Mielies, wind and a damn big dam is how Alistair Schorn sums up the third stage of the 2015 Old Mutual joBerg2c. Here he shares his thoughts on the longest stage of the nine-day mountain bike ride. Follow more of his adventures on Confessions of a Weekend Warrior on In the Bunch.
At more than 120km, day three of the Old Mutual joBerg2c was the biggest one so far, and the race briefing made special mention of the tough nature of the course, particularly the last 25 or so kilometres.
Fortunately, the weather gods were once again kind to us with a fairly mild morning, and we were soon rolling along long, straight district roads and winding through seemingly endless mielie fields.
About a third of the way into the stage we also started catching the first sight, far away on the horizon, of the mountains that await us.
The riverside Jabulani singletrack – with a good number of local supporters cheering and taking photos of us cruising through their neighbourhood – was one of the highlights of the day.
For me, everything went pretty smoothly through the first two waterpoints, but then I started seeing and feeling the first stirrings of the wind. Before long, these stirrings had developed into what felt like a howling gale.
Unlike day two, there seemed to be quite a few sections where the wind was from behind, but then there were also sections pedalling into the wind where it felt like I was going nowhere fast.
Shortly after waterpoint three, we started climbing up to Mount Paul, grinding our way across what felt like endless grass fields, buffeted by a hectic crosswind.
Thankfully, once we started the climb itself the wind was pretty much from behind and once we were close to the top we were rewarded with our first sight of the blue waters of Sterkfontein Dam.
The descent off Mount Paul was great, even if it seemed to be over far too quickly, and soon it was onto the dam wall (fortunately once again with the wind behind us), before a last bit of a grind into the wind brought us into the race village.
All in all a pretty good day.
One thing I have to say though is that joBerg2c is full of some really tough guys and ladies.
Walking around the race village, I saw a good few people with knees, ankles and shoulders strapped up, and a steady stream of people passed through the physio tent.
We also saw the last rider for the day come into the finish in a time of around nine hours and 45 minutes, which is a seriously long day in the saddle.
In spite of all that though, I’m pretty sure almost everyone will be on the starting line again tomorrow. Respect.
Read previous Confessions of a Weekend Warrior
Read next Confessions of a Weekend Warrior
