BB2BB Day 21

Day 21

What a day!l

Let's start with our gracious and generous host! Hoffie Conradie, who took the Intercape bus to Queenstown and then cycled to Moordenaarspoort, joined up with me to ride along to Lainsburg. He knows the Schoemans personally as he was there GP when he practiced in the area from 1982-2002. Danie therefore decided that our stay over will be on the house.

Olof also joined us for the night. After his minor accident with his GS, he decided to ride to Moordenasrspoort with his bakkie, spend the night with us and drive back the next day.

As today was going to be a long day, we decided to opt for a 05:00 start. We left Moordenaarspoort at 05:02. Two kilometers down the road, Hoffie realised that his cel phone was missing. We turned around to go look for it. Hoffie rode ahead, thinking that he dropped it as we left. I rode back slowly checking the road surface as we cane. Within one kilometer I saw it lying in the road. Hoffie and his phone re- united, we continued on our merry way.

Although the road we were traveling down was not well maintained (grass grew in the middle), the surface was in quite a good condition. The GPS did take us down a track which was very rough, but this did eventually linked up with a goid district road. We were averaging around 13 kph. We stopped for a bite after 3 hours and then carried on towards Jamestown.

About 4 km before Jamestown, the first heavy shower hit us. It really came down and I had my warm riding jacket, which is not water proof, on with the result that I was wet through in no time. Hoffie stopped to put his rain jacket on. It was a mission to get to my rain jacket and I gambled that the rain would stop. This did happen just as we turned onto the N6. Our journey down the N6 was only 5 km and then we took the Burgersdorp turn off.

We had some nice riding and even a little sunshine. We followed the road, but then I noticed that the GPS track not follow the road. We turned around and picked up a faint track which took us past some abandoned farm steads and eventually onto what used to be a railway line. The tracks and sleepers were gone, but the stones was still there. We even saw one "W" sign. It started to rain again. Negotiating this track was very interesting.  We also cone upon a bridge over a river, which was no more. We managed to get over the river without getting too wet and continued until we eventually reached a district road. This part on the route did not look familiar to me and I realised that there were two routes to Gouevlei. The old railway line or the road I thought was the incorrect route. Time wise both provably are the same.

We first turned into the wrong direction on the district, but very quickly realised our mistake and turned around. The rain was now pouring down and the wind was quite strong. We took the Molteno turn off and struggled on. I new that the Freedom Challenge interim support station at Brosterlea was about 10 km up the road. I suggested to Hoffie that we head there and then decided what to do. We now had  to riding into a howling wind and the rain persisted. I was feeling strong and managed ti keep a good pace, which helped to keep the cold away. Hoffie was falling behind and I decided to push on and either weight for him at the turn off or make another plan.

I slept at Brosterlea during the 2014 Freedom Challenge and found the people there very accommodating and friendly and decided to try my luck. I drove up to the house, knocked on the door and was welcomed by Alta. I briefly told her my story and asked if we could go and fetch Hoffie. She agreed, but insisted that I swop my wet top for one of her husbands warm jacket. That done, we jumped into the bakkie and went looking for Hoffie. As we approached the main road, we saw Hoffie. We put his bike on the back of the bakkie and drove home. When got there, Alta said we can stay the night. We felt that under the current weather conditions that wad the best option. We both had a warm shower and got into dry clothes. Alta offer us lunch and coffee, which we gladly accepted. I phone Romansfontein and informed them that we were not going to staying with them this evening.

The net result is the instead of a 140 and 60 km day, we now will have a 90 and 110 km day.

I have been experiencing problems with a very soft rear shock. I knew that Will, the owner of Romansfontein was a keen cyclist and phoned them again to find out if they have a shock pump. They confirm that they have, so we will pop in there tomorrow to see if re-inflating the shock resolves the problem. If not, I will have to see what I can do to get a replacement.

The weather now is perfect. The sun is shining and the wind has died down! We are settled in for the night and trust that the weather will be clear in the morning.

Data for the day: start 05:92; time 8:91:34; distance 93.6; gem 11.66 kph; klim 1,354 meter; daal 1,347.