After a brief visit up to Joburg for the 94.7 I was glad to fly out of there for one last trip down south. My last race of the season was the Double Century, down at Swellendam before heading back to a few months of British winter. Flying down to PE I stayed with Kev and Lindi and the next morning met the rest of Team Scribante for the 6 hour drive.
From the moment we set off I knew we were in for an entertaining weekend. I won’t comment on some of the subjects Silvia, Dan and Nick threw back and forth just to say it did get a little milder after we picked Ischen up from George but already my sides were sore from laughing so much.
Once we arrived and signed on we all went for a quick spin before tucking into some lovely homemade lasagna in our bed and breakfast, just outside town on an ostrich farm with some fantastic views of the mountains around us. After dinner the preparations began making bottles for the freezer, wrapping foil snack parcels for our huge numbered bags and generally taking over the kitchen. I think some of the guys were packing food for a multi day expedition into the wilderness with smoked chicken and cheese sandwiches, a pot of boiled potatoes, stacks of bread, marmite, jam, fruit loaves and the dreaded whiff of peanut butter!
The next morning we got down to the start with plenty of time to get into our pens for our 6.38 start. The Double Century is such a unique idea I’d never seen anything like it. Teams of 12 set off and 6 have to finish, in our case 3 guys and all 3 girls, as we were a mixed team. Two teams set off every minute until all 200 teams are on the roads. That’s 2400 riders, 200 support vehicles and, to add to the chaos, no closed roads. Within a few minutes we were catching and passing teams, some of which took up half the road, others spread out over a few hundred meters and some that tagged on once we’d passed. The long pass started after 20 or so km after a good start of rolling through and off in a pretty organized way. Any concerns about us girls hanging on for grim death were nicely put to rest once we were on the climb. The 3 of us rode up comfortably and were able to take in the fantastic scenery and the snaking line of riders ahead. Over the top we tagged onto another mixed team and hung on as a guy in Sky kit dragged them along. I thought it strange the whole team was in the same kit all except one guy at the front who obviously preferred his off the shelf sky kit until we reached the end and I heard it was Chris Froome. No wonder they were hard to hang onto! They weren’t too happy about us tagging on so we tried to do a turn only to be overtook again by them with some of the girls singing songs about beating us while been pushed along by the guys… wait till I get in touch with Dave Miller for next year!!
Mark the main man had the idea we’d attack on the next steep climb where they’d struggle to push the girls, a good plan in theory but didn’t quite work out and by the time we’d crested the top they were half way down the other side. At least we’d dropped the team behind us.
At 90km we had our first stop. Lindi and me made our own enclosed toilet area with a jersey and instructed the guys to focus on their food bags! We were riding well with all 12 of us still present and more importantly us 3 girls sitting comfortably.
The distance for me flew by. I felt strong from all the mountain biking and was really enjoying the rolling hills, fantastic scenery and flying past loads of unseeded teams, half of them members of the Ischen fan club I’m sure.
By the second feed we had lost Andrew whose spoke had broken but other than that we were all together and those that could work were rolling round at the front while those that couldn’t dealt with the demons just to hang on. It was far from team TT Tour de France style but considering our heights varied from my 5ft 4 to Mark who was well over 6ft, our age ranged over 25 years and sporting backgrounds ranged from Ischen the pure bred mountain biker, Mike the triathlete, Dan, the ex rugby player, and Silvia a race car driver back in the day we were riding pretty well.
The second feed was another ‘picnic’ and it was a good three minutes before we left leaving behind a trail of empty coke cans for Kev, who was doing a fantastic supporting job. After that we turned into a head wind and the hills became tough long drags. Nick punctured which was a welcome ease up but was soon back with us. Been one of the strongest we couldn’t leave him behind. Every time Kev stopped ahead of us more heads would appear in the van as their jobs were done. Lindi went though a bad patch which lasted all of 5 minutes before appearing on the front again in her annoying stripy arm warmers while the rest of us dripped with sweat and Ischen also looked liked she’d been on the road bike years, the endurance from the Pioneer having its effect.
The wind was relentless as were the hills especially the three after Greg had promised we’d gone over the last, though I was still feeling good and finding them easier than the flats and descents in the wind. With a few km left we lost our 7th rider Mike who later had us in stitches telling us how he’d cramped so bad he’d half hobbled, half ran up the last hill much to the amusement of the passing teams!!
We finished in 6hr 3miniutes and after 6hr and 5 minutes Lindi had a cold beer in her hand! Initially we were all gutted to hear we’d come 4th by less than 1 minute especially as were sure the other teams in the running hadn’t adhered to the no feed from the car rule as our ‘ride’ time was 5hr 58mins. We didn’t go to the presentation, which was a shame as the next day the official results had us in 3rd, 10 minutes ahead of the next team. However, even without knowing that it didn’t dampener the evenings entertainment what with Dan’s nudity on the sofa (thankfully out of sight), Mike’s magic massage, Earl’s hilarious stories, Silvia’s quality wine which amazingly came without hangover and, as usual in this country, a very tasty braai. What a great weekend and the perfect way to end the year, it certainly was the most enjoyable time trial I’ve ever done and ever will do I’m sure!!
