Race to Rhodes 2019 || Highlight Reel - by Nicholas Louw

A few highlights from the 2019 Freedom Challenge Race2Rhodes I did with my dad.

Read Nic's full and brilliant blog post with incredible images HERE

Desirable Difficulties and Simple Pleasures on the Freedom Trail - By Greg Fisher

“In our modern age, we yearn for authentic experiences where our courage must be summoned. One way we do this is by willingly under-taking extreme physical challenges. Through these experiences...we drop our pretenses, ego, and arrogance in favor of truth and transformation. We fulfill our intention to be authentic.” -- writes author Amy Snyder in the ultra-endurance cycling book “Hell on Two Wheels.” 

As I trudged up the steep rocky incline of a path, with my bike on my shoulder, the sun beating down on my neck, and my cycling cleats making irritating clanking noises as they collided with stones every time I took a step, I thought about how different this experience was from what I usually expect when I go out to ride my bike. I am mostly a “fair-weather” rider. I like to know exactly where I’m going before I head out (preferably with GPS to help guide me); I calculate precisely how long it should take; I examine the weather forecast so I can dress appropriately: if it’s likely to be too hot, cold, wet, miserable or dark, I usually opt for the indoor trainer instead. 

But here I was, late in just the second day of a planned 475km, 6-day race (read: ride) from Pietermaritzburg to Rhodes covering some of the gnarliest and most difficult to navigate terrain that one could imagine, as part of The Freedom Challenge Race to Rhodes. The previous day I had spent 11 tough hours on the trail, 3 of which entailed bushwhacking through the thick, overgrown, thorny brush at the bottom of the Umkomaas Valley and another 2 climbing the long, steep ascent out of that same valley. On this, the second day of my ride, having already spent 8 grueling hours on the trail, I still had at least 4 more to go to reach the second overnight stop at Ntsikeni Nature Reserve in the foothills of the Drakensberg in Southern KwaZulu Natal. And the path just seemed to keep going up; it felt like we had been climbing forever. Everything about what I was doing was tough, challenging, and uncomfortable. For a few preceding hours, I had been in a deep pain cave. Then all of a sudden I came to the realization that this is actually awesome - a real privilege: “I am out in the middle of nowhere, seeing parts of the country that almost all South Africans will never get to see, I am suffering a lot, but it is making me feel alive and focused. How can I reconcile this?” I wondered. “How can I feel so tired, so depleted, so uncomfortable, and so uncertain about what I still need to do, yet also so excited and engaged?” It was then, in my mental wanderings, that I was reminded of the concept of ‘desirable difficulties’ - the idea from learning theory, that suggests that when a task is extremely challenging and difficult, to the point that it is usually uncomfortable, it often generates new insight, perspective, understanding to the point of becoming enjoyable. Here I was experiencing this for real, with my bike, on the trail. The difficulties of the Freedom Trail - hike-a-biking, navigating; taking many hours to cover just a few kilometers; arriving at support stations after dark and then leaving before light; getting hungry, thirsty and tired - all made the experience rich, intense and, dare I say, fun. They prompted me to learn things about myself that I would not have otherwise learned. They engaged me, forced me to be present, and to focus on the task at hand. They made me feel alive! 

Coming to the realization that the extreme difficulties of the trail were actually quite desirable quickly and positively changed my perspective on the Freedom Trail experience. My fear of riding in the dark was transformed into a new challenge; the difficulty of hiking with my bike up sheer mountain slopes became an opportunity to overcome something really difficult; and I began to experience the pure joy of just riding in the most remote parts of South Africa. From that point onwards on the trail, I began to look forward to the difficulties that lay ahead as each represented a chance to learn, grow and engage more deeply with my surroundings. And there was no shortage of difficulties still to come. Having trudged into the second overnight support station, after 12 hours on the trail, just as the sun was setting on day 2, we woke up to cold rain on day 3. Setting out on our bikes in the predawn pitch black, with the raindrops clouding the light from our headlamps, and the cold biting through my gloves and socks necessitated that I seriously embrace the idea of desirable difficulties. By the time I reached the lunch stop at Glen Edward, I could no longer feel my feet or hands due to the combination of wet and cold. I peeled off my socks and gloves and lay on my back with my hands and feet stretched out to absorb heat from the farmer's anthracite heater in their living room, trying to thaw out. With some delicious soup in my system and some vague feeling back in my hands and feet, I set back out on the trail with my four other riding partners, who prior to the race I had never met, but with whom, due to this shared experience, I was quickly forming a strong bond. We made our way up and down mountains, through thick groves of wattle and across chilly rivers; we stopped for Coke and chips at a spaza shop in the absolute middle of nowhere and eventually, just as darkness was descending, we arrived at Masakala, a simple guest house in a rondavel in the middle of a rural African village. 

The Masakala guest house was not fancy by any stretch of the imagination: two wooden bunk beds per room, a single bathroom for all the guest staying there to share, a small spartan dining area with a pine table and chairs, and a tiny kitchen from where our hosts prepared food. We got a basic, yet comforting meal of meat, potatoes, and spinach and as I crawled into a warm bed that night with a full stomach, lying under the heavy Basutu blanket provided by our host, it struck me how, when out on the trail simple things are transformed into wonderful pleasures. Most people who partake in the Freedom Challenge are relatively well off: we have (or have had) good jobs: we can afford nice luxuries like a meal out or time away at a hotel when appropriate; generally we don’t want for much. If required to sleep in a bunk bed, or share a tiny bathroom with multiple other people, or have a cold shower in any other circumstance we would probably complain, but when out on the trail, no one complains. In fact, these simple things become wonderful pleasures in the context of the Freedom Trail. On my way to falling into a deep slumber that night, I realized that I need to be more grateful for what I have; I need to spend less time complaining and more time appreciating the simple pleasures in my life. The trail was revealing to me these authentic truths. 

The shorter day of riding on day 4 was a simple pleasure in itself, after 3 days of more than eleven hours on the trail, a day of only 8 hours was a treat. As was the sunshine when it eventually appeared that morning. We had set off in temperatures of minus 9 degrees centigrade before dawn, riding through frost ridden fields and floodplains. So when the sun eventually emerged from the east to warm things up and to reveal the beauty of the mountains surrounding us, the five of us were all extremely grateful, lapping up its rays like as though they were an addictive drug of sorts. The time ‘off’ at Malekgolonyane that afternoon was a treat: we sat on the patio in the afternoon sun, enjoying a Black Label quart or two, discussing nothing much that I can remember. Then suddenly we were awed by the arrival of the eventual winner of the race, Mike Woolnough. He had set out from Pietermaritzburg just 34 hours ago and covered the same distance it had taken us 3.5 days to cover. Mike dropped his bike on the front lawn, ate a quick meal, shared some wild stories from riding through the night, took a 15-minute nap and within 40 minutes of arriving at the support station he was back on his bike, heading for Rhodes. As he left, the five of us looked at each other, shell shocked by what we had just seen. The endurance, resilience, and commitment of these top racers is something we struggled to fathom and comprehend. Seeing it in person made it even more unbelievable than just hearing about it. 

On paper, day 5 looked quite easy; only 60 kms of distance to cover with some nice single-track descents along the way; lots to look forward to I thought. I was taken aback when one of the experienced riders in our group said we should budget 11 hours “What? That's not what the navigation narrative suggests and that’s less than 6km per hour” I argued. Lo and behold, he was right! Even though there were some epic single-track downhill sections that had all of us whooping and hollering, there were also some long, hot, difficult climbs through remote valleys and some really tricky, un-rideable descents off nothing less than a cliff face. So in the end, the eleven-hour prediction was pretty much spot on. At 4 pm we arrived at Vuvu, the overnight stop that is “famous” for its bucket showers, and home accommodations. We gathered at the local school where we got food to eat and hot water in buckets to shower. Then at around 7 pm, we were introduced to our local hosts who took us to their homes to sleep for the night. While I was skeptical and a little nervous of invading another family’s home, I was made to feel extremely welcome and comfortable, and I ended up having the best night of sleep of the whole trip -  a simple, yet extremely enjoyable pleasure.   

That good night of sleep was a godsend because, on the final day of the race, the major obstacle is Lehana’s Pass, one of the revered and highly feared sections of the Freedom Trail. Almost every person who has done this section of the Freedom Trail has a ‘Lehana’s story’. It is a historic donkey trading route up to Naude's Nek, the third highest point in South Africa. To state that there is a ‘route’ up Lehana’s is a gross overstatement. It’s just a very, very large mountain that one needs to scale with a bicycle. The so-called ‘route’ up is approximately 8.4 kilometers and takes at least 5 hours; assuming you get the navigation right (which many do not). The history of the race is littered with legendary stories of people getting stuck and lost on Lehana’s. Luckily by this stage of the race, I had come to seriously embrace the idea of ‘desirable difficulties’, and I was lapping all the ‘simple pleasures’ that the trail had to offer. The views as we scaled Lehana’s were nothing short of exquisite, the higher we ascended the further we could see; as we neared the pinnacle is felt like we were on top of the entire Drakensberg range. It was an effort just trying to take it all in. On reaching the summit, one of the members of our group reminded us that it was Father’s Day and all of us had a sentimental moment thinking about our families as we sat atop the world. The descent down to Rhodes from there was pure joy, as was the feeling of finishing this magnificent event. Yet the joy of finishing was coupled with more than just a tinge of real sadness to have to leave the trail and go back to real life. Yet the lessons of the trail are so important in real life: the lessons that difficulties foster learning, engagement and growth and that appreciating the simple things can create a whole new perspective. What more could I learn, I wonder, if I tackled the entire 2300 km of the Freedom Trail from Pietermaritzburg to Wellington, in the Race Across South Africa?

RASA 2019 Reflection - by Philip Erasmus

Freedom Challenge RASA 2019 Reflection

So what do you say after such an epic journey? The Freedom Challenge motto of Adventure Guaranteed was achieved. This was a journey that was very adventurous and I had a great adventure. My expectation from the race was fulfilled. Having done it before in 2014, I knew what I was letting myself in for and this time was even better. This year my aim was to be the first 70 year old to complete this challenge.

My original plan was to ride 19 and half days, and I managed to keep to that schedule all the way. I was greatly helped in achieving this objective by the people of Group two, with whom I departed from Pietermaritzburg on 18 June. Up to Rhodes we rode as a unit, and although there were some splits towards the end of some of the days, we always gathered together again at the end of the day and planned the next day’s start as a unit. This was reduced to six as Sarah was always only going as far as Rhodes and RG du Toit had a plane to catch!

From Rhodes the six of us stuck together up to Jakkalsfontein, where cracks stated to appear. My schedule had the next stop as Toekomst, but some of the people in the group wanted a shorter day. Willem Kamstra also decided to follow his own strategy and left us. Johan Radcliffe and myself decided to split from the other three after Struishoek and had a fantastic ride together from there on.

What can I say about Johan Radcliffe! This guy, who made it very clear at the briefing that we do not share the same religious believes, did more for me during the rest of the journey than anybody could expect from his best and most loyal friend, and we only met on 17 June for the first time! Our relationship started forging when we were the only two who decided to go around and cross the Umkomaas on the bridge and not get our feet wet by walking through the river. He is 20 years younger than me and could have left me whenever he felt like it, but he liked this “old man’s” race schedule and strategy and decided to sick with me. Every now and then he would leave me and skittle up a hill or down the road, only to wait for me to catch up again a little later. When we encountered head winds, he would spend more time in front, but we also worked together quite well on a number of occasions by rotating every kilometer. Sometimes I did not know where the strength came from, but I managed to do my share. We had a wonderful time together, stopping for snacks and chatting as we cycled along. Johan is great conversationist and loves talking. I tend to listen more, but we gelled! He would share his mussels or sardines with me and I would share my biltong and droëwors with him. We became a great team and I really enjoyed his company!

Then came Stettyns. I had my doubts and fears about getting up the last hill of Stettyns and as it turned out, it was not unfounded. By this stage, my strength was low and I really had trouble getting up that hill. A while before we got to that point, Johan saw that I was struggling with carrying my bike. He then suggested that I take my saddlebag, which weighed about 5 kg (probably the same weight as Johan’s rucksack), off and he stuffed it into his rucksack and carried it for the rest of the way. During the first half of the final hill, Johan would carry his bike some way up the hill, leave it there and then come back and take my bike up to his bike, while I struggle up the hill. This carried on until we were half way up, when Leon Erasmus, my brother’s son and a racing snake who joined us at 02:00 that morning, appeared on top of the hill. He directed us, but seeing how I was struggling, came down and carried my bike up the rest of the way. I am not sure if I would have made it up that hill without this help!

Leon Erasmus said that he would stay with me once he caught up with me and was true to his word. It is a bit of a shame that it only happened at the top of Stettyns as I would have loved to spend more time in his company, but it was a great joy to do the last number of kilometers in one another’s company and cross the finish line together. It must also have been a great feeling for my brother to be able to witness and experience this.

The low point of my journey was when I crashed on the hill down towards Killian Pass just before Rossouw. That could have ended my race, but I came through with only a brased knee and no headlight. Here I must thank Harko de Boer, who lent me his second light for the rest of the journey.

At the end of something as mammoth as this, there must be some thank yous! The first must go to my wonderful wife Sue, who was at the other end of the line every night when we had cell phone or wi-fi and we could phone her. Initially she was not too keen on me doing this grueling race again, but after I completed it she said she was glad I did it and that she was proud of what I achieved! Her encouragement carried me daily. Also all the people on my WhatsApp Group with their positive commentary! That helped me to make sure I do not disappoint them. The race organisers for putting up and excellent event again. We were blessed with the most wonderful weather! We had a number of difficult days with the wind, but generally the weather was just about perfect. There were a number of days when I just had to hang in there and give my best to survive! My motto then was "we shall prevail" and prevailed we did!

I must also thank the Lord Jesus Christ for giving me the strength; faith and self believe to achieve this journey. I worked out a schedule and in spite of some very difficult days, managed to keep to it right to the end.

Total time 19 days 13 hours 55 minutes; total riding time 247 hours 34 minutes; total distance 2,168 kilometers; 33,195 meters of climbing; average speed 8.74 k.p.h.; fastest day 11.92 from Willowmore to Prince Albert; slowest day 3,62 from Trouthaven to Diemersfontein via Stettynskloof; longest day 170 km from Kudukaya, Cambria to Willowmore at 170 km; shortest day Hadley to Kudukaya via the Osseberg and Grootriver at 48 km, which was also to second slowest day; lonest day 16 hours 28 minutes from Prince Albert to Rouxpos via Gamkaskloof and the Ladder; shortest day 8 hours 9 minutes from Vuvu to Rhodes via Mcambalala and Naudesnek Pass at 8 hours and 9 minutes.

RTR – the race that loses its young - by Carlo Gonzaga

 More musings from a novice

“Are you joking? Two hundred metres? Is that all we missed it by?”

In a bike race that’s 475km long, with 13’000 metres of vertical ascent that’s what it came down to. Two. Hundred. Metres. If I could, I would have cried. But I couldn’t. The tears would have frozen my eyelids shut. Quite ridiculous really.

‘Ridiculous’ is probably the appropriate description of the Freedom Challenge in general and the Race to Rhodes specifically. The Freedom Challenge is a 2300km race across South Africa that takes place in South Africa’s winter months. The Race to Rhodes follows the first 475km, which, in the scheme of things, doesn’t sound like a big deal. But it is.

 The general format 

This race is categorised as a mountain bike race. Having now completed this event this categorisation feels a little like classifying both apples and tomatoes as fruits – technically correct but obviously wrong. The race is unique in quite in a few ways. It describes itself as a ‘non-stop, self-sufficient and, self-navigated’ mountain bike race. Like much of life the devil is in the detail and facts do matter.

The race starts at the doors of the Pietermaritzburg city hall and ends in the tiny village of Rhodes, almost at the foot of South Africa’s highest peak, Ben Macdhui. As the F16 flies it’s 287km and google tells me it’s about a seven-hour drive by car. So far, so good. Obviously, we are piloting neither and are told it’s 475km, minimum. “Urm… what’s this minimum story” you ask, in the same tone as one of the “rights reserved” legal letters. That would be a very good question to ask.

The ‘mandatory’ (read: you must follow this line or be disqualified) route to Rhodes is hand drawn with a thin green marking pen across 18 A3-size paper contour maps. I repeat: Eighteen. Paper. Maps. Until March this year I couldn’t remember what was on a contour map and was surprised that there are two north arrows on such map, not pointing the same way. I would try and explain the ‘two norths’ thing but really cannot.

If we follow that thin green line diligently, we should clock up 475km. That’s highly unlikely as the rules prohibit the use of any form of GPS device. No Google maps. No Garmin. Not even phone-a-friend to try and direct you left or right. Getting lost is an absolute certainty. Consequently, the 475km in the brochure is really just a guideline. It would be reasonable to think that, as a consequence of this prohibition, the route would follow large, well-marked roads. This race is many things – but, as I’ve come to learn, ‘reasonable’ is not one of them. To add more weight to your map-filled in-tray there are 11 pages of written narratives that are meant to support these maps. These narratives contain gems like “Put your bike down and follow one of these tracks for about 20 metres. You should find a jeep track in the bushes. Retrieve your bike and follow the jeep track across the base of the spur.” I was fully expecting to find a mall with a Spur Steak Ranch at the end of this jeep track. And my absolute favourite… “This is then followed by an equally ridiculous 400 metre climb”. Their words, not mine. So… “No” to following large well-marked roads.

When I received my 18 A3 maps and read the narratives for the first time I ‘kakked’ my chamois. The green line follows cattle paths, an assortment of tracks, and some roads. Often it simply asks you to follow geographical features like mountain ridges, dongas or rivers. For enhanced entertainment the line crosses more than ten rivers (not where the bridges are) and goes up or down a handful of sheer cliffs. (I’ve learned the closer the contour lines to each other, the steeper the cliff. Good to know.) Often there is a track on the map but, rather disturbingly, no such thing on the ground. Equally as often there is one track on the map and seventeen on the ground. I asked a mate who had done the race for some info and he sent me 84 emails with over 200 attachments. Asking for some in-person guidance you got pearlers like “Turn right at the apple tree. What apple tree Dave? Someone ate an apple & dropped the pips there last year, there should be an apple tree there this year.” Turn left at the “blue house” or at the “edge of the plantation” occur frequently. As it turns out people paint their houses and plantations get harvested, quite regularly. And then, obviously if you think about it, cattle tend to be quite unconcerned with keeping to the same path the surveyor-general saw when he plotted the contour maps 15 years ago. And that’s just the “self-navigated part”.

The race is also “self-supported”. That means you carry everything you may need for about 5 days on your person or your bike. You are expected to finish with the equipment your started. Presumably, you are also expected to finish with the same body you started. The rules are not specific in this regard. You may not receive any outside support while on route or you will face disqualification or a time penalty. If your bike breaks in half you are expected to fix it with the tools at hand which are most commonly trees, cattle, and rivers. If you break in half, you are expected to fix yourself. There isn’t medical assistance on route. Sure, you can call a doctor, but unless his advice is to cut your losses and beat yourself to death with your own phone you may have to do the stitching yourself. Some participants actually carry suture kits. In the longer, 2300km event, most carry antibiotics. Stories abound of broken bike frames splinted together with branches and saddles held in place with fence wire. I was even taught that you can ‘weld’ with the foil cap of a wine bottle and a lighter. After downing said bottle of wine, I suppose anything is possible. While you may use “commercially available” resources this is a rather moot concession in the rules as the track is in rural, mountainous, South Africa for much of the time. About the best you’ll get is a shepherd or herdsman. He won’t speak your language, even if you speak his. If you’re lucky he’ll have a horse. If you’re unlucky he’ll have six and a half hungry dogs.

Don’t expect water tables with cheering wives’ or children filling your water bottles. Instead, expect community taps or streams to fill your bottles and the odd informal traders selling beer, warm coke or Chinese nik-naks. There are five checkpoints on route that you must check into. Ideally you should check out of them as well. These are mostly community operated lodgings located in villages, or more often, in the sticks somewhere. Some of them don’t have electricity and a couple don’t even have running water. Lodgings are modest by normal standards, but seven-star when you’ve got 300km and 8000m of climbing in you. At the last checkpoint, at a modest village labelled on the maps as ‘Vuvu’, you will sleep in the huts of the local residents, who will move out of their dwelling for the night. Your dinner will be served in the office of the head of department at the local junior secondary school. You will, as a rite of passage on the trail, freeze your saddle sores off if you attempt an evening bucket shower in Vuvu. True story, no embellishment. There is a passing reference to inclement weather in the rules. The clue to look out for is in the mandatory clothing requirements of ‘base layers, other layers, waterproof layers and emergency blankets’. The route tops out at about 2600m. This is well into snow territory

when the conditions are right. Or wrong if you’re on a bike. This year we recorded -8 degrees and it has been known to get well below -15 degrees. Not Fahrenheit – the other one. This year (and apparently in many years) the wind was gusting up to 80 kilometres an hour. Snow in a gale becomes sleet. Dust particles become birdshot. Your sense of humour disappears quicker than a politicians’ promises after election day. This year riders had to look out for steel roof sheeting that had become airborne. I’ve seen videos of bicycles being lifted off the ground as riders grimly hold onto to the handlebar. If you see men peeing on their shifter cables, it’s because they’ve become frozen.

If I were honestly marketing the race to newcomers, it would go something like: “Come and join our Race to Rhodes. You’ll definitely get lost, most likely in the dark and probably in sub-zero temperatures. We hope you’ll make it through all the river crossing and not fall down a cliff. You will be wet. It will be fun. As a midfielder you’ll be riding about 8-12 hours between support stations so you should be able to carry that much food and water with you. You must also carry all your own clothing, medical kits and bike spares for any eventuality. Be mindful with baggage as you will have to pick your bike up and over fences and should be prepared to hike up cliffs with your bike on your back. It will be fun. As there is no way to get a motor vehicle to many parts of the route please ensure you have airborne medical evacuation as part of your medical insurance. That will not be fun.” 5:00am. 71 hrs since departure. Top of Lehanas. Middle Earth, so it seems. Knees tucked into my chest. Lips pursed. Breathing shallow to limit the cold air into my already chilled lungs. I am lying on my right side directly on the ground, in what probably looks like the ‘foetal’ position. I am shivering, almost uncontrollably, but not quite. My eyes squint through foggy lenses into the moonlit night. My ears are filled with the continuous crackle, pop, and hiss of three space blankets fluttering in the icy wind, anchored only by a hand, a foot, or some other bodily appendage of their owners. It’s around five in the morning and my handlebar mounted temperature gauge looks like its reading minus-four- point-something Celsius. I would try and get a better look but the batteries in my helmet mounted light seem to have lost their amps, like we have lost our bearings.

We’re at the top of Lehanas ‘Pass’. That much we know. We’re about 35km, or two-and-a half hours from the end. This we also know. What we don’t know is exactly where we are. Therefore, we can’t be exactly sure of where we need to go. Maddingly, we know the track we need to find is so close. So. Damn. Close.

It’s been seventy-one hours since we left Pietermaritzburg, and we’re around 440km down the official track. Myself and my two travelling companions have had no more than four hours sleep in total since our city hal departure three days ago. Our last water and food refill was twelve hours ago.

Half an hour earlier we were walking around in circles looking for the track that would take us off this exposed icy plateau. In one last gasp attempt to locate our exit, we each forge out a few hundred metres in opposite directions. Our lights, batteries weakened by the cold, tentatively prod the darkness ahead. The darkness gives no quarter, gives no inch. We reconvene once again. No good news. None of us find the road we intuitively know is there. Too tired and cold to think through the problem we abandon our joint quest to finish the race in under three days. To achieve that we needed to find that road by 3:30am, latest. Since we’re no longer cycling, our sweaty cycling kit starts to freeze in the increasingly stronger

wind. We don all our remaining clothing, four or five layers in total, including that damned space blanket, and decide to bunker down until the sun comes up. Lying on the ground, I recall thinking to myself that this is probably how people die in the cold. They just… well… they… just… lie there…. and, er, …. die. No fanfare, no last wishes, no dramatic rushes to save yourself. Just a very, very long sleep.

Lehanas Pass is legend on the trail. The adventures birthed on Lehanas generally secure you a front row at the bar, drinks included. Why it’s called a ‘pass’ is still somewhat lost on me. There is no road. Not even remnants of a road. In fact, there could never have been a road as the route required to traverse the 8,4km from base to peak requires a careful balancing act on the spine of a mountain range. It’s a venus fly trap. It’s a con artist. She is heart achingly beautiful in photos. Gorgeously smooth from google earth. I sound smitten. She draws you in. And then she’s Glenn Close and bunnies. She’s Hannibal Lecter making dinner, for one. It seems that Lehanas has a score to settle with almost all riders. In those 8,4km you will ascend 1000 metres. That’s nearly the same as the last push to the summit up Kilimanjaro. Except you’re the porter with a bicycle. Gradients exceed 40% and the upper reaches require scrambling up ledges that are head height. On a particularly steep windswept section I could do no better than flatten myself against the grassy, rock strewn slope, face into the ground. And sort of leopard crawl with two legs and one arm, the other securing my bike to my back. On one steep section Pieter was throwing his bike up the hill and then stepping up. The wind on Lehanas is something to behold. It doesn’t ‘blow’. It roars up its slopes like the death charge of a wounded lion – you hear the grunts but can’t see the lion until the last second. It tears through shrubs and trees, branches snapping back like mortars above Normandy. It clutches at your clothing and your bike. It’s like getting in a boxing ring with Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime. The punches come from nowhere but are everywhere. I have had riders tell me of having their bikes ripped from their grip by the wind and having to crawl down to retrieve them. A few riders have actually been trapped on the mountain, unable to crest the summit for the ferocity of the wind. For a reason unknown to me there is a blue container at the summit. One year, riders had to break into it, seeking refuge. When they wanted to leave, Lehanas had the last laugh. They were locked inside for an hour or so, unable to open the door. Did I mention that, through all this gradient, wind and weather, you have to carry your bike? You do. Unavoidable really. How do you train to carry your bike up a 40% rocky incline; in -3 degrees centigrade, in a gusting, 100kph wind? If you know, do tell.

At about 6:30am the darkness finally begins to recede. First, the ridgelines of the surrounding mountains show themselves in monochrome silhouette. At this point the temperature always drops a few more digits. I am standing now, space blanket wrapped twice around my torso. Still shivering. Henry and Pieter are stoically holding onto their fluttering space blankets, still grounded. As the light pushes the darkness away, I start to make out a straight-ish line in the distance. Not too far – about two hundred metres. A few minutes pass. You must be joking? That straight line is the road.

That’s the thing with being lost. One moment you are lost. And, eventually, at some other moment you are instantly un-lost. You don’t gradually un-lose yourself. You either know where you are, or you don’t.

10pm. 15hours from the start. The Wall.

I am walking down a hill I’ve just pushed up. I am shouting “Hello” at darkened rural houses. I am hopeful that my waking someone up will somehow be forgiven because I have done so with a “Hello”. Dogs bark, which I’m happy for. I figure ‘barks’ plus ‘hello’ should get someone’s’ attention. Finally, I see a light in a window of a small brick one-roomed building. I start with “Hello” in conversational tone. After escalating my conversational “Hello” to a rather hysterical ‘HAAALLOOOWW’, I advance toward the lit window. Mercifully the dog doesn’t eat me, and the resident doesn’t think I’m an intruder. As we try to bridge the language gap, he points frantically up the road I’ve just pushed down, and supports this gesturing with “Straaait, Straaait”. At that point I see two lights walking up the road. Ok… the lights aren’t really walking – they’re attached to the bikes of Peter and Henry. We’ve been riding a few minutes apart for the last 15 hours. I dash out the yard, thanking the local who is still gesturing and shouting “Straaait”. Henry and Pieter have done this four times between them and they must know the route. I ask if I can ride with them a bit. Three navigators are better than one. Or so you’d think.

Two hours later we finally acknowledge we’re lost. We cannot pinpoint where we are on the paper maps. We’ve asked more local residents. Language is a problem. I must learn Zulu. We have travelled about 5,3km on an incorrect road, most of which has been uphill. We round a corner and Pieter correctly concludes that we are going in the exact opposite direction that we’re meant to be going in. We round another corner, this time in the right direction, but facing a steep uphill. The ‘protocol’ for getting un-lost is retracing your steps until you can pinpoint where you are on a map. Not wanting to scale that climb, just to have to come down it, we sagely agree to do the adult thing and acknowledge our mistake and go back down the 5,3km we have just come up. Given the now almost zero temperatures we stop to layer up for the descent. I record a video on my phone. 20 minutes later, at the base of the climb we find our error: just metres up from where I met Peter and Henry the good road breaks left, with a track continuing straight to a rock-infested section referred to as ‘The Wall’ by riders. It is un-rideable which is the clue that tells us we are on the right track. Days later, after the race, I review our GPS tracks that the race office gives me access to. The point at which we turned around, after 2 hours and 5,3km of uphill, was just two hundred metres from the road that we were meant to be on. We had taken the vehicular road that bypasses the un-rideable section we call The Wall. If we had stayed on it, we would have re- joined above the un-rideable section and been hi-five-ing and back-slapping at our genius navigation. This sounds made up. It is not. I have pictures. Two hundred metres. Again.

“Race office, we have a problem”

Per the rules you are allowed seven days to complete the course. Sounds like a long time for just 475km. Until you consider that you continuously stop to check your maps; the path is largely on tracks and grassland; and has its fair share of un-rideable sections. Compounding matters there’s the hills - by the time you’ve quaffed your first G&T in Rhodes you will have ascended the equivalent of Mt. Everest one and a half times. Of the 49 starters in this year’s edition just two finished in under three days. Only six finished in under five days. Of the eight that never made it to Rhodes, one was washed down a river he was crossing. And he wasn’t on a boat at the time.

At race briefing it became apparent there were three other riders with a sub three-day game plan, including myself. This was my first time so my ambitious plan could be blamed on first-time stupidity. Roger was on a single speed, rigid bike. Think about that for a moment. I subsequently learned he is a plastic surgeon, so I blame his crazy attempt on second-hand anaesthesia inhalation. I don’t know if that’s physiologically possible, but I hope you get my point. Peter and Henry had narrowly missed a sub three-day attempt previously and their plan was fuelled mostly by revenge.

There is a sub two-day strategy, but that is currently reserved for just one rider. Just five riders have ever managed under 2,5 days. A veteran of The Trail, Mike Woolnough was on track for a sub-two this year until the sleep monsters and weather tightened their grip. To achieve sub three days, you essentially must ride double the time of other riders, each day. Conceptually not difficult to grasp, but there are a couple of critical pinch points to consider. First, you probably need to ride the first 200km to the remote lodge in Nstekeni Nature Reserve in one go. That comes with 6300m of climbing. You should get that done in about 18 hours, leaving you with a couple hours to sleep, eat and consider other necessities before mounting your steed at around 4:30. A warm up, so to speak. Assuming you won’t get too lost during the day you’ll have the privilege of negotiating some tricky night-time navigation. If that goes ok-ish you’ll have the morning to get to Vuvu. Its highly desirable to get past Vuvu and to the foot of Lehanas in daylight so you can get your bearings on that little blue container 8,4km away. If you get that right, you’ll get to Rhodes about in about 2 days and 15 hours. Like Roger did. Be like Roger.

Don’t be like us.

Leaving Vuvu at 5pm already put us on the backfoot as we’d only get to Lehanas at around 6pm. It’s darkest just after the sun is fully tucked away and the moon isn’t quite shiny yet, making it difficult to get bearing on aforementioned blue container. So, in what history will judge as a… mmm... err…. let’s just go with ‘kak’ decision, we decided to try an alternate route up Lehanas. This involves not actually going up Lehanas at all but finding an adjacent mountain to the west and scaling that instead. Just writing that plan down sounds bad. Trust me though, it was a good idea at the time. No – beers were not involved.

Roll forward four hours. We’re back at the foot of Lehanas, around 10pm. We found the mountain to the west. We even found the track on the mountain to the west we were meant to be on. For 4km. Then we ran out of track, skill, experience, and humour. We scribbled messages in the ground. We found the southern cross. We studied our maps and compasses. Still only 4km progress in three hours. At about 9pm we called the race office. “We have a problem”. To his credit and our good fortune Chris Fisher, race director, took our call. He advised us, as he had previously, to try Lehanas instead. I don’t even think he said “I told you so”. Mountain 1 – Three Musketeers 0.

16 hours 33 minutes. That’s how long it took us to reach Rhodes from Vuvu. 51km according to the maps. 75 hours, 33 minutes since we had city hall in our rear-view mirrors. Four hours sleep. And we missed our plan by 3 hours 33 minutes. Two hundred metres. Twice.

The Thing

But here’s the thing: I feel fulfilled. Energised. Richer for the experience. Even taller. I inhaled more just than a few beers and slept for a week after. Sure, I got lost for some 9 hours of the 75 hours I was on the trail, without which I would have smashed my goal. But that would be too easy. I now value my first time on The Trail. To grow physically you need to stress your body and then, during rest, the body adapts to a new expectation, becoming stronger through each cycle of rest. It’s the rest after the physical activity that makes you stronger.

The Trail under race conditions has more than its fair share of physical stresses. These you will overcome, and be stronger for, with rest and few glasses of wine. It’s the stresses The Trail places on your mind, your spirit, your self, that are uniquely valuable. These don’t happen at the gym, a morning run, or in board meetings.

Getting lost is part of life. It happens all the time to us across multiple spheres. In relationships, business, strategy. With our families. Most often we are in denial about being lost at all. We convince ourselves we are on track. On the trail you are either lost or not. There is no ‘convincing’ yourself. You are forced to face reality; admit to being lost; and start the process of finding your way back. This is the stress. When you find the track, as you will, you will be mentally and spiritually stronger for it. You will be more appreciative of the need to pay attention next time. To be engaged with your surroundings. To prepare better. To be present. You will be more willing to help others, for one day you may need the help of others. These are my lessons from Lehanas.

The Trail is filled with old-school adventure. You will genuinely scramble down cliff faces. You will drop your bike down 3m vertical dongas. You may get washed down a river. You will feel inspired and invincible when you successfully navigate your way at night through the three villages to Queen Mercy; or ride ‘flat-box’ down red-earth wattle strips on the Mpharane ridge on a crisp, cloudless, blue-sky day. You will turn around and look down the section you have portaged up and resist patting yourself on the back. You may even have the need to find the Southern Cross because you lost your compass. You will humbly push your bike up, and down, hills. You will crest the Umkomaas valley and get goose bumps from the view before you descend an impossibly steep track. You will thrash your way through thorn trees, wattles and river debris. All while pulling, pushing, and dragging your bike. Always forward. Always forward.

Most of all, the trail is filled with people. Their aspirations. Their stories. The giant Dalu Ncobo and his wife, Gladys, at Nstekeni. He sleeps with “one eye open” and made us breakfast - or was it dinner - at 2am. Sheila and Charles Raven, their daughter Kerry - hosting cyclists around the clock for three continuous weeks at their home in Glen Edward. The never-ending stories from Dana and Ian Waddilove, whose brother, David, founded the Freedom Challenge in 2004. The giant, syrupy vetkoek that Buhle makes at the modest Masakala support station. The residents of Vuvu who actually give up their bed for cyclists. The children who run next to you for kilometres, shouting “Where are you going? What is your name?”. The spaza shop owners for whom the race represents a mid-year Christmas rush. There is the lone horseman who points to where you should be going and sometimes, seeing the exhaustion written in, and on you, leads you to your path.

This is The Race to Rhodes. This is the Freedom Challenge. 

RTR 2019 - POV video from Mike Woolnough

POV edit from Mike Woolnough's RTR footage. Edit by Llewellyn Loloyd Reblex Photography

Freedom Challenge: The Ultimate Mountain Bike Adventure Endurance Event By Greg Fisher

“I am not a mountain biker!” Although I have enjoyed many endurance activities including running, road cycling, paddling and triathlons for the better part of my adult life, I don’t identify as a mountain biker and have never done a major, multi day mountain bike race. Mountain biking it too technical, too scary, too dangerous and the learning curve always seemed too steep for me to ever really embrace it.

However, I was forced to reconsider all of this when my brother took over as race director of the Freedom Challenge. As a show of solidarity and support, I entered The Freedom Challenge Race to Cradock (RTC) – a self-supported 575 km mountain bike race from Rhodes to Cradock in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This is a shorter, less extreme version of The Freedom Challenge Race Across South Africa (RASA) – a 2300 km self-supported race from Pietermaritzburg to Wellington that happens in June and July every year [see the sidebar describing the full Freedom Challenge portfolio of events]. Having never done a multi day mountain bike race, or ridden at night, or fixed a tubeless tire, or carried a backpack while riding, or navigated using a map, I was woefully inexperienced for this event when I began preparing in late January for the race in March. My first mountain bike outing on Table Mountain was a jittery, erratic, puffing mess in which I dismounted my bike at least eleven times for what seemed like crazy inclines, declines, rocks, roots and narrow pathways. I came away from that scared, anxious and exhausted. A day or two later I came across a TED Talk on How to Learn Anything in 20 Hours. The essence of the talk by Josh Kaufman is that we can learn to be productively proficient in almost any skill with 20 hours’ of deliberate practice. To do this, the speaker said that we need to: (1) breakdown the skill we want to learn into its component parts, (2) learn enough to know when we are making major mistakes, (3) remove any and all barriers to practice, and (4) practice for at least 20 hours in a deliberate and focused way. I decided to apply this to mountain biking. This entailed watching many YouTube videos and listening to a variety of podcasts about the fundamentals of riding a mountain bike (and about fixing tires, lubing chains, navigation and packing light) [See sidebar for a list of useful video channels and podcasts]. I also committed to ride my mountain bike for at least an hour a day, for a minimum of 20 days in February. In each session, I focused on a specific, fundamental aspect of riding a bike (braking, foot placement, cornering, descending etc.). By the end of February, I had mostly stuck to my plan and although I was still extremely nervous about the upcoming Race to Cradock, I was at least able to get around the Table Mountain trails with only one or two dismounts; things had improved substantially. Additionally, and more importantly, I had really enjoyed the process of learning a new skill. I know that I am never going to be an exceptional mountain biker and I will likely never get any external reward or recognition for my prowess on a bike; but the intrinsic enjoyment I got from developing a new set of skills and improving day-to-day was incredibly satisfying. It generated energy and enthusiasm for an activity I had always kept at a safe distance. As I made my way to the start of the Race to Cradock in the tiny town of Rhodes up high up in the mountains near the border of Lesotho in the Eastern Cape, I was both fearful and excited. I was embarking on something different from anything I had done before, and I would draw on a new set of skills I had only very recently developed. Almost everything about the event was new and novel, and this made it both thrilling and terrifying.



Freedom Challenge events require that rider navigate their way along the trail with just printed maps and written narratives (GPS devices are strictly prohibited) and we carry all our clothing, spares, snacks and drinks on backpacks and in saddle bags. Riders are assigned to small batches of just 8-10 people each, and only one batch goes off per day. There are checkpoints (farms, cafes, lodges etc.) every 30-80 kms along the trail, and each checkpoint serves as a support station providing a meal to riders, and a bed to those wishing to sleep over for a night. Each rider decides how far they want to go each day; the racing snakes cover the 575km of RTC in just 2 days with almost no sleep; but the rest of us (mere mortals) ride for 4, 5, or 6 days with a decent night’s sleep in a farmhouse bed each night.

With all this as a backdrop, I set off with my seven new batch compatriots (none of whom I had met before) at 5am on March 18 th , 2019. We were all focused on making our way to Craddock along the Freedom Trail, 575 km away. The first thing that I realized immediately was how easy and fun it is to ride at night with decent lights. I was then struck by the exhilaration and beauty that come from riding through the transition from darkness to light as the sun emerges from behind a mountain. Having started in the pitch black we were soon confronted with glorious changing colors across the sky as the sun rose behind us while we cycled steadily and deliberately up the hill out of Rhodes.

An hour into the ride our batch splintered as riders of different speeds paced themselves to ride according to their capability and plan. With this came solitude; not the kind of solitude that one dreads, but rather the solitude that I often crave in my usual day-to-day hustle. I found myself on my own surrounded by some of the most magnificent mountains, vistas, plateaus and valleys. My sense of incompetence on a mountain bike gracefully disappeared as I was consumed by the awe of my surroundings and by the challenge of navigating my way from checkpoint to checkpoint. The Freedom Trail is a combination of dirt roads, rough jeep tracks and vague single-track cattle paths across framer’s lands. Most of it is rideable, but there are sections where riders need to dismount and push or carry their bike, due to steep inclines, declines or thick bush. Many parts of the trail need to be very carefully navigated; it is easy to get lost as one picks a way through the vast wilderness that the trail traverses. For this reason local knowledge and experience on the trail are a distinct advantage. Novices, like me, gain a lot of benefit from sticking with a trail veteran (or “blanket wearer” as they are called on the trail because the reward for finishing the Race Across South Africa is a Basotho blanket). I sometimes found myself pedaling harder than I should to stick with those who seemed to know where to go, or I patiently waited for others to catch me so we could navigate the tough sections together. I am eternally grateful to the blanket wearers in my batch – Ray Sephton and Charles Hughes – who so graciously and patiently helped me navigate the tough sections of the trail.

Once the adrenaline and excitement of the start of the race wore off; the reality of the task at hand started to set in: I needed to ride 575 km across really rugged terrain. To get through this, each checkpoint along the trail became an alluring destination; something to focus on. The intent was always to reach the next checkpoint, and to keep things exciting each checkpoint was distinctly different. Some checkpoints were large farmhouses with beautifully manicured gardens

and welcoming hosts who wanted to talk all about the details of the day, others were standalone farm buildings or lodges where riders were left mostly to their own devices, while another was a local pie shop where we stocked up on lamb and venison pies and washed them down with a cold Coke. The one thing that all the checkpoints had in common was great food – whether it was because of the excessive calories burned on the bike, or just the excellent Eastern Cape cooking – the food at each checkpoint tasted delicious and there was always more than enough to eat. Anyone who has done a tough endurance event knows the endorphin high that comes from finishing up a long bout of exercise and then allowing one’s body to rest. Its glorious! On the Freedom Challenge we got to experience that high every day. After arriving at a checkpoint late in the afternoon, after a full day of riding that started at 5am, we would shower, eat and sit around sharing stories about the trials, tribulations and challenges that we overcame out on the trail that day. Some people would enjoy a beer, others a chocolate milk, and others a copious amounts of cold water. But we were all in a great mood, with vague aches and pains from excessive exercise, and would all then go to bed early so we could wake up the next day and do it all again. This daily cycle of “wake up-eat-ride-eat-ride-relax-sleep” continued day-in and day-out. Even though the cycle was predictable, each day was interesting and varied, and the riding was diverse and challenging [see the sidebar describing the distances and riding terrain each day]. There were long strenuous climbs that were tough enough to bring back harsh memories of a road biking trip to the Pyrenees few years back; there were gnarly descents with tight turns, steep drops, and loose gravel that made me feel a little like Greg Minnaar for just a few fleeting moments (even though my riding style and speed were nothing even close to his); there were times when the only option was to hike with your bike on your shoulder, and there were some long flat stretches where I just had to grit my teeth and push on through, even though my back ached and my quads burned. All-in-all I found myself enjoying my mountain bike more and more as the days progressed, and by the end of day 5, I honestly wished that I could keep going. Even though my body was tired, my bike was starting to creek and my shoes were held together with cable ties, I longed for a few additional days on the trail. In the closing stages of the race I began to properly understand, for the first time, why people do the 2300 km Race Across South Africa. It got me thinking about whether I might soon embark on the full RASA pilgrimage. I ended the journey thinking, maybe, just maybe, “I am a mountain biker.”

RTR 2017 Video - by Chris Fisher

Luke Murray and Chris Fisher's 2017 Race to Rhodes. A mountain bike adventure from Pietermaritzburg to Rhodes in the Eastern Cape, South Africa which takes place every year in June.