S W A Z I L A N D bring it on ! Yeah baby

For about the past 18months all I’ve heard about from Grems is how amazing Swaziland’s Imvelo race is and so naturally I booked for this year as did Linda, Bela and Neil.  Lee couldn’t come with sadly because her company wouldn’t give her leave as it was their year end. We left early Friday morning and crossed the border around lunch time.  The Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary is only about 45min from the border so we were there pretty quick.  As we drove through the reserve I recognized some parts of the route – this only because I’d watched the dvd Grems made of his race last year so many times. 

What an experience to have the race start right outside your front door. The nicest thing about that is that you really cant possibly be late for your race start. Or can you?  We had gotten up to see Neil and Gerhard off as they were doing the 65km race starting at 8am and then we went back to our rooms, to get our stuff together and have lil chat.  Suddenly we hear a lot of riders going off and we look at each other. Erm what?  Our documentation said the race started at 9.15am.  It was 9am.  Um.  Even the itinerary at the registration desk said 9.15am. Somehow the race started at 9am and we missed it.  Oh well.  We got on our bikes quickly and flew off.  It was as beautiful as the dvd.  Even more so.  The single track sections were sweet sweet sweet.  I wanted to stop and go back and ride them again.  The hills um well not them.  They were worse than on the dvd. That’ s the problem with looking at hills through a lens, be it a video camera or photo camera.  They always seem so much flatter than in real life.  One of the most interesting parts was trying to hike my bike up the ‘canyon’ … glad my bike is light, but even so it was heavy.  And trying to hike in cleats is challenging enough.  I made it though up three quarters of the way when the photographer came back from helping another lady and he kindly took my bike that last bit and heaved it up.  Then came a lot of walking.  Moutain biking is always going to be a duathlon for me – going up the mountains I walked and walked.  I wasn’t alone.  What was disheartening though was the 65km dudes who came flying by – they rode up the hill and probably faster than what I do on the flats.  After what seemed like a never ending uphill road it was time to fly downhill – and what a lovely ride that was.  After a few more twists and turns sadly it was all over.   I loved it.  

The next morning we took a leisurely ride through all the very cool spots that we’d ridden the day before so I got my wish.  We rode, stopped for photies, checked out the game, rode some more, stopped for photies, rode and stopped.  I think it took more than 2 hours to do 14km – we excluded all hills from our fun ride.  Then after stopping at the pub for a beer and sarmies we got back on ourbikes and went out riding again – a different part of the race route.  Was really lovely to just be out on the bike checking out the scenery and chilling.  I also got to practice riding some of the sections that the day before I’d had to walk.

On Monday morning there was a bit of rebellion trying to rise up in protest at the thought of having to leave that day.  Bela, Linda and I were scheming on how we could get 3 bikes and 3 people into her car so that we could stay an extra few days.  But sadly it was not to be (but for future reference we can get 3 bike and 3 people into her car) but we know for next time.  Arrive on Thursday like Morne and Malise and then leave only on Wednesday.  So that’s what we’re booking for 2013.