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Blog Posts
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| By TreadMag on 2010/09/02 |
By Peter Buchan
If Newton were alive today he’d take more than a passing interest in the Kalahari Challenge. And if I’d had an opportunity to chat to Sir Isaac before entering, I might have taken my mate Graham Hood’s warning about this 2-day stage race seriously.
‘Come prepared’ he’d said: ‘For the hills in Botswana are flat’. Fair enough - but I had a problem. I’d just taken 10 months off cycling and found myself firmly in the grip of another Newtonian Law – inertia. That Armstrong guy’s always banging on about Mont Ventoux but believe me when I say that the toughest ride in world cycling is that first mid-winter session in Gauteng when you fear your ears might fall off and shatter on the ground, and you secretly hope a bike-jacker would confiscate ol’ knobbly within walking distance of your warm bed. I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned the only upside to a sparrow-fart ride after a long layoff is that the first energy bar tastes almost, but not quite, like nutrition.
‘How’s the training going lads?’ Its t-minus 3 weeks and counting and Graham’s checking up on us, but to be honest I have little to report. I specifically use the word “honest” here, because in addition to training to become a DSTV critic I also happen to be working on a project I call my Grand Unified Theory of Supplement Black Holes. It goes something like this:
Proposition A - cycling performance is independent of training effort. I discovered this little secret because, despite my current bout of sloth, I have been near enough the sharp end of a start pen to eavesdrop on the pre-race chatter in the snake pit and it is disturbingly similar to that at the back. A typical example:
Race snake A: ‘Hey dude how’s it going?’
Snake B: ‘Jeeez I’m unfit bru. Haven’t trained much at all lately.’
Snake A: ‘Ja me too! I’ve been down with the ‘flu for 2 weeks’ (fake cough).
At this point an alert observer may note the baby smooth legs and bicep tan-lines on both serpents and should immediately commit their faces to memory in case either of these fork-tongued tricksters ever tries to sell them timeshare, but let us get to the meat of my theory:
Proposition B – back markers are not fit. Thus, since no one at the front ever of a race trains hard either, then what happens to the mountain of energy-drink mix produced every year? I’m still working on this part of the puzzle while I wait for Steven Hawking to return my calls, but my current theory is that, somewhere in SA, a hypoglycaemic black hole must be devouring all this stuff. Probably in Boksburg.
But I digress. Race day arrives in Gaborone … and it’s come 4 weeks too soon. The training regime for ‘Team 2 past 8” has consisted of some intermittent short stuff, a few spinning classes and a single 4hr ride. To add to my anxiety our plan to ‘rock up and tough it out’ on the plains of Botswana suffered a critical setback when we learnt that last year’s winning time for Stage one (98km) was well over 4 hours. What? Did these guys have 13 mechanicals on the day? It’s too late to retreat now though, but just to add to the circus we’ve been issued with race number ONE and I can’t help but notice the curious glances in our direction as Geordie and I slink to the back of the field.
Trepidation aside, I’m quite keen to hit the trail now because alongside the undoubted charm of its flat hills our intel is that KalChal is unique in other ways too: an amazing 75% of the trail is singletrack and the locals all boast that the extravagant water stops are “the best in the business”.
We’re off! Its smiles and whoops allround and before long the field snakes its way into the nearby Mokolodi Game Reserve. Plenty of rhinos about apparently, but we’re already so far behind the vanguard that our only risk is t-boning a myopic battering ram if it happens to loop back on the trail to see if the coast is clear. Then I receive my first lesson in Newtonian physics for the day as my front wheel ploughs into a thick bed of sand. I pop off the saddle and try to power my way through, but I might as well be trying to audition for Riverdance in a tub of molasses. After a few more servings of this a wheezing team talk produces a new approach: we’ll walk the worst of these sand traps in order to avoid the shame of having to hop onto the sweep vehicle before lunchtime.
While there’s nothing on the trail that any Sabie veteran would describe as a ‘hill’, by the time we reach the first water point my legs feel as if I’ve climbed 500 metres. At least the water point lives up to all the hype; it’s swarming with friendly staff and the nosh is so good that for a moment I wonder if we’ve gate-crashed a Bosveld wedding. Hey what’s the big deal? I could get into this!
Fast forward 5hrs. A bored-looking sun hovers over the thorny hilltops as Geordie and I slowly roll towards the overnight camp. Graham’s partner and (recent) sub-3 Argus finisher Pete “Boep” Jenkins had hit the ejector-seat button at water point 2, and so he’s joined us for the final stretch. It has taken me 7 hours of carefully managed slog to slay the Day One Dragon, but it’s been worth every calorie because there’s nothing quite like riding home through the gold-brushed bush of an African sunset.
Had I spotted one along the trail I would have preferred to cross the finish line with a paper bag over my head, but when we learn that the leaders finished in 4h30 it takes the edge off my shame. We also soon discover that, like everything else on KalChal, the overnight facilities are top notch and the vibe around camp has a flavour unlike any other stage race I’ve done. The food is excellent and plentiful and the bar’s well stocked, and after a hot shower I manage to sneak a massage at the physio tent before Gaborone’s favourite (and only) blues band plays the field to bed until the mandatory 10pm cut off.
Stage 2 kicks off a little later due to the sub-zero overnight conditions. It’s a staggered start to spread the field out for some winding trail and I’m delighted to see Pete roll his bike to the line to have another go. Today’s route is a little shorter, with 88km of undulating but generally downward sloping trail designed to let the Gauteng riders make it home at a reasonable hour.
But hardly an hour has passed before a low, pitiful moan starts to emanate from my body. I think it wants to kill me. The sound effects fade only temporarily when we stop to enjoy thick slices of honey-dipped French toast and fine coffee at the superb breakfast water point, but I’m not fooled. I know that before too long this moan will evolve into a scream of naked outrage. With our Kalahari apprenticeship now served, Geordie and I get to work by applying Archimedes’ principle of leverage to the relentlessly demanding terrain. I never thought I’d live to see the day again, but by the end of the race I would have fallen in love with my big chain ring all over again. We punch through sand, dive through gullies, dodge cattle, goats and high-fiving kids as we wind our way back to Gabs along the relentless, thorn-raking single track.
The organisers aren’t quite packing up yet, but the finish has the unmistakeable reek of decay about it by the time we roll into the Gabs yacht club after 6hrs on the trail. I’m walking on spaghetti and it feels as if Charles Manson cut loose on my butt with an oxy-acetylene torch, but I’m not complaining. It serves me right for underestimating the unique terrain of this purebred African event.
In the end the Safari Simbas Team from Kenya (specially flown in for the event) take final honours in an overall time of just under 8 hours, but that evening our fireside discussion centres on what exactly Kalchal offers in comparison to the standard stage-race fare in SA. The Simbas could hardly be described as a second rate outfit, and yet the winning times each year seem to indicate that this race demands, if not greater fitness, then perhaps a slightly different skill set than ‘weigh nothing & climb high’.
What we do all agree on, however, is that other than local hospitality you get nothing for free on the Kalahari Challenge. It is a trail that charges by the kilometre and riders pay by the minute and when the field lines up again in 2011 you can bet your last protein shake on finding me there. After all as Einstein said: its all relative, isn’t it?
For more on the Subaru Kalahari Challenge, visit http://www.subarukalaharimtb.com/
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