23 Jul: Teak Place in Muldersdrift is known for it’s technical sections, so for this second race in the Nissan Trailseeker series Grems said I should only enter the 20km. The cool thing was that so did Linda - my other BFF and Bike Mechanic. She’s also my Transporter, although Grems is also fitting into that role rather well as Linda has not moved over to the muddy side – she seems firmly entrenched as a roadie. But I’m so pleased she’s entered this race. We haven't ridden together in ages.
We arrive early, but sjoe some hectic traffic to find parking and we go off road in her Honda FRV and park in a field. Let’s hope we’re able to get out afterwards.
Grems and MTBBarbie are at the start waiting for their batch’s turn, so we wish them well, wave them off and head back to the car to start faffing. Sunblock liberally applied, pockets stashed with sweets and gels, number boards cable tied on. We’re ready. We see Kim and wait while she gets herself sorted and we’re about to make our way across the field when we hear a familiar voice calling out. It’s the PAC (pomp ass cow – long story, aka Clinton). He’s come to see that we’re ok and then he and Delene are going to do a road ride while the rest of us play in the mud, dust and ash of Teak.
We get to the start and load in our batches. Well that’s completely irrelevant as they decide to send us all together anyway. Again the announcer warns us of this tricky section with bricks just as we start off, which makes me rather nervous. Well I don’t know, did I miss the bricks? where they ever there? or is he a roadie? I didn’t have any brick issues – for which I’m rather grateful.
We’re less than 1km into the race and we turn left down hill – how awesome is this!!! It’s a stunning long down hill and I’m so happy that they didn’t make us ride up it. We cross over the bridge and I’m beginning to feel a tad uneasy. The previous week we rode here – did a pre-race inspection – and I’m sure that Sam told me this route doesn’t go anywhere. Is it possible they made a new section just in time for us? Hmm. A bit further on, others are sensing the same thing. Some stop and question while others continue to ride on, but there's nowhere to go. This is ridiculous, something’s gone wrong. I decide to turn around and ride back to the beginning. Oh Flip!!! this means I must ride up the hill I have just ridden down. Many, many people do the same and they overtake me up the hill (nothing out of the ordinary there :D ). There’s a bakkie at the intersection and he’s directing the riders. Seems the leaders missed the fact that at this intersection there was a sign for the 10km riders pointing left but not for any other distance – and we like sheep had just followed. What a waste of energy. Oh well. After a quick drink at the top I was back on my bike and off again.
I had to walk up the koppie much to some lady’s disgust. She was all huffy puffy about “oh stopping again” and so I just had to put her in her place. Not sure that she liked being confronted but really, I don’t think any one rode up that hill, may be Max Knox and a few others could. But puhleez, we’re in the 20km FUN ride group. I managed to ride the rocky downhill that followed, and there was bit of unkind delight as I saw she was walking down this hill. Bad me.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful til I got almost to the end, about 2km I decided to look at the rock in front. I know I know. You're not supposed to look at them. I wobbled and fell, landing right on top of the offending rock. My first fall in ages. Wrist was hurting like mad and a very kind man stopped and helped pick my bike up. Tears were not an option and I thanked him profusely and lied through my clenched teeth that I was fine. I wasn’t. I wanted to cry and climb into my soft duvet covered bed with fleecy blanket and hide there under the covers. Well that wasn’t about to happen - for all sorts of reasons. So I switched into Mountainbike RockStar mode, dusted myself off and got back on my bike.
I made it to the finish in a bit of pain. Woo hooo. After inspection and twisting my wrist my friends all agreed that it wasn’t broken and that it’d be fine. And it was. No blood, no grazes, no bruising even. One could be forgiven for thinking it hadn't happened.
The best part of the day came when I got to meet some of my twitter buddies Iwan, Liz and JC – yay. It’s so weird introducing yourself to someone you know but don’t know; or when you introduce them to others by their twitter name, because you can’t remember their other name; or when you introduce them as Liz and Iwan for example you get the polite "hello, nice to meet you"; but when you say this is Toxicbunny or Mountaingoaty you get these shrieks and hugs and "wow so cool to finally meet you". What a funny bunch we humans are.
Lesson’s Learned : Unlearn something from my childhood “don’t touch me I’m delicate” … actually I'm not that delicate and fragile – my body can take a lot more knocks than I think it can. This is important to remember. Also don’t be a sheep. Look for signs.
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