Rain Rain and Rain

What is it with the weather at the moment, we are getting rain everyday and its seriously effecting the training for the Challenge. The plan was to get up early and ride this morning and its really hard to get out of bed when its belting down with rain. The prospect is more rain. Everyone is off on their Easter holidays and in Jo'Burg we are left with mud and rain, but quite roads, so its tarmac training instead of dirt.

 A couple of days ago I met up with two other riders of the Freedom Challenge this year who are currently touring the trail, we looked at the maps and the changes to the route that may happen, and it struck me what friendship there is amongst the riders and the ability to share information is priceless. this year we suspect there will be records broken, there are some very good athletes riding the race, from Alex Harris, Graham Bird, Glenn H (single speed record holder) and of course Tim James (the current record holder) to mention a few. All they will get when they finish is a Basuto blanket and a pizza from the race organiser but they all take up the challenge of the hardest mountain bike race in the world.

I have been ask to explain the race as some people do not know enough about it. Its 2300 Kilometers from Peitermaritzburg to Cape Town. There is about 30 Kms on tar road the rest is on goat tracks, district roads, cattle tracks, and old Voortreeker routes that were used to travel from the Cape up country in years gone by. We travel over mountain passes carrying the bike and all of our equipment apart from bedding. The organisers advise on training is " TAKE YOUR BIKE FOR A WALK " We can only concur with his advise, some of the portages are monstrous and test you not only physically but mentally, and if the weather kicks in then you have snow to ride through just to add a degree of difficulty.

I have added the charity fundraising link to the bottom of the page and the Freedom Challenge site link, The charity fund raiser is a combined effort and Tim and I would like to raise as much money as possible for this worthy cause, and have a look at the Freedom Challenge site its full of info and gives maps of the routes we will be riding.