A group of friends from Alberton took on an adventurous cycle ride on their mountain bikes as part of the Joburg to Blouberg 1 000 Miler Challenge.
The event, arranged by Massive Adventures and Tours, started at the Riviera on Vaal Resort finishing at the Eden on the Bay in Blouberg Strand covering a distance of 1 600km with 1016km on gravel roads and 586km on tar roads, entirely self-supported.
The three cyclers Deon Roodt, Lesley Temblett and Michael Haack left early in December 2021 to be home in time to spend the holidays with their families, thus leaving them to cover a distance of 160km per day over 10 days.
Bags, tents, sleeping bags, mattresses, food and other equipment were purchased and the planning and preparations were made. They did some pre-loaded rides and felt ready to tackle this somewhat mammoth task.
Get going
On December 4, 2021, they commenced with the ride and 25km later headed straight into the first downpour just before Wolwehoek in the Free State.
Water crossings and extremely muddy conditions were the themes that played out for the entire first day and eventually covered just over half the distance they intended. Tackling the mud and rain on the first few days made them work on a new plan for this event.
The first stopover was at Edenville where they were stranded in a rainstorm and had to spend the night.
Day two was jam-packed with water crossings and muddy roads. Caught in another substantial downpour just before Aldam, they abandoned their plans to set up camp and instead opted to spend the night in a chalet at Aldam Resort.
En route to Bloemfontein, they had made a 30km detour as the Leeuspruit River, which was flooded and impossible to cross. Further delays because of a strong headwind from Verkeerdevlei resulted in them spending the night at the Maselspoort Resort.
On day four they made their way through Bloemfontein peak-hour traffic to Trompsburg and the rain seemed a thing of the past. The wind was now going to be our impending challenge. As was to be expected, the gusts began on the tar road en route to our sleepover in Trompsburg.
Taking a breather
As they made their way through to Gariep Dam and then over the dam wall to Bultfontein, they were met with the breathtaking views of the Free State. They spend their fifth night resting in Colesburg.
The ride from Colesburg to Richmond was equally magnificent, passing game farms and the friendliest farmers on the route. Water was abundant from the many windmills along the way as a result of the recent rains.
Richmond to Loxton was very laborious. The wind started to play a big factor as they were heading in a westerly direction. The first mechanical problems were encountered with a broken spoke followed by a broken chain on the same bike.
There were climbs with very little freewheeling on the downhills because of gruelling gravel roads and wind. The group limped their way into Loxton cursing the fact that they did not accept a farmers’ offer of a warm shower, food and a nice warm bed, 40km before Loxton. This was the first tent sleepover on the trip.
They left Loxton early the following morning with the target being at least 40km before Sutherland, where they would sleep somewhere next to a Karoo Road.
Then they took a break at Fraserburg and then later that afternoon started the trek out towards Sutherland. During one of our breaks, they re-assessed the situation and decided to soldier on to Sutherland, which would give them about 207km for the day.
The team arrived at the Sutherland campsite at 00:30 Sunday morning and at a cold 8 degrees set up camp and slept. The previous days’ effort had taken its toll, some damage to bodies and bikes had been done, fatigue had set in and more broken spokes on another wheel. They decided to take a break that Sunday after doing some backyard repairs to the wheel.
The last stretch
The next legs, day nine and 10, would be a huge ask as it consisted of 162km to Tankwa Padstal with no towns in between, the possibility of not getting water and the dreaded Ouberg Pass drop down into Tankwa.
They left at 20:30 on Sunday evening and made their way towards the Ouberg Pass. The drop was tough, cramping in their arms and hands and not being able to see too well ahead of them because of the limited visibility from the lights they had mounted on their bikes. Thankfully, they reached the bottom of Ouberg Pass unscathed.
Ouberg is the very same pass that ended many of the Munga MTB riders race the previous week because of the Karoo floods that occurred during the race.
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They reached Tankwa Padstal in good spirits and not too tired, took an hour break and then decided to push through to Ceres which would give them about 250km for the day.
About 5km from the Padstal the wind did a 180-degree turn and they encountered the worst wind of the entire ride. They also had to climb two of the biggest climbs of the ride and got to Ceres very exhausted. They ate and slept in anticipation of the home stretch to Blouberg.
They knew the last day was not going to be a walk in the park, 138km through Cape winelands with rolling hills through Gouda, Riebeek-Kasteel and Malmesbury. Eight hours later, they had reached Eden on Bay at Blouberg Strand just after 18:00 on December 14.
Final results
Unbelievable – The three cyclers have done the ride!
Total time: 10 days, 14:34 minutes
Total km ridden: 1 721 53
Riding time: 130 hours, 21 minutes, 40 seconds
Moving time: 96 hours, 53 minutes, 52 seconds
Elevation: 10 979m.
