Finally a day off!

Woke up this morning at 6:30 and I didn't have to get up. What a feeling! Today was a nice day of eating good food, saying good by to some great friends we meet at the race and exploring the wine region of South Africa. This has been an amazing journey and it's exceeded every expectation I had when I decided to take on this race 5 months ago. I am taking off tomorrow on a four day safari and then I head back to the US. I feel like I have been away for ever and I really look forward to getting home and seeing Charlie! I hope he still remembers me!

The un-pleasant part of bike race travel

Top 10!

We finished without incident today. It was a short final stage but still painful since we raced hard all the way. We raced our Energade buddies, leap frogging the whole way.... to the point of a three way sprint which we won as 7th place masters! It was a pretty thrilling finish and I can't wait to see that finish line photo with our arms in the air and big smiles!
So anyway.. we ended up unofficially in 8th place and we think 56th overall:)

One more day!

Team SLO Grown had another good race today on stage 7. The other American master's team had an unfortunte mechanical... breaking one of their rear derailleurs. They converted the bike to a singlespeed and had to ride 35km in granny gear before reaching neutral support. This probably cost them over an hour, knocking them out of the top 10.
In addition we beat a couple of other teams we needed to and hopped from 11th to 9th! Our overall placing is also improving, from 73rd yesterday to I think 56th. The pressure is now on for us to maintain that top 10 which was our original goal going into the race.
Today's stage was from the seaside town of Hermanus - self proclaimed as the top whale watching spot in South Africa - to the beautiful wine estate Oak Valley. It was intense racing right from the start again, this time without the road race as we immediately turned up a 1,500ft paved steep climb where things strung out. We were basically sticking to the wheels of our nemisis team EnergadeXXX.... They did get a bit of a gap on us over the first couple climbs and we could see them in the distance down some of the farm roads. With the help of a strong little group we were in, we did catch them at water pt 1.... We had a very quick bottle and camelback fill and left before they did, getting a lead into a tricky sand section and up onto the day's big climb.
Today we had the riding highlight of the Epic... A sweet long flowing singletrack section through the pine trees... Very similar to the type of riding JD and I do at Tamarancho in Fairfax.
Anyway, cresting the hill in the vineyards to see the race village below was especially nice knowing that we are almost done!

Some more pics I have attached...
SLO Grown in the dining tent.
Steve, a South African, really enjoying his massage.
The well organised race bag truck at the end of a stage.
The "chill" zone.

Stage 5 racing action

I'll try to be quick here as I need to get to sleep in this thunderstorm!
144km's today (90miles!!!). Another fast and furious start - a road race on mountain bikes - had us moving up in the bunch to mix with the A group. We stayed with them over several painful rolling hills finally to be relegated to the 2nd pack. We raced along with this group which contained the Trek/VW and Rocky Mountain pro women's teams till the first water stop where we lost contact. After that stop I thought we'd be on our own for a bit... but we got lucky... that bunch took a wrong turn and just as we were about to give up chasing, they all turned around towards us!
Anyway we stayed with them through some fast jeep track and all the way out to the sand dunes where it split up.
Anyway, we rode through deep sand on double track, a hot brushy rocky section, then had a fun time - just JD and I - riding hard into a crosswind on a long gravel road with Thomas Frishneit and his partner Tom Ritchey - it was pretty fun to be trading pulls with Frishy - one of the most winningest mtbers around!
I am proud to say that we even came in ahead of them as I think Ritchey was having a bad day.
In the end we pulled off a great 8th place masters and mid 50's overall finish to move up to 13th in masters and 73rd overall!

Update after 5 stages

It's crazy.... I'm sitting here in the dining marquee watching some photos of yesterday's stage, and I can hardly remember it. I guess its different when you are "racing".... The concentration is so intense, from having your eyes glued to the wheel in front of you so you don't end up in a 25mph dirt road pile up, to trying to pick ruts, rocks, and other obstacles out of grass covered singletrack while bombing down through the fynbos shrubs, to finally, fixating on a spot 2 feet in front of you so you don't see the rest of the long 15% hot rocky climb you still have to do...
Now it is about an hour later... almost 9pm... I'm in my tent... and a thunderstorm has just arrived, a "proper" thunderstom they would say here - bright close lightning bolts, jolting thunder claps, and rain....yippee. I hope it stops by the morning. Oh, and did I mention that these hastily erected tents are not quite tight enough, so, the sides where the fly touches are getting wet and dripping.

A few more pics

Race village Swellendam

The sign post, motor home village, our masseuse Amori, behind the scenes kitchen...

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a little later they are all full...

Three stages and a prologue done

Enjoying our early finish and easy tent selection...

Today was a beautiful yet demanding ride! We started in Calitzdorp, right in the middle of the Klein Karoo (hot, barren, dusty, exposed desert in English I think), and finally finished 5hrs 32min and 70 some miles later in Riversdale. I think it was a little harder today because we started at the front of group B and basically hung on to the lead pack of pros and elites for the first hour. It was a crazy pace, at times reaching 25 mph on the flats! It was also a bit hectic as even good mountain bikers can be sketchy in a road race like pack. There was one good crash that sent one of the elite women to the ground - happening as the pack flew through a dip in the road, people panicing cause they can't see through the thick dust cloud... after the initial battle of speed, we had a tough gravel road climb, some momentum killing "rolling" hills, then a long trek through sandy, brushy, rocky, hot, headwindy jeep trails that never seemed to be flat. The last 25 miles were probably the easiest, with about 12miles of fast tailwind riding down flat gravel roads, then a shortish climb on pavement. Towards the top of that climb and about 10miles to the finish is where it got interesting again. JD and I were caught by a group of 7 riders who were riding strong... we hooked up with them, got ovee the pass, collecting a couple more riders, then motored down the other side, sweeping up another group of 8 on the flat yet stiff crosswind section before the finish. There was a lot of jostling for position reminding me of some of the windy road race finishes I've done...
looks like we finished 79th team overall today and 14th masters...

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The Maxxis Tires booth is a busy place... even into the night! I had to use their services today to replace a rear tire with a torn side wall!

The Karoo is Hot!

Well, two "real" stages are now done.... we sit at 15th in the masters - so far so good!
Yesterday from Knysna to George was 76 miles, with 10 thousand ft of climbing.
Today was over 80 miles with two big climbs - #2 was steep, rocky, and hot - they say the temp got to 39c or about 100f and it felt like it. Anyway, I apologize for the brief report... check out the CE web site for pics and other cool stuff. The link is at the right...
I'll try to write more tomorrow!

the view from start group B

off we go!

Prologue a success....

Team SLO Grown had a good first day with a 41:26 time trial. Now that all the results are in it looks like we stand 8th in the Masters and 59th overall.
We had a blast on the twisty, hilly, fast, course through the woods. It was really fun as teams were starting every 30sec... we were passing the whole time:)
Two other master racers, Doug and Rich, from California (who JD knows from adventure racing) finished just over 1min ahead of us and are sitting in 4th...
Tomorrow is an entirely different story. We are riding over 70miles and 10 thousand feet of climbing.... we will not be hammering like today!

Prolog in the bag!

After being in South Africa for 6 days my reason for coming has begun! Today Jim and I raced the prolog starting at 9:20 am. The atmosphere was electric with teams going off every 30 seconds. The course really suited our style of riding with some really fun technical down hills and nice steady climbs on double track. Our time for prolog was 41:26 which was good enough for 8 overall in the masters division and 52 overall. Are overall ranking might drop a little since not all of the men's teams have completed the course at the time I'm righting this blog. Tomorrow the real race begins with stage 1.

Off to Knysna

JD and I took advantage of an opening on the shuttle to Knysna yesterday. It was a nice scenic bus ride, basically backwards along the route we will be riding for the next nine days.... yes we drove for over 5hrs, so it really is a long way!
Today has been nice - registering, putting the bikes back together, going for a warm up ride, and just relaxing. The weather is beautiful and sunny, probably in the mid 70's.
9:20 tomorrow am marks the start of our race... 15km later we will have an idea where we stack up against the other masters riders.

Playing tour guide

Funny how once you have been to a place and somone else hasn't you are suddenly the expert. Yesterday JD and I did the Cape Town tourist thing.... the pic is the Cape Point Lighthouse.... we "did" Cape Point, Table Mountain, Bo Kaap (the Malay quarter), V&A Waterfront (think Pier 39 on a much bigger scale), and Long Street.

Acclimating to South Africa......

My first day in South Africa was very exciting with the realization that I was in a different time zone and been traveling for 29 hours. Jim did an awesome job setting up transportation to the house in St. James because right when I walk out of baggage claim there was a sign with my name. It took about 30 minutes to get there and after getting my bike and luggage into the house Jim and I took off for some lunch. We were both really hungry at this point and walk down the street for a bite. After lunch we went back to the house and I put my bike together so we could go for a ride. It felt really good to get on my bike! It was at dinner that night when I finally felt the effects of my travel. Shortly after sitting down I could barely keep my eyes open, I even had an espresso before dinner which helped a little but when we got home I headed straight for bed and fell right to sleep.

Day 2 started out with some coffee's and an omelet before heading out on another ride. We have spent the rest of today exploring different parts of Cape Town and relaxing. Unfortunately it has been really windy so I didn't get to go up table mountain today. We have two more days in Cape Town before heading to the start so I'm sure I'll get up table mountain. South Africa is amazing and I having a great time so far.

Welcome to Africa!

JD, smiling, happy to be here.... nice little 20 mile ride to loosen the legs. Another beautiful overlook - this is Chapman's Peak with Haut Bay in the background.