacle was a goat track up a mountain to look down on the finish of the stage next to the N7. What a site, what a trail!
(stolen from GG's ride report)
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