Mean and Grand. The DCM Cape Pioneer Trek
Text: Steve Shapiro. Photos: Oakpics.com & Zoon Cronje. Article from the February 2012 issue of Ride Magazine.
The third DGM Cape Pioneer Trek was full of tight racing, textbook drama, hardship and beauty; it was, again, a chunky slice of the real thing.
On the racing front, while acknowledging the very hard efforts of everyone else, no-one can pretend that the focus wasn’t going to be on the battle between the cavalier stylishness of the World Champion, Christoph Sauser, with his talented protegee, and defending title holder, Max Knox, up against the consummate professionalism of South Africa’s best in the form of Kevin Evans and David George. Although it didn’t go to script, that’s where the action was.
Muscle and meat
Call me soppy if you like, but the Pioneer Trek is much more than a six-day, very tough and very beautiful mountainbike race in a special region of our country: it is a package of excellence and experience with the capacity to transform and almost extravagantly enrich the hardy and fit few. Many consider this to be South Africa’s all-round best, perhaps most gruelling, and certainly most fulfilling, event of this kind. But, like the people who ride stage races, they’re all different – comparisons are odious after all. In this third manifestation, after registering the one too-hard stage, which (following similar, apparently excessive, challenges in editions one and two) was said by many this time to be too too-hard, the package for the almost 200 adventurous riders was acknowledged as a triumph in the way of racing (or tough, scenic touring) with thrilling technical sections, good food, great camaraderie and the caring professionalism of the Oudtshoorn-based Dryland Events organisers.
Scenically, that first day was dominated by the distinctive sun-baked textures of the vast (certainly not klein) Klein Karoo. Besemkop wildlife Reserve was accessed, up and down, by perfect, twisty and narrow farm roads through a veld dominated by formidable clumps of semi-succulent spekboom, with occasional explosions of colour greedily exhibiting the bounty of recent windfall rains.
The presence of racing luminaries like Sauser and Knox, his partner in the 360ne-Songo.lnfo team, and Evans and George (Nedbank 360life), as well as more than a sprinkling of other names from the pro ranks, lent itself to the superb dicing and duelling that set something of an inspirational tone to the middle and back markers who are the meat and bones of the event.
Evans and George, who went on to take the final honours in 24:23:51, were comfortable winners on that primary stage, five minutes ahead of Ben-Melt Swanepoel and Nico Bell – who seem to be looking for a team sponsor, but shouldn’t have to.
Rwandan champion and regular on the South African circuit Adrien Niyonshuti, riding with the equally, vocally-reticent Jacques Janse van Rensburg for MTN Qubeka, worked well together and, in spite of some rotten luck on a couple of stages stayed in contention, on or just off the podium.
The big shock of the day was the late arrival at the finish of the favoured Songos. One of them got lost or didn’t get lost and then one of them missed him while waiting, perhaps too nonchalantly, at a water point, and then dwaaled off looking for him. They ended 30 minutes down and with generous commissaire intervention and peer approval a sizeable time penalty of an hour was added for missing part of the course (they could have been disqualified). It seemed certain that their GC hopes had drifted off in the direction of the receding Red Stone Hills. With regard to the racing, there was excitement, heroics and drama in all of the categories and the time gaps in each stage tell that story. As this race is as much about the back and middle markers – still rolling in more than seven hours later on the first day, I am going to focus as much as possible on the more universal experience.
Fun-dex
Watching the pros, talking to them and seeing their unassuming, courteous, relaxed and appreciative interaction with the rest of the riders, it soon become clear why the totallity of experience becomes transforming to the individual, more ordinary, riders. These are the proverbial, if not cliched, mere mortals of mountainbiking, whose physiological predisposition, along with increasingly pressing demands, tends to preclude them from the podium glory that they acknowledge in the more elite others because (and it’s not corny) they are family.
The Cape Pioneer Trek is as much about having fun as it is about racing: the top riders ragged their teammates and their opposition almost incessantly – in fact, that might have been the main selection criterion. David George told of his partner’s total immersion during a river crossing (of course, he waited until Evans popped up like a wine cork before he started laughing) and Sauser, while ever complimentary about his partner’s skills and tenacity, intimated that “Mux knows how to enjoy himself”. Down the ranks, at every gap in the often too-hard racing, there were jokes and jokers and on-camera striptease dances to the pre-start disco music. Those evenings in the Bedouin tent were so relaxing that they were exhausting.
Back breaker
Six days, 660 kilometres with 13 500 metres of climbing is impressive enough but can never tell it all. At all six destinations, the hospitality tent was the scene of a serialised celebration party. Although marred on one occasion by paper plates and plastic cutlery, the food was persistently great, aided and abetted by several mysteriously itinerant wine cellars.
The passionate, knowledgeable commentary of Paul Valstar, combined with the media show of Cannes-class Big Shot Media movies and the creative excellence of teams of fearlessly opportunistic photographers, were part of the spirit-lifting cabaret and a tonic to the physically spent, maybe even dog-tired, resolve of all the riders. Make no mistake, these are six very tough days of mountainbiking. After the controversial too-too-hard day two footslog, which added one to two hours of not-riding to an already difficult route, the pros came in covered in dust and grime, with bloodshot eyes and a temporarily uncharitable opinion of what was perhaps an unnecessary excess of suffering. Kevin Evans was prepared to surrender the questionable title held by his dad, Leon, for Cape Epic route planning: “…and they call my father Dr Evil!”
Another accomplished pro, renowned for his gentle and generous disposition told me, at the final prize giving and after an otherwise very successful race in his category: “I’ll never forgive them for day two.” I think he’s too nice a guy and probably will forgive them, but this was way above the hard days of the previous two Pioneers and it is difficult to accept that the route planners are not already doing some serious thinking about the 2012 race. There was no shortage of advice for them and, while I’m sure they listened, it is their baby – and it will be their call.
That infamous 128-kilometre, 2 756-metre stage had started with the breathtakingly beautiful, sky-scraping Rooiberg Pass. Following the leaders by car at the start of the day, through a lush setting of Restia forests and floral scatterings, I was terribly envious. But as the letter massacre became public, my envy turned to relief. With rain clouds gathering, the Oakdale Agricultural College on the outskirts of Riversdale was a welcoming island of sanity for the day’s survivors. The back markers were out for 11 hours on the stage from hell – and they still had four days to endure. One of the late arrivals at the finish wanted to know if two stages had been combined into one.
Facing a daunting task, Sauser and Knox were on the comeback trail and took the stage (I am loathe to say comfortably, because no-one was comfortable) with a pretty good gap after a thorn “bigger than a six-inch nail” in one of George’s tyres delayed the Nedbankers. Matthys Beukes, riding solo, was almost always near the front and seemed to be focusing on the daily Contego King of the Mountains competition at R2 500 a pop.
The MTN boys, Nico Bell and Ben-Melt got stronger every day – just as the RE:CM roadies Neil Macdonald and Waylon Woolcock became more skilled and more MTB every day. The Bizhub Women’s team of Ischen Stopforth (who has never looked this good) and British Catherine Williamson totally dominated their category and would have had a lot of grown men crying – if, after day two, any of them had tears left to cry.
Wind power
There were no easy stages. At best, the rest were not quite that bloody hard. But the event already has a well-publicised reputation for difficulty and there was no sign that this was now going to be jettisoned.
At 98 kilometres with a mere 1 579 metres of climbing, stage three was meant to be an easy day, but it rained and the wind laid claim to the laurels for hardship. Given that the gale-force winds (which had blown all the tents away at the finish in Albertinia) was mainly coming from behind, the top riders flew across the foothills of the Langeberg Mountains, often pacing at 60 kilometres an hour on some of the district roads, and shot up the rolling climbs. Then they hit the headwind and the rain on the run in to what was beginning to look like a well-organised refugee camp.
The tail of the race had it a lot harder: the wind got ever stronger and the rain, according to one victim, was “falling upwards”, in addition to its more conventional inclination. At least he and the others would be sleeping dry in one of the classrooms at the local school.
Sauser and Knox, skimming through the Disneyesque landscape, greener than an Irishman’s rainbow, broke away from all the usual suspects to ultimately card 4:12:24. That was a minute and a half ahead of Swanepoel and Bell and five minutes ahead of Evans and George (who still seemed pretty much in control of the GC standings). The World Champion and the defending titleholder were making a GC comeback and clearly had something to prove. The situation coming into the fairyland water point at Grootvadersbos was prophetic. The MTN boys had a torrid time when Niyonshuti’s cluster and freewheel had a tiff and had to be McGyvered back together – every five kilometres. Roadies Macdonald and Woolcock were getting the hang of it and increasingly looking better than those Smart Alecs who had been teasing them. At the back, the variables of landscape and climate were taking their toll, but the relative improvement in psychological disposition could possibly be attributed to the uncharacteristically charitable inclination of the wind to blow from the tail. Although they were a ragged bunch at the finish, their standard attempts to defame the route planners were less than convincing – accompanied by irrepressible smiles.
Pyjama stampede
Stage four, 98 kilometres and 1 579 metres to Mossel Bay, tolled the death knell for the comeback aspirations of Sauser and Knox (although they eventually took four out of six stage wins) with early and persistent tyre problems. The main drama of the day was in the huge Gondwana Nature Reserve, past Herbertsdale and the Gouritz River,a securely fenced bit of turf teeming with giraffe, antelope and five free-ranging lions – warnings about which adorned the outer perimeter fences.
But it was not these top carnivores that provided the excitement, it was a herd of about 20 stampeding mountain zebra in prime condition and bigger than cart horses. Something spooked them just as the highly placed BH-Hai Giraffes mixed team of Katharina Stirnemann and Sandro Zonein rolled down the hill to the exit gate, spectator point and neutral support zone. It was like watching that recent and justifiably world-famous Buck Norris video all over again. Well, almost – the European visitors escaped by a hair’s breadth.
Stirnemann, naturally shy in both English and Afrikaans skills, later told Paul Valstar that she had inexplicably shouted “Attention!” at the beasts as they charged by. The Oakpics student photographer couldn’t get the whole shot, but her pictures set the scene. It was all too quick, so let me fill in the gaps. What the photographs miss was the sudden, numbing collective manifestation. These beasts were thundering along in close disorder, making the ground shake and reducing the shocked spectators to gape-mouthed disbelief. It was very quick and then there was what seemed like an inordinately long silence to follow, a kind of cerebral ellipsis…
Although they were a ragged bunch at the finish, their attempts to defame the route planners were less than convincing – accompanied by irrepressible smiles
By Pinnacle Point above Mossel Bay and heading for the seaside camping site, the now very ex-roadies, Macdonald and Woolcock, were on their way to a podium finish and everyone seemed to be more-or-less where they wanted to be, except Songo – but they still had a couple of days.
In the Women’s Team category, Ischen Stopforth and Catherine Williamson of the pro Bizhub team continued to stamp out their authority; while Erik and Ariane Kleinhans of Contego Mixed (who met and fell in love at the previous edition of this very event) were never seriously threatened and only missed out on one stage win to the zebra-harassed Giraffes. The other categories, with very occasional changes in order, were persistent and stable, but there was serious, yet friendly, dicing and duelling in the last three stages for the Masters.
Better, best
The penultimate stage had been mooted as the big one – the longest at 127 kilometres and 3 000 metres, but maybe the agreeable weather conditions and the possibility that most were riding themselves into greater fitness contributed to the shiny white smiles on their mud-splattered faces. Songo won in a photo finish 5.20.42, but Nedbank, with the GC pretty much in the bag, didn’t seem too put out and were now clearly enjoying themselves. In spite of the heroic exhaustion towards the back and, again, the long hours of endurance, the happiness seemed to filter down through the ranks. Obliging surfaces balanced the huge climbing. Between the Garden Route rivers, perfect jeep track, myriad mountains, single-track descent to George and the Scooters pizza girls (and boys), it might well have been the best day to be alive and riding a mountainbike. Although happy and relieved, the men and women from the middle to the back were tired and aching, and it still wasn’t over.
In a race like this, there are singular and, usually, unsung heroes (not everyone can be acknowledged). One stoic pilgrim well worth mentioning is Robert du Preez, an Oudtshoorn native who has ridden silently solo, towards the back and for long hours, in all three Pioneers. I tried to stay on his wheel in the last stage, but his pace and tenacity were too strong for me. But Preez had been noticed and acknowledged and was called up for a special award, which he received in wordless disbelief at the final prize giving. His prize was a great set of lightweight wheels, which means that I’ll have no chance of catching up to him in the final stage next year.
The event has a well-publicised reputation for difficulty, which is not about to be jettisoned
One more time
In all three editions of the Cape Pioneer Trek, I got to ride that last stage. This time, 93 kilometres and just less than 1 600 metres of climbing were required. This was meant to be a comfortable finish for the worn-out survivors. It was, nevertheless, extremely challenging and Glen Haw (Farmer Glen), an enthusiastic participant and the creative genius behind sani2C and other races, told me that if he was to put something as allegedly easy as that route up Montagu Pass and the adjacent Klein Karoo into his signature event, “a lot of the riders wouldn’t come back”. Having ridden just that one day, on guilty fresh legs, I again had a small taste of what the survivors had endured and my respect for them, at the end of it, awed me into embarrassed wordlessness. I also experienced the generally thoughtful palette (perverse maybe) of MTB experience in the equation. Climbing the pass was long, hard and scenically beautiful; and the other side was garnished by at least one tough 4×4 ascent rewarded by a madly radical technical descent; deep river crossings over slippery rocks; and sweet, unexpected, sections of rocky single track, including a hang-on-until-it-hurts drop through the bottom of the Chandelier game farm.
Route, or journey?
One of the things the Cape Pioneer Trek is about is a discovery of the variables of scenic beauty. It is something that was a part of the old Cape Epic and the departure from that format, to a more technically demanding contest with a pro-rider bias, is often the subject of heated debate. My, mainly outside, observations of the racing and of the difficulties preclude me from advancing an opinion, but for the daily changes in landscape offerings I have to say: “Please don’t change it!”
A wholeness
Take just the Klein Karoo sections, the heartland and inspiration behind this experience of totallity: This so-called semi-desert exposes itself in muted shades, which serve to emphasise the startling pockets of colour. Tying it all together, like an errant golden thread, are the undisciplined meanderings of the trail itself. When you ride great distances on a mountainbike, you have the enriching opportunity to see yourself as a small, but surprisingly critical, part of a greater whole.
You become almost photographically aware of your fulcrum role, seemingly tying together so many disparate aspects of the human experience like your hunger and thirst, the immediacy of focus on constantly changing trail surfaces, other ordinary people who are extraordinary. You can’t escape the realities of climate, like rain and wind on your face, or the sun beating down from an ephemeral sky, which is pegged and balancing on endless and eternal mountains – a bit like that Bedouin tent, full of food and beer, and which pops up after prolonged adversity on the addled cerebral monitor – an icon of fantasy and meditation. Of course, wherever you are on the GC, you want to go faster and the two women in front of you who keep stopping to take photographs become a blameless target for your vanity – you’re racing too. All of these factors seem to have been in the Dryland organisers’ reckoning.
The last stage was, again, taken by Sauser and Knox, with solo rider Beukes next across the line and Evans and George following, off the podium for the day, but on their comfortable way to overall victory on GC. The most poignant finish was in the Women’s Team category when Stopforth and Williamson sat up to prevent a sprint and the impeccable, evergreen veteran, Hannele Steyn, and her partner, Leanne Brown-Waterson, took the stage. Later, Steyn gratefully acknowledged the sportsmanship of the gesture.
Ultimately, it might well be that entering and riding this race is an extreme holiday: extreme to the point of self-questioning masochism. But remember, it’s not meant to be easy. The excesses of some of the hard-racing celebrants, directly post-final finish, while a little distasteful (they were vrot-dronk) was probably understandable – I assume they had seriously considered being far more couth by bowing, smiling and saying: “It was nothing really”. But, they chose the more maverick option. Members of this unholy, hipster-hooligan alliance snuck up and hit me with a quick shot of nature’s astonishing bounty, which, after almost seven hours in the saddle, immediately rendered me more than usually non compos mentis. When they tried to co-opt me into their nefarious cabal, I stumbled off and hid.
In mitigation, I must point out that those game survivors who made it to the gala dinner looking like vagrants recruited off the street, went on to donate many thousands of rands to community-supporting charities in the auction for the signed Leader jerseys. (All the money raised was, by promise, to be doubled by Nedbank, Evans’ and George’s sponsors.) Added to the auction prestige was Sauser’s signed World Champion jersey. It was a wonderful occasion and Paul Valstar’s solo handling of the whole presentation was a tour de force.
Yes, in my book (quite well-thumbed and with more than a few loose or missing pages) – this is the one. I can’t do verbal justice to it and I doubt very much if I could ride it all, but if anyone, even half-way enthusiastic about adventurous, perhaps unbeatably scenic and unimaginably challenging endurance mountain-biking, misses out on it, they are opting out of a quintessential life experience – and the opportunity to have more fun than is legally permissible in terms of the Constitution.
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