The Donkey Diary - Sani2C Day One

(BOd note: We tried to restrain him, but somehow BObbie managed a "Tenting!!!")...

An early start with anxious riders stirring at 04h00 in the morning. All eager to get to the start of day 1. The four man Bunk Bed Gang joined the rustle around 05h00 with Heavy D up first. I followed and a bit later Gary eventually drags him self out of Jas' bed. The 26'ers group are seeded to start at 07h40 but the Massives (BOd note: we presume you meants Heavy D and who ever is massive?) are further back, just ahead of the sweep vehicle around 10h00.  This means that the Massives will load the car first with ample time on hand. 

Breakfast is served, each man for himself style (thank lord the Waala and BObbie ain't around). Bananas, oats, Pronutro, cream soda flavoured protein shake (that did not come out right, but it's there, on the table...) and eggs, the eggs!!! Whilst packing the trailer we soon realised with the new boxes, we no longer had enough space in the trailer for the stupid Cannondale Lefty that cant go on top of the trailer. This meant we could not all go together and the Massives will have to come back to fetch the other bikes. This now severely cut into the extra time they had and we now had to rush. Luckily everyone was basically done and ready to go. Well, almost everyone. Heavy D who missed the "every man for himself" memo was cooking all twenty four eggs he bought the day before. So while the Massive is getting anxious to drop us off, Heavy D is busy in the kitchen dishing up eggs. It was the closets we came to all out gang wars, but luckily it could be resolved without the loss of innocent lives.

Jumping ahead to the start pen as the numerous portable loo stops are too graphic for this page (BOd note: If Tubbie can go, so can you all!!!). The 26'ers made it to the start pen with fifteen minutes to spare. Group E for day one. Roughly where I ended with Stevie last year. The start was calm with only One team racing away from the rest. We sit up with the rest and let them go. We know there are three days of this still to come. No point in burning out this early on. But there's a B.O. involved so pretty soon we found ourselves in front of a small chase group of around ten or fifteen on mostly fast and easy dirt road for the first 20km. It was only when we turned into the single track that the group split up a bit and we found ourselves again heading up an even smaller chase group. Only two teams remain. We made friends and chatted about how they were sponsored and we had to pay our own way, etc, etc. 

(BOd note: It's not like there are no sponsorship offers, but when you light up a cigarette crossing the finish lines the only sponsors lining up is the ones that are banned!!!)

35km in and at the legendary floating snake bridge where a "technical" stop (Dinki: (fine, I admit) It's a camera issue rather) caused us to loose contact with our new sponsored friends. By the TIME we took off we decided to chase them down. We had now dropped back from second in group E to around seventh. We chased hard over the few hills in the middle of day One (This is the highest point in the race, but nothing to serious) and somewhere in the middle of the pine forest around the 60km mark we finally spotted the enemy 50m ahead. Heavy D, who is now starting to take this more seriously, calls me over for a strat session. We agreed to approach the enemy slow so we don't startle them only to watch them race off while we recover. This works well and when we bridged, they couldn't get away. We're back in second by the 65km mark. 

Not long though, and the third placed team has been reduced to a small spot in the rear view mirror. We pushed on with mostly fast, flat and downhill sections with some epic single track through the pine forest. When we get to the infamous dairy farm with the speed bumps that claimed multiple broken arms, ribs and shoulders in JoBerg2C two weeks earlier I look up to see a very excited Heavy D. At first I was not sure what he was so excited about, but then I noticed that next to him, all in black, is the team that took off at the start of the day to. We had indeed caught up up to the front of E and it was clear by the expression on his face that Heavy D would not settle for a joint finish. 

So, again, we pushed, harder. By now we had been out there for over 03h30 and done 75km of the 82km stage. Legs are tired, energy is low, but we pushed on knowing that the stage ends with something called Tiny Climb. This Tiny is a humorous nickname like Little John, who is not so little if your not a Robin Hood fan.

(BObbie: (how dare you?!!!) I am not little!!!) 

It's all worth it though, we won E in a time of 03h57!!! And compared to the 4h55 we did last year, I am more than pleased and the 26'ers have set themselves up for an epic ride down into the Valley of the Black Mamba on day Two. 

The rest of the day we pass the time by drinking vanilla milk, washing bikes, eating, showering, drinking vanilla milk, more eating, setting up the tent, more vanilla milk and waiting by the finish line for the Yellowood Park Massive to roll up. Later we watch the video and listen to the horror story that is Day Two of Sani2C, 100km, 1700m of climbing. Basically 35km down into the valley, 20km flat along the river followed by 30 ~ 40 km of climbing back up out where you make up for most of the 1700m. Sleep well, we'll need it. 

(BOd note: Yep, BObbie let out a scream of "Tenting!!!")...