Race Across South Africa, part five

Earlier this year, shortly after I arrived in McGrath during the Iditarod Trail Invitational, I spent some time pondering what it would be like if my effort didn't end there. After 350 miles of strenuous sled towing, with my swollen feet and aching shins that wouldn't even let me run the last three miles into town, what if I had only been a third of the way done? Not even? I watched Tim, Loreen, Beat, and Donald ready their supplies for the thousand-mile journey to Nome, and tried to conceive not feeling a warm rush of relief or accomplishment ... instead, just the same fatigued urgency of a race morning, cramming down mancakes to fuel something much bigger.

Granted, the Freedom Challenge is not the Iditarod, and I arrived in Rhodes feeling much more fit than I did in McGrath, minus a fully functioning set of arms. But the parallel remains ... Rhodes was the finish line for many, and there was an air of celebration that I couldn't take part in. Bruce and Ryan's family members came out to see them finish, and I sat down to have a drink with the group before the banquet dinner.

"How can you just keep going?" one man wondered. "Day after day?"

"Well, you know, you start to develop a routine," I answered. "The first week is always hard, but then it becomes your life. I don't think you actually get stronger, but it feels that way — it becomes your new normal."

Liehann had been looking forward to Rhodes for days, because Rhodes is where he would pick up his new fork. His old Reba had reached the point of being completely bottomed out and locked. Not only did he have no suspension, but he was permanently stuck with an aero position  — we called it a "rigid lowrider." His hands were already almost completely numb from the odd pressure points, and this new fork promised the relief he craved.

Or not. As I enjoyed a relaxing afternoon chatting with families of the Rhodes racers, believing Liehann was outside installing the fork, he was actually back in frenzied phone call mode after he discovered it wasn't the right model. What arrived was a tapered steerer fork, and what he needed was a straight steerer. It was the wrong shape — there was no way he could make it work.

He held out hope that he could still have this wrong fork returned and the right one delivered farther down the trail, but the tiny town of Rhodes was the only mail stop for many days, and he still was having trouble reaching the right people. I could tell he was disappointed as we sat down to dinner to cheer for the Rhodes racers as they received their finishing prize — a small herdsman's whip.

"Why don't we get a whip?" Liehann wondered out loud. "We finished the ride to Rhodes too."

"Do you really want to carry that thing all the way to Cape Town?" I asked. "Anyway, this isn't our race." This is something I feel strongly about, actually — if you sign up for the long haul, you better be ready to hold out for the long haul. There's no such thing as a halfway finish.

Our morning out of Rhodes was much like every other morning — alarm blaring at 4:30 a.m., piling on layers, cramming down a peanut butter and honey sandwich. I'd been up much of the night with indigestion after the rich dinner at the hotel, and was already missing the simple pumpkin, plain rice, and potatoes of the villages. We shared a room with Monday starter Mike du Toit, who was battling a nasty chest infection and already spent one layover day in Rhodes. He rolled out with us in the morning, wheezing heavily, in temperatures of -8C (17F.) Brisk, but lovely. There's few things I relish more than a clear, cold morning, and I have to say that it was a treat for me to enjoy pleasant winter temperatures (as opposed to the wet winter storms that are possible here) during a month when I'm usually baking in California. For many South Africans who live near the coast, however, sub-freezing weather is somewhat foreign. High pressure systems and clear skies meant this year was colder than most, and there were several riders who withdrew from the Freedom Challenge with flu and respiratory infections. Mike was one of the first. As we climbed the first hill out of Rhodes, he started gasping so loudly that I stopped and turned around to make sure he hadn't collapsed.

"I can't do this," he coughed. "I have to go back."

And that was that. Poor Mike.

I was having a most wonderful morning. Skies were clear, the light was rich, and we were riding our bikes. It felt like it had been a couple of days since we'd done that. Long dirt road climbs and frigid dirt road descents. Bliss. Call me a roadie. Fine, I'm a roadie. This is one of only two selfies I took during the Freedom Challenge. I wanted to document how happy I was. See the happy? (Note: It is still very early in the morning.)

Photo by Liehann Loots

This day had a lunch stop at a farm house called Chesney Wold (all of the farms in South Africa have individual names. When I was studying the maps before the race, I mistakenly interpreted these as small towns, but they're not. They're usually just a single-family farm house, a few barns, worker houses, and lots of open space.) Liehann remembered this stop from 2011 and was particularly excited about it, for good reason. When we arrived, five or six neighbors were there to greet us, there was a homemade lasagna (!), Coke, and fancy decorated cupcakes for lunch, and a tour of an antique-filled farm house with a room that contained an enormous cap collection. I don't remember the exact number of caps, but it was in the multi-thousand range. As we rode west, we were leaving behind the village-dotted hills of the KwaZulu-Natal province and delving deeper into the high deserts and wide-open farm country of the Eastern Cape. Beyond Lehana's Pass, the culture was very different, but the hospitality was still wonderful. In many ways, this region is similar to the American Midwest. Locals will go out of their way to be friendly and accommodating to strangers.

We were now traveling with Steve, Di, Richard, and John — quite the cheerful clan. Liehann and I were ahead of the others in the afternoon, and took on the tricky Kapokkraal portage on our own. A large group of baboons was perched on the ridge, barking in our direction, which made Liehann nervous. I guess the habituated baboons near cities sometimes steal food from people, and have, Liehann warned, "very long teeth." He grabbed a large rock as we passed, just in case.

We nailed the nav on our own. Maybe it wasn't that tricky of a portage, but it did require a cross-country traverse, locating the correct saddle to cross, and tracing a "wagon trail," which, like most "wagon trails" on the Freedom Trail, was just a figment of someone else's historic knowledge. I was feeling triumphant at the bottom. We passed below the abandoned Spitskop farmhouse, where our cues said a traveling Italian artist had painted murals on the walls. There was so much daylight left in this flawless day that we decided to go check them out. We explored the long-vacant house with its peeling wallpaper, eerie little girl's room, rusting appliances, big holes through the walls, and partially mummified sheep carcasses (!) until we were thoroughly creeped out, but we never found the murals. Actually, I'm skeptical they exist — perhaps it's just a joke inserted into the cues for novice Freedom Challenge riders with far too much time on their hands.

We left with new fears that the Blair Witch was coming to kill us, but enjoyed a late afternoon of fun riding along sandstone cliffs. We were in a new geographical region as well — the Stormberg, or "Storm Mountains."

We joined back up with the group at the farm house of Slaapkranz (I'd always think of Beat yelling out these Afrikaans names with an exaggerated guttural German accent as we worked on the maps together.) There was another tricky portage right out of the gate the following morning, and Steve was eager to take it on before dawn. I was dubious, because by agreeing to their strategy, I also had to agree to their pace, and my arms were still sore and numb. If I couldn't keep up ... and my track record hadn't been good ... then I risked becoming lost first thing in the morning.

The morning was cold again, probably even colder than -8C, and I scrutinized my map through a thick vapor of nervous exhalation. The compass I brought from California had been rattled to death on Black Fountain; Ingrid graciously gave me hers after she finished in Rhodes, and I was trying to get a sense for reading this new compass — the window was much more scratched, and the arrow seemed more sluggish. I pointed it into the darkness, but it was useless because I couldn't see anything. It was like getting a bearing under a blanket. You know you must move in a westerly direction, but there's a damn mountain in the way. How to actually get over that mountain is the important part.

So we blindly followed Steve and Di as they confidently marched up the tiger line of the mountain, a segment that gained 350 meters in less than two kilometers (about 1,200 feet in a mile.) I think they may have been carrying their bikes; I couldn't see. I was still trying to push my anchor, with arms so weak the muscles didn't even have energy to feel a burn — they just smashed against the handlebars like useless blocks of rubber as I used my shoulders and back to force forward motion. I started to fall behind. I tried to push harder. Then my arms failed, they actually failed, falling away from the handlebars altogether as the bike shoved me backward and onto my side. I was laying in a bush with my bike on top of me and I could hear Liehann calling from somewhere far above. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay," I called back weakly. "I just need some time. Just give me a little more time."

Liehann engaged his helpful technique of hanging back just enough to stay in my sights while keeping the main group of fast portagers in his sights. It worked well. I finally made it to the plateau in time to hear Steve give his directions for a row of mountains running north ("And now, we must go over there.") We followed him into an incredibly fun rollercoaster descent on a bulldozed track with enormous speed bumps. John had fallen back as well, and we'd learn from Richard that he turned around and went back to Slaapkranz. John also was fighting a flu and couldn't muster the energy for the climb. He would eventually withdraw from the race as well.

The day's second portage started at kilometer eight, and gained 400 more meters over five kilometers — more friendly than the first, and probably mostly rideable for a strong and fresh mountain biker, but it still had enough steep grades on loose terrain that all of us pushed. I finally decided my arms were a liability, and set up my map board so I could lean into the board and push with one shoulder while resting my arms limply on top of the handlebars, occasionally repositioning my hands to steer. It seemed to work; I kept a better pace. The top had a beautiful, sweeping view, followed by a near-vertical descent on extremely loose dirt and stones. It was barely walkable; one tiny slip put me on my ass, and even Di took a hard fall. By the time we reached the farm road at the bottom, it had taken us nearly six hours to cover about 23 kilometers (just 15 miles!) of distance. Ah, Freedom Challenge.

The afternoon was quite enjoyable — warm sunshine, and lots of short but steep climbs and descents on scenic dirt roads. We ended up with about 100 kilometers on the day into Kranzkop, and most of the details of this part of the day are fuzzy to me now. I admit, for me, the navigation aspect of the Freedom Challenge caused a lot of stress and became more mentally draining as the race progressed. Any time there was an easy nav section — often a series of roads that only required watching the odometer for turns — I took the opportunity to shut my brain off and just enjoy the ride for a while. It was a nice respite, but it's true that in the end, the tough portages were the more memorable and enriching experiences.

Day 9. Wednesday, June 18, I believe. By this point, we were swiftly losing track of the days. Liehann often thought we were days beyond where we actually were, and would fret about bumping up against the 26-day cutoff. "We're still on pace in our race schedule," I'd argue — although it's true, both of us had forgotten to print out the 20-day race plan that Liehann and developed, and had pretty much forgotten what we actually needed to do to stay on pace.

The morning began with an easy portage across a veldt — which is a South African term for a wide-open shrubby area or grassland, best I can tell. There were always a bunch of fence and gate crossings in this farm country, and I wasn't getting better at them. The gate in this photograph was easy, but usually we had to climb onto thin wires while gripping gaps between the barbs. I'd hand my bike over to someone and then hoist myself awkwardly over the wire, hooking my second foot and usually snagging my tights on some barbs before plopping down like a sack of sand on the other side.

"I just can't watch you cross gates like that," Liehann said. "One of these times you're going to rip your tights or break your ankle."

"I'm a really awkward person; I need three-point contact," I'd shrug.

By early afternoon, the west wind started cranking again, with fierce gales blowing right in our face. After a long climb followed by rolling descents into a valley, it was all I could do to hold an 8-kilometer-per-hour pace on a flat gravel road. Our lunch stop was at kilometer 50, and Steve and Di arrived about a half hour after Richard, Liehann, and me. Steve announced he was "shattered" and didn't think he had the stamina to complete the second half of the day. This was often his reaction to the long road sections. It seemed strange, because Steve was a lion on the portages — tiger line, no problem. Strenuous technical descents, he was gone. But on the roads, he seemed tired and miserable. I found this interesting because I was having the opposite problem. Not that I was miserable on the portages, but I struggled so much. And yet, I was still strong and fast on the roads. It caused me to ponder how much my attitude was affecting my physical performance — that maybe I didn't have to struggle so much on the portages, that maybe I could turn this around by engaging the power of positive thinking. Meanwhile, when it came to long road sections, we'd often end up an hour or more ahead of Steve and Di at the end of the day.

Richard, Liehann, and I stuck together for the second half the day. Richard is a British gentleman in his fifties who has lived in South Africa for a couple of decades. Typical British, he is incredibly polite and strong as a bull. We formed a paceline and Richard and Liehann took turns pulling into the brutal headwind. I had an occasional brief turn, but Richard usually ended up just returning to the front after a few minutes, and did the lion's share of the pulling. I have relatively little experience with pacelines and was skeptical it would even help, but Richard was an excellent peloton manager — directing us into a diagonal formation when the wind swung to our sides, and working to keep the pace brisk and efficient.

The day, like every day, was full of endless climbs and descents, and in the afternoon we crossed over another steep portage, passing by stone ruins from the Boer Wars and dropping off the face of a cliff through a boulder-tumble gully into a railroad yard. This is the site of the Battle of Stormberg, which was a rout for the British after a badly timed march put troops in a trapped position down in the valley to be mowed down by the Boer from up high. There's a parallel in there somewhere for the Freedom Challenge, I think.

The sun went down, but we somehow picked our way through a maze of sandy farm tracks after nightfall, and arrived at Romansfontein after 137 kilometers of fighting either fierce wind, cross-country portages, or darkness. "This is your hardest day," the proprietor at Jenny's Cottage had told us during our lunch stop. "It's 130 kilometers. If you're strong, and you guys seem strong, you can start doubling up now and reach Cape Town in 18, 19 days no problem. This is the hardest day."

Of course, I didn't believe that for one second. 

Race Across South Africa, part four

Pulling into the Vuvu school, we saw another five bicycles parked outside. Still reeling from my glycogen crash, I just blinked in confusion as Di laughed. "What's this? Looks like a party!"

Four riders from the Monday start group were there, as was Ingrid, the woman racing to Rhodes who started on Tuesday with us, and who I thought was far ahead. A man directed us into a darkened room in the school — like most rural villages, Vuvu had no electricity or running water — where the group was gathered around a small table, telling war stories. The lively conversation was a little too much for me; I had to step outside for some air. Nightfall came fast, like a cold fist over the plateau, plunging the little village into total darkness. Tonight, more than any night yet, I wanted to be alone. It's difficult to explain. I did enjoy the social aspect and camaraderie of the Freedom Challenge, very much so, but my introvert reserve was drained. I had no energy left to invest in this evening, and yet there I was, stuck in a small room with ten other people. 

I probably seemed antisocial that evening. I apologize for that. Eventually the outside chill set in and I returned to the school. I took up a quiet spot in the corner of the room, and treated my wet and chaffed feet while the group told their own stories of the Vuvu Valley, of getting lost on Black Fountain, of spending the night in a hut after being warned by a 12-year-old girl that "you can't be out here after dark. People get murdered here." Eventually my stomach settled enough that I was able to eat some nuts from my supply box, and then dinner came out. For eleven hungry bikers it was a relatively small portion, and by the time I made my way to the table, the chicken pieces and potatoes were gone. I took a heap of rice with thin gravy and felt grateful for that. First world cliches aside, it's hard to ask for more in a place where you see so little. 

After dinner, a woman directed Liehann and me to a circular hut down the street where we would spend the night — somebody's home, temporarily vacated. I asked Liehann where the residents went, but he didn't know, either. The hut had two neatly made single beds and an oil lamp. I asked a little boy about the toilet, and he walked me the rest of the way down the street to a crudely constructed outhouse — basically, a pile of logs that I couldn't quite discern how to sit on or squat over. We had traveled through many villages over the past five days, and it was interesting to actually step inside of one. I had a similar impression to the villages I visited in Nepal three years ago — lifestyles are simple, and hard, but fulfilling, too. But of course I don't know. I can't really know. 

We set our phone alarms and joined the group for breakfast at 5 a.m. The light dinner didn't exactly restock my empty furnace, and I awoke feeling lousy — throbbing headache, raw stomach, still no energy. Breakfast was very thin porridge and a boiled egg, but there was lots of steam bread, and I tried to cram down what I could. The group all took off while we were still packing up, but I was happy to let them go. I already told Liehann that I didn't want to chase anyone up a mountain today. I could do Lehana's Pass, but it would have to be at my own pace. 

The haul over Lehana's Pass ascends more than 1,000 meters in five kilometers — 3,500 feet in three miles. It sounded like a steep hike before I realized how difficult it would be to haul a bike, and the climb out of the Vuvu Valley ushered home the daunting reality of the task. Di and Steve planned to take a race-sanctioned long way around Lehana's Pass on roads, and based on how poorly I'd fared on the bike-carrying portage the day before, Di recommended I consider this as well. But Lehana's is an iconic part of the Freedom Challenge, and I had this sense that Beat would not forgive me if I opted out of the hike.

It was a stunning morning, with rich winter light saturating the dry slopes of the Drakensberg. These are the "dragon mountains," sleeping peacefully with lungs full of fire.

The climb started out not so bad. It was steep, but "wheeling" the bike was doable, and we kept a steady enough pace that we actually caught up to the group of five — John and Richard, Annie and Stewart, and Ingrid. Just as I started to feel comfortable, a heavy breeze picked up strength. By the time we reached the ridge, the wind had increased to gale force. It blasted along the spine with a deafening and ominous roar. Two shepherds were huddled in a squat stone hut, their fire nearly extinguished, and we kept on climbing. 

As the ridge narrowed, the battle become fierce. Rocky outcroppings provided temporary wind respite to balance the physical challenge of bike-hoisting repetitions. But saddles between the rocks were wide open to an intense crosswind. The persistent roar was so loud that shouting was useless even standing within five feet of Liehann. Gusts sounded like a freight train approaching in a tunnel — and ignited a similar fear. Wind speeds are always difficult to gauge and often exaggerated. Indeed, Richard guessed the gusts exceeded 130 kilometers per hour. I don't think quite that, but I base my guesses on past experience with winds in Juneau. There were plenty of times back then when I ventured out in winds that were measured and documented by a nearby weather station, and I began to detect noticeable differences in my ability to stay upright in a 50 mph versus a 60 mph wind. Based on those experiences, my guess for Lehana's Pass would be steady winds of 50-plus miles per hour, gusting to as high as 70 mph at times. Hurricane force.

Photo by Liehann Loots

It was all I could do to stay upright. I eventually decided it was better to walk windward of my bike rather than leeward, to prevent a gust from sweeping the bike into me and knocking me over. As I trudged upward, a particularly strong gust blasted both wheels off the ground, lifting the entire bike into the air like a sail, and knocking me off my feet. The wind continued to hold me down like an invisible board as I thrashed beside the overturned bike, struggling to stand up. 

As we got closer to the pass, I could see the "line" to the summit — a steep slope cut by only a thin ribbon of a sheep trail — hardly a platform at all across the intimidating grade. It looked like one mis-step thrown by the wind could start a long tumble down the mountain, and my knees went weak.

"I'm thinking about turning back," I told Ingrid. "Not to quit, just to take Steve and Di's route. This seems exposed. Dangerous." 

Ingrid shook her head. "It's not dangerous. Just walk with your bike on the outside. If you lose your bike ... then just walk." 

Near the pass, the sideslope wasn't as steep as it had looked from below, but the wind was more fierce than ever. Gusts were so strong that each time one hit, all of us simply crouched down with our bikes turned over, waiting for the blast to pass. John and Richard appeared to be having the time of their lives, howling into the gusts and crouching down to film the action as Annie and I fought our way toward the camera like television weathermen in a hurricane.

At the pass, our work was far from through. We still had two kilometers to push into the wind along the narrow ridge, a farm road to find, another pass to reach, and then a thirty-kilometer ride into Rhodes. Still, the mood was jovial at the top. "I've never experienced wind like that in all my life," Richard said.

We worked our way along a stream with snow clinging to the banks and thick ice in the waterfalls. It was a reminder that there's often snow up here, and I pondered how much tougher that climb would have been in snow. However, if given a choice between a foot of snow and a 60 mph wind, I'd be torn — and probably pick snow.

Liehann made me walk fifty meters up the road on this wind-blasted pass to take this photo. I was quite annoyed about
it at the time, because I just wanted to get the hell out of there. But it is a fun photo, with his puffed-up coat. 

The worst part about the wind is that it didn't even begin to let up when we finally reached the gravel road. It was blowing from the direction we were riding, and the headwind was so fierce that even long descents felt like climbs, and many of the climbs we had to walk. As we neared a plateau that was the highest point on the Freedom Trail — 2,600 meters — the unobstructed wind pummeled us from the side. I was so fed up with pushing that I experimented with leaning as far as I could into the wind and riding at an unnerving angle, just for the privilege of staying on my bike. A gust grabbed the front wheel and sent the whole bike — and me — careening toward a steep drop-off to the left. I corrected at the last second — with the wheels scraping that precarious edge, and heart racing as fast as it had all day. Who knew road riding could be so treacherous? How many of these last thirty kilometers would I have I to walk?

Finally, a reasonably long descent put us at a low enough elevation that the wind became at least manageable. We rolled into Rhodes in the mid-afternoon, and certainly could have done worse. It was a tough day, charged with adrenaline, and it took a few hours of recovery to realize that my arms felt completely dead. Like two over-tenderized lumps of meat, dangling uselessly at my side. Even reaching over a counter in the kitchen to grasp of mug of soup caused a near-failure in the forearm muscles, and I almost dropped the mug.

This seemed like a potentially major physical set-back, but what did I know about it?

Race Across South Africa, part three

It always seems to be the fourth or fifth day of a long tour that the physical wear and tear really starts to set in. Even though our daylight plan in the Freedom Challenge ensured plenty of rest, and nutrition was good, twelve-plus hours of riding and wrestling with a bicycle every day takes it toll. For me, wrestling with the bike caused major strain. I'm well-adapted to turning pedals all day, but I failed miserably in upper body strength department. It's not a natural strength to begin with, and I admittedly did almost nothing to improve it before the Freedom Challenge, reasoning that running would be training enough for the hike-a-bikes. I was wrong. My shoulders and neck ached, and my arm muscles felt tingly and weak. My legs were a patchwork quilt of cuts and bruises, including a swollen and painful bruise over my right knee that formed after I partially flipped over the handlebars on a cattle trail the previous day. The Freedom Trail beats up bodies in ways I hadn't experienced before on a long tour, and I was feeling it. While the crew at Ongeluksnek cooked up our breakfast of dark porridge, eggs, and steam bread, I massaged my numb biceps. 

As the four of us discussed the narrative for the coming day, Di seemed particularly stressed and Steve particularly excited — both of which I interpreted as cause for alarm. Tough nav day, coming up. Steve was talking about finding an old wagon trail early in the day, but Di skipped right to "Vuvu Valley."

"Vuvu Valley," she kept bringing it up. "If we are bumbling around in that valley after dark, we are screwed." Di went on to tell a story about a past year when she and her companions took on a tough portage late, and ended up spending the night huddled in a barn. "I was so cold I thought I was going to die," she said. "I really thought I was going to die."

I was carrying a robust emergency bivy sack and some firestarters, and although I felt confident in the survivability of my system, I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of putting it to use when nighttime temperatures were dropping well below freezing. Before the race, I confidently (and mistakenly) assumed that if nights went late we'd just keep moving, neglecting to realize how navigation can become impossible at night. Darkness was as good as a wall in some places. We might actually get stuck somewhere outside overnight. I hated that I hadn't just planned my system with an assumption that we'd sleep out, and brought a sleeping bag and thin pad. I probably would have been less anxious in the afternoons with a real sleeping system as insurance.

 

Also leaving Ongeluksnek were two Race to Rhodes riders who started one day later, Bruce and Ryan. They disappeared into the first gorge before us, and were already picking their way up the other side as we arrived at the edge of a cliff. "Now we must look for the wagon trail," Steve announced. He located a tumble of table-sized boulders, only slightly less vertical than the cliffs, and started down. "How did people ever get wagons down this?" I pondered out loud. 

"Well you see, the trail was much less eroded back then," Steve answered. "But they had all kinds of techniques; they'd lower them on logs." In the early colonial days of South Africa, wagon trains traversed the landscape via high routes — the reason being that necessary springs and streams were located in the mountains, so they had to stay high in order to travel long distances with water sources. Modern development arrived and roads stayed low. Although the wagon routes fell into disuse, many remnants remain. When David developed the Freedom Trail, he traced these historic routes, which is why public access is allowed through private lands. What exists today is sometimes hardly a trail at all — it's an overgrown doubletrack, or a faint footpath traveled by shepherds, or a string of tracks trammeled by sheep and cattle. A distinct characteristic of the Freedom Trail that I think not many North American mountain bikers would understand (I didn't) is that it's not a real trail. There is no trail development, no government funding, no earmarks for recreational use. It's just a series of points along the Great Escarpment, connected with a dotted line. As a North American, I'm used to routes that have been set aside, developed, and signed, and this simply isn't the case. At all.

We climbed to a village called Black Fountain and proceeded along a broad ridge on a ripple of cattle trails — a sort of "choose your line" adventure on often rocky and overgrown singletrack. It became a tough technical challenge to keep up with Di and Steve, who are both strong riders, especially with my sore shoulders and dead arms that were even more reluctant than usual to pull up over obstacles. I was struggling but determined to stay with the experienced couple, especially after Di's foreboding description of Vuvu Valley.

We aimed for the long way around a peak rather than scrambling up and over. Steve still managed to find a tiger line down near-vertical rock benches, into the village of Ngolilwe, which was slightly off route. This is another aspect of the Freedom Challenge I think many North American bikepackers would find strange. Here, there is so much emphasis on sticking precisely to a route, without any deviations. In the Freedom Challenge, the route is more of a suggestion. Although the portages are mandatory in the race — you can't just go around on roads — it's perfectly acceptable to develop one's own "sneaks" and other strategic offshoots of the established route. Finding the most aesthetic line is the aim of the Freedom Challenge. While this aspect was difficult for me, it's also one of my favorite things about this event.

After a light lunch on the steps of Tinana Mission (mine was the last of the dried cherries and shelled pistachios that I brought from California), we encountered Bruce and Ryan riding out of the village. Apparently they had taken a bad line out of Black Fountain and ended up behind us. The friends from Pietermaritzburg had scouted much of the Race to Rhodes route in training, and informed us they had discovered a great route through the Vuvu Valley — rather than crossing the river multiple times and bashing through endless reeds, they found a high line that involved a lot more climbing, but was often rideable. Di was ecstatic at this prospect, and Bruce and Ryan seemed willing to team up with us. Liehann and I engaged our strong road legs to hold their pace through the rolling hills past several villages, and waited for Steve and Di while guzzling two-liter glass bottles of Coke at a spaza shop.

We veered off the village streets and descended into the Vuvu Valley. Di had gotten me pretty riled up about this thing. The main river valley was fairly wide, and flanked by side valleys that promised confusion about whether one was still on course. Year after year, racers ascend the wrong canyon out of the Vuvu Valley and become terribly lost — finding themselves stranded below cliff faces, spending nights out, and sometimes skipping the checkpoint at Vuvu altogether. Anxiety levels were high, and I had this ominous sense of descending into the Heart of Darkness.

We began bashing through six-foot-high grass, and I quickly fell behind. Amid thick vegetation on steep rolling hills, pushing the bike feels like wrestling a reluctant animal; I simply lacked a necessary component of strength and experience to do something I very much wanted to do, which is keep up with the group and not end up lost and alone in the Vuvu Valley. I wanted this with all of my being, to the point where my heart was racing as I gasped for air, and my shoulders and arms ached. My top limit wasn't good enough — and this was a humbling reality. I scanned my map to get a sense of where we were, but it was readily apparent that I'd either have to invest the time to study the thing and take compass bearings, or throw my own navigational understanding to the wind and race blindly after the group. I knew Liehann wouldn't leave me, but if I fell too far behind, there was a question of whether we'd fail to locate each other.

I bashed over a spur and caught sight of the group, riding along a rocky bench. Their path was something of a trail, but again was a technical challenge of uneven stone slabs hidden in tall grass. Much of it was stuff I normally wouldn't ride — I admittedly have never developed much skill for technical rock riding, and once I start getting bucked around I often get bucked off. I'd already taken a few disconcerting crashes in the Freedom Challenge, luckily walking away with only bruises, but one bad crash wouldn't just force me out of the race — it also would put me in a bad position far away from help. It wasn't worth the risk, and yet — what were my options? I laid into the pedals and hacked my way across the rocks, feeling that rush of exhilaration that one feels when everything is on the line.

Liehann and I did end up both losing sight of the group at one point. We spent some time debating vague suggestions from the maps like "look for the lone tree" before we caught a glimpse of them scaling a steep face across the Tina River. This must be the line out of the valley, but it wasn't quite straightforward — there were multiple spurs jutting out, and I still wasn't sure whether this was the final climb, or whether we needed to descend and cross the river again. My energy levels were tanking but there was no time to eat anything; I fired up the willpower reserve and marched hard.

The climb just continued to steepen, until we were scaling a veritable cliff on a staircase of three-foot-high boulders. A true scramble. I could see the others hoisting their bikes on their backs, but every time I tried to lift mine up, my rubbery biceps and shoulders simply failed — as though I had done too many reps of a heavy weight, and now there was no amount of willpower that would make them work. My ascent was a too-slow process of power-lifting the bike up onto a bench, propping it against the wall, and then using both arms to climb up myself. I watched the group disappear over a crest with an icy feeling of trepidation. In hindsight, the route was fairly straightforward and I would have been fine to work at my own pace until I reached Vuvu. But at the time, I had been so fixated at keeping up with them that my fatigued mind equated abandonment with doom. I was engaging everything I had to race up that mountain.

Toward the top, something snapped. I became extremely dizzy, and the whole valley swirled around as I weakly gripped my bike against the rock face. The cliffs weren't too exposed, but a slip would have resulted in a fall of ten feet or more, and I could see those drops rushing toward me as I teetered on a ledge. It was only fifty or so more feet to the top; I was almost there. And yet, when I turned around to try to lift my bike, the dizziness became more pronounced. I gazed up helplessly at the group waiting at the top. My struggle must have become blatantly apparent, because one of the Rhodes riders (I think it was Bruce, although I apologize that I don't remember exactly) scrambled back down and grabbed my bike, carrying it the rest of the way up. I followed behind him, still teetering as my legs folded underneath me and I balanced on my rubbery arms like an intoxicated ape. I felt both incredibly grateful and ashamed. At the top, I drunkenly stumbled toward Liehann — unable to even hold a straight line on solid ground. He ran toward me with a packet of Hammer Gel.

"I thought you were going to fall of the edge," he said.

"I thought so too," I stammered, and took the gel. Both of my hands were shaking violently as I struggled to open the packet. "I've never had a bonk like this. Never like this."

The last remnants of dusk filled the sky as the group pedaled into the village of Vuvu in full celebration mode.

"Vuvu in the light! We made it to Vuvu in the light! Can you believe it?" Di exclaimed.

My head was foggy and I felt ashamed. Defeated. My empty legs spun the pedals and I slumped over my handlebars, completely spent. Physically, this time. And mentally, too.

"I'm not strong enough for this," I fretted to myself. "I'm just not strong enough."

But this was not the time to give in to despair. I had to turn my mental game around and fast, because tomorrow, we would climb Lehana's Pass.