I’m curled in foetal position on the ground next to my bike, sobbing and trying to eat a hamburger simultaneously. Then I spot Nic’s ex-girlfriend and her fiancé arrive at the waterpoint looking fresh. In an instant I decide I will keep riding this damn race even if it kills me.
Why did I sign up for a three-day mountain biking endurance event? I’m still trying to figure that out. I’ve been mountain biking about once a month with friends for about 18 months and I’ve done one Argus cycle tour and one Argus mountain bike ride (25kms). I still find the downhills terrifying and the uphills painful but for some reason when I heard about Sani2c, billed as the “Best Cycle Event in South Africa”, I thought it would be a great challenge. The route through the lush bush of Kwa-Zulu Natal covers 250km and is made up of dirt roads and single-track. The event was described to me as a luxury, and much less hardcore, version of the ABSA Cape Epic. I liked the fact that it’s divided into two separate events, one for those who want to race and one for people who just like mountain biking. In December when my boyfriend, Nic, a veteran of five Epics, who spends more on bike parts each month than he does on rent, and I agreed we would ride it together, the event seemed far away. I’m embarrassed to admit that some part of me thought I could be a whole different person by the time the actual event rolled around in May. I thought five months would be sufficient to transform myself into a lean, mean, fearless mountain biking machine. It’s not the first time I’ve been a little delusional around self-acceptance. I’m always dismayed when I get off a plane in Paris to discover I’m the same old slightly dishevelled person I am at home and have not transformed overnight into the epitome of Parisian chic. I struggle to accept that this, more or less, is who I am. That wherever I go, I will still look and feel essentially the same as I do now.
Along with my tendency towards self-delusion, another reason for my thinking a three-day mountain biking event would be hugely enjoyable, is that I was introduced to the sport by Nic and his brother, Simon, who make it look as pleasant and relaxed as beach Frisbee is to normal people. I’ve watched them cross the finish line on numerous days during the Epic after 140km with smiles on their dirt-streaked faces. I’ve watched Nic ride up the most rutted out vertical rocky hill, with one hand, using his other to take photos with his phone. I’ve seen an expression bordering on divine rapture light up their faces after good singletrack. I guess I wanted some of that.
Fast forward to Day 1 of Sani2c. I’m comfortable with the amount of training I’ve put in. But it’s early and dark and freezing. We have to ride fast to the start line from our B&B, teeth chattering, eyes streaming, with my breakfast about to come up. As I’m thinking this is all a really bad idea, the gun goes and we’re off. Nic points out my backpack strap is about to get caught in my spokes after a kilometre so we stop to sort it. Our bunch has now gone so I try to calm myself down by pretending it’s just the two of us going for a ride and there’s nothing scary about that. This technique works for a bit and the nausea subsides. I try to relax and enjoy myself but I’m feeling quite out of my depth and short of air. Nic casually asks when I will be ready to actually start riding. Oh boy. At some point I don’t care to remember, my back muscles start to spasm. I haven’t warmed up and I recall I also abandoned pre and post-ride stretches on my final training spins. I actually crashed on my very last ride, three days before Sani started and I was still limping when we flew to Durban.
When we hit the first bit of singletrack, I stand up and immediately realise I can’t put my weight fully on my right leg because of my bust knee. I release a stream of four-letter words. All my training on how to handle rocky descents and tight corners will come to nothing if I’m physically unable to assume the downhill body position of bum off the saddle and weight evenly distributed. I’m so bleak I start to cry both in pain and frustration. My back is getting worse by the minute. At the first water point I see medics and jump into the back of the ambulance where I beg for a Voltaren injection. Nic waits anxiously outside. This is not going according to my visualisations of awesomeness that I’d been doing nightly to lessen my anxiety.
We ride on and I manage to get across the floating bridge that had given me a few sleepless nights since I saw the photos of it. I don’t think I breathed the whole winding way over the bridge! I am momentarily distracted from the pain but as the hours wear on it becomes all I can think about. The day ends with rolling hills that just keep coming and I get over some of them, even passing some people, which momentarily boosts my ego. Then the back pain becomes too much and Nic pushes me up the last hills. We pose for a photo at the finish and I look like a hunchback. We share a brief moment of victory when we read the day’s results and realise we beat Nic’s ex by a couple of minutes. But this is not enough to shake off the dawning realisation, as everyone shared stories in the dinner marquee that night, that I’d bitten off more than I could chew. And we weren’t even halfway yet…
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