Whales (the fish* not the country)

*I know whales are not fish.

Finally got some photos up from our great weekend in Hermanus spotting whales (and assorted other wildlife). There’s a wider selection here on Picasa.

Wine 2 Whales

So that was a cracking weekend (#2 of my 3 consecutive bike race weekends). The Wine 2 Whales was a real delight. The course was fantastic, the scenery amazing, the weather good (little hot on the first 2 days, with obligatory upper arm burn lines to prove it, and a bit overcast and breezy on Day 3, but nothing to complain about) and the organisation was quite simply superb.

The edited highlights are as follows:

I flew down to Cape Town on Thursday afternoon (flight delayed by typical armageddon-style Joburg thunder storms) after a slightly ambitious bike box plus single piece of hand luggage strategy almost back-fired (my bike box was 8kg over the allowed limit).

Ended up walking onto the plane carrying a spare tyre and my cycling shoes in my hand and wearing my helmet. Nothing like travelling light for the sake of trying to save R350 for checking an additional piece of luggage.

Landed in Cape Town to be greeted by Declan in a rather swish Hyundai IX35 which swallowed both bike boxes with ease. Drove to registration where we (very swiftly) registered. Ate supper at a restaurant at the wine farm where the registration was being hosted (involving a bizarre turn-away by the waitress who greeted us: “we’re completely booked up this evening” then we were ushered back in by the owner who insisted that we must have a table at all costs, and ended up sitting on a half-empty verandah). Had a lamb burger – important pre-race protein. Perhaps.

Back to our hastily arranged accommodation for the evening – a B&B close to the start which Declan had organised from the local tourist information centre that afternoon upon discovering we didn’t have tented accommodation included for the night. Declan escaped early and diplomatically while I was left being regaled by the B&B owner with (something close to) his life story. I then spent a fruitless hour or so trying to fit my new tyres to my wheels, only succeeding in getting covered in soap (I read on the internet that soap might help with getting the tyres on) and working up a good deal of frustration. The tyre saga was not over.

Up early (5:30am) the next day (Friday) for breakfast (shared with the only other pair staying in the place, a couple of racers who’d apparently had 3 top 10 finishes in the event. Suffice to say we tried not to embarrass ourselves, although I did ask if they had any tips for getting tyres onto wheels.

Evade another round of interesting stories from the B&B owner and head for the start line, where Declan drove us straight up to the start (past the ‘No Cars Past this Point’ sign) so that I could accost a mechanic and see if they could fit the tyres – Helderberg Cycles (bless them and all their customers) took almost an hour to fit them, commenting several times that they hoped we wouldn’t need to change or repair them on the trail since it was going to be devilishly difficult to get them off again.

Finally back to the car-park, with an hour before our start time (thank goodness we were due to start in the final group given we had no seeding), and time to actually construct the bikes, and apply copious amounts of sun cream (it was already heating up a lot). Did so in record time (25 minutes), and proceeded, quite proudly, to the start line, where Declan had time for a second breakfast, and I found a farmyard tap to fill my water bottles (with water that tasted distinctly of fertilizer, or at least what I imagine fertilizer to taste of).

At last it was time for the off, and in the last group of the day (where the ‘heart and soul of the race is’ as the announcer informed us in a slightly patronising manner) we trundled over the start line. Early progress was pretty swift – since it was uphill, and it turned out that was Declan and my strength. Not so much the downhills, but we’ll come to that.

We actually caught the start group in front of us somewhere on that first long climb, and after that all the groups seemed to blur into one. We were moving pretty nicely though, and in my opinion the first day was one of the best in terms of variety of scenery, quality of riding, and spectacular views. It was about 75km and all excellent riding, barring a long slog in the middle where there was a compulsory portage as we crossed over a mountain pass up a long ox-wagon track (which was made a lot slower than necessary given the bottle-neck of slow riders stumbling up the hill pushing/hauling/carrying their bikes).

We established an amusing pattern of going past riders on the uphills and flats, and then losing quite substantial amounts of time on the downhills and (embarrassingly) the corners. Declan’s favourite tactic was to wait until there was a corner on the horizon, then dropping the hammer and racing past as many riders as possible, before slamming on the brakes and cornering reasonably well but inevitably without complete control whilst the riders he’d just passed almost piled into the back of him. My approach was usually the same, except with less time to react, a desperate attempt to keep up with Declan’s sudden (and surprising) burst of speed, and then even more likelihood of irritating the riders we’d just passed by slamming the brakes on even harder and taking the corner at a snail’s pace. I’m not sure we made many friends, but testament to the universal appeal of the Irish, Declan’s smooth brogue would usually win over even the most cut-up rider on the course.

We pulled into the finish after about 5hrs 30, having had a cracking day in the saddle.

That afternoon was spent chilling, getting ourselves set in our tents (one each – luxury), getting our bikes cleaned and lubed (and fixed – in my case the freehub had come loose mysteriously – again, thanks to Helderberg Cycles), and getting sports massages (helpful).

The evening was a fun (massive) buffet, with a presentation for the day’s winners in each of the categories, and a forewarning about the delights awaiting us on the next day.

At about 8 or 9pm, after the ceremony, we were already ready for bed, so turned in, looking forward to the next day’s riding.

Up at 6am (ready for a 7:40am start – we’d jumped up from the last (10th) start group to the 5th), and picked up bikes from bike park, wolfed some breakfast (oats), applied sun cream, lost bike computer, rushed to the start line, joined our group with some trepidation (nervous about starting with these much quicker riders..) right at the back. We’d been warned that Day 2 was the most ‘technical’, which given our exploits on any of the corners the previous day, didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence.

Sure enough, after the opening hill (where we made up a bunch of places), the first sections of open downhill farm tracks through the vineyards were occasion for most of the rest of the field to out-handle us, or at least me.

The day got better and better though, and was only relatively short – the singletrack was truly amazing, with the views stunning, and the overall ascent not too taxing. Our handling (if I do say so myself) improved by the hour, and we were practically whooping with enthusiasm as we moved into the final third of the day.

We both bungled the infamous ‘Puff Adder’ section – a northshore boarded segment with a steep cambered right hander above a 5m drop. Declan rode almost straight off the back of it without turning, and I was too close behind him to do any differently (and was thankful of that, since it meant I could legitimately un-clip, admonish Declan for not making it and ruining my chances, and jog over the section wiping away my cold sweat).  

Similar to the previous day, Declan revealed his competitive edge when the finish line was clearly more attainable, and suddenly we were moving through the pack again (after a slowish start). A manic glint in Declan’s eyes developed whenever we spotted a group of riders ahead, and (encouraged by my slightly aggressive calls of “there’s another line of victims…”) he’d suddenly step on it again and whirr grimly past them at a high cadence (again usually on uphill or flat sections).

We were positively racing by the time we got into the final few kilometres, and would have had a classic sprint finish to the line to overtake a final pair if it weren’t for a slightly unfortunate over-cooking of a stream crossing by Declan which sent him sprawling (and left him miffed that it marred what was otherwise a crash-free day).

We crossed the line grinning nonetheless, in about 3hrs 40. More relaxing – in fact we had an afternoon nap, more massages (which left me with more sore legs than before), and more food (found a different buffet area along with the daily Spur beef-burger), and before we knew it we were back in the evening dinner arrangement, then listening to a couple of former Springboks who happened to be riding the race on South Africa’s prospects against Ireland in the rugby that evening. The two massive rugby players sat down on the table next to us as we settled in to watch the rugby (Declan being the only Irishman in the room of 1,200 riders). His cheers seemed distinctly muted to me.

Straight to bed after the rugby for our second and final night in tents, and up early again for the same start group (7:40am – we’d consolidated our position from the previous day).

On both nights I was reminded of how much dew is involved in the camping process, waking to sort through the soggy contents of my tent, and putting on moist lycra. Not as much fun as it sounds. Declan was very proud of remembering what looked like 4 or 5 geese-worth of luxurious down pillow. I was just pleased the organisers had given us a free event softshell fleece and not a duffel bag as in some previous years since the former rolled up made for a much more passable excuse of a pillow than the latter would have.

The final day promised a lot – we were heading out of the wine-lands and towards the coast. It was also not labelled as quite as ‘technical’, although there was plenty of descending to be done (inevitable I suppose, if you’re going to finish a race on the beach). We set off strongly, and Declan set the early pace, commenting that at least it was the final day, so we could afford to hammer it a little. And hammer it we did, leaving our start group behind early on, and moving out into the no-mans’ land between ours and the group ahead. The landscape lived up to its billing, with incredible scenery and (later in the day) great views out to sea.

There was still a little technicality to the day, and I managed to negotiate a thrilling swoopy singletrack section through a tight forest, before failing spectacularly to make the simple left-hander upon exiting the forest and ending in a heap at the feet of an event photographer, chuckling to myself.

Declan took ‘fall of the day’ though, as well as ‘non-corner of the day’ – the latter coming after a thoughtful discussion on why we weren’t very good at going downhill ended in him saying “you just have to trust your tyres”. I was left metaphorically scratching my head as Declan whizzed off ambitiously down a rutted track, before slamming on the brakes for a right-hander, deciding at the last-minute not to bother turning the handlebars and rumbling straight into a large grassy ditch instead. I passed, laughing, only for Declan to extract himself from the grass, and hare past me on the next section of (steeper) downhill, towards a left-hander (being marshalled by a small group of children). He accelerated wildly, then seemed to acknowledge the need to turn, and again braked hard, and, skidding, came to an almost complete halt, before finally capitulating and collapsing off his bike into a pile at the foot of one of the (now quite startled) children. I almost fell off in sympathy from laughing too hard.

The last third of the day was spent close to the coast, and the weather changed to welcome in a sea mist, or low cloud, and there was a bit of a headwind which tested the soul coming over the sea cliffs. The field seemed to thin out a bit here, and we encountered more sand on the trail (which I was singularly awful at negotiating, and had a good crack at falling off and taking a few other riders with me on a number of occasions).

Finally though, we got a view down to Hermanus, and began our last descent to a valley trail which ran us into town. We seemed a good distance from the pair in front, and could see no one behind, so as we were moving through the outskirts of the town and heading for the beach (where the organisers had set up a 600m run of pallets across the sand which popped you out for the final couple of hundred of metres to the finish), we were in high spirits and began congratulating ourselves.

Cue a small group of riders appearing behind us, signalling that the fat lady was not yet singing, and we had to concentrate for the last section – taking a tight corner to take us down to the beach, I took the lead and was surprised to find a 2 foot drop off into sand to negotiate, which I duly did (nervously) and battled through the deep sand before reaching the final section of hardpack before the pallets. Turning the corner I looked around to check Declan was still behind me, only to discover it was one of the other riders, then another, then another 2. Declan was nowhere to be seen, until a blue helmet could be spotted bobbing up and down above the line of gorse, as Declan (having taken apparently a spectacular head over heels tumble during the drop-off into sand – an unintendedly over-cooked endo, as a result, allegedly, of me braking too hard and giving him no chance to react) jogged down to the hardpack. At least sand is a nice soft landing.

Then, all too quickly, it was over – rolling the final section into the finish mixed delight with sadness that it was all over so quickly.

I can only repeat that the course was truly spectacular, the atmosphere amazing, and the organisation exceptional throughout. A great weekend. We managed to place 227th in a field of 600 starters, which was a thoroughly respectable performance, although we both agreed that in order to stand a chance of a really top finish we’d need a course with only flat and uphill sections, and preferably no corners. Failing that, there’s probably some handling improvements to be made.

 

If the Cape Epic is half as fun as that, I simply can’t wait.