Last few weeks in South Africa before the trip

27 December 2010 to 2 January 2011

New years week and also this week was the first time where I had my “oh shit” moment, “what the hell am I doing”. I started reading some blogs from fellow riders and also from previous riders, and then you get an idea of the distances we will be doing. Not for the faint hearted. The first week in Egypt is something to the extent of D1 – 128km, D2 – 168km, D3 – 140km, D5 – “only” 98km and then D5 – 140 km. D6 will be a rest day (finally). These are serious distances and for someone that has not even cycled the 94.7 race (famous race hosted by radio station in South Africa where the race is 94.7 km long), this is a serious challenge! Especially for my butt. So aim for this week is that I need to do as much cycling now as possible over the last few days until next week Tuesday (4^th Jan), because I am sending my bike to Cairo as unaccompanied luggage with Ubag. Stupid Egypt Air has no sporting goods allowance so I do not have much of a choice, unless I want to pay for overweight luggage, but then it will basically work out the same as another plain ticket. But the problem is that Ubag needs 5-7 working days to deliver it, so plan is to send my bike over a week in advance and hopefully when I arrive in Cairo, it will be there so that I can pick it up (keeping my fingers crossed).

I bought my final few things, so now I have all of my gear (finally and after many a Rand’s later I have to add!). Still wondering about getting that GPS, although it will cost me what half of my bike cost me. I think I am pretty covered in the medicine department and would give Doctor Quinn (the medicine woman on TV) a run for her money with all of my stuff. But I just think I did not have much of a choice. Stranded in the middle of Africa and getting sick is not funny, so rather safe than sound.

I also had a “dummy packing session”. TDA are very strict with the luggage and weight restrictions that we can take. All of the riders are allocated lockers, which they have given the specs to us in an email (50cm wide, 65 cm tall and 85 cm deep). We also have a 46 kg weight limit, which includes everything that you are bringing along like clothes, bike spares, medicine etc, except you bike, spare rims and spare tires (which they will put on the top of the support vehicles). But we also need to take into consideration that whenever you are cycling, all of the rest of your gear also has to fit into this locker. Nothing is allowed to lie around and if it does, or everything cannot fit into the locker, it has to be left behind. No excuses. So 46 kg may seem a lot, but when you start adding tents, sleeping bag, sleeping bag mantras, bike spare parts, loads of medicine to cover 4 months etc, it starts getting filled very quickly. And the other tricky part was also to determine which items, after everything was packed into the two duffel bags and it fitted, would need to be sent with my bike through Ubag, as Egypt Air has the 20kg weight allowance. So this pack was really important for me. I initially bought a 100l and 65; duffel bag at Cape Union Mart, but once I had laid out all of the parts and clothes etc on the bed, I realized that the 65l bag would be to small, so I had to go buy another 100l bag. But after this, the items fitted in quite nicely, with a little bit of space to spare in the bags – which is great, because TDA recommend to use smaller bags to sort the various items and making the use of the locker system easier. For example have a shelter bag, daily clothes bag, repair bag, office bag, electronics bag etc. It just makes using the lockers easier, as 50 riders need to access it each morning and night, so things have to be neatly packed and easy to get in and out.

It was also so nice to meet up with Henno, Liezl and Maya on Tuesday. It was the first time (and only time) that I will see them before the trip, as well as the first time that I had seen Maya – must say, she is SO cute and well behaved. I ended up baby sitting her for a few minutes when Liezl went for a routine scan for their second little baby (congrats on the boy by the why!), and I must admit, very nice (although I was a little scared at first).

Towards the end of the week I had 3 big cycling days! Did 83km on 31 Dec, then 96 km on 1 Jan and then 86 km again on 2 Jan. Man, that was tough going!!! Although physically and mentally a big step in the right direction for me. Due to the constant having to spend time on the bicycle (and the fact that none of my friends are in Pretoria), I did absolutely nothing on new years eve! I think I had about 3 beers with dinner and that was it. But after my cycling session in the morning, it was well worth it. Spending 4 hours cycling with too much booze from the night before does not work. The thing I enjoyed the most about new year was Stephanie sms’ing me as it was heading towards new year in Cayman and then later on I was getting a “live update” over the phone ever hour or so! So nice from her! And very sad that we could not spend new years together. But soon come…… I also received the news on Sunday that Marelie (SA girl riding the tour) was not going to use Ubag anymore (we were both going to send our things over together), so after making some sums and looking at the pros and cons of taking my bike with me on the plane and paying the overweight luggage, I also decided that it was probably better to take ti with me on the plane. A lot less stress and at least I know )of hopefully) the bike will arrive with me in Cairo and I do not have to go and pick it up later, pay agents fees, deal with customs etc…..

Also got my Egypt visa this week, so now all 3 of the visas that I needed to get up front has been sorted! Nice! And I have been in contact with a SA travel magazine, “die Weg”, who might be covering my story or I might do a like a web diary or something. So watch this space…..

3 January 2011 to 9 January 2011

First week of the new year, and no, it still feels the same as 2010 J Definitely feel that the trip is coming closer now, only 2 weeks to go. At least I bought myself some time with the decision to take my bike with me on the plane. I few extra days of exercising will come in very handy.

Had another bike class (ie Bike 102 class), which will be the last one before I head off. The lessons are definitely working, as I am feeling more and more confident about the bike. Not that I will classify myself as a bike expert, but at least I am feeling like I am coming to grips with the basics, which is all I wanted to achieve before I leave. The rest will probably be learn as we go along or just plainly “I don’t know, can anyone help please….”.

It was also our 8 month dating anniversary! Yay! Breaking grounds here J Sorry that I could not spent it with Stephanie, but hopefully many more to come!

Spend Thursday night with Adriaan and Andrea before they headed off to Cayman, and Friday was with Christo and Elmien for a farewell dinner. Also busy stuffing myself full of food that I think I will not be able to get for the next few months nor things that I have not had for a while, including Deboinnar’s pizza, peppermint crisp tart, braaivleis, Windhoek beer. Sunday evening was wonderful; Emile and Erin came over for dinner and mom made a fantastic dinner (Oxtailtail).

By the end of the week, I probably did not do as much exercising as I wanted to do, but I think hopefully all of the hills, training at altitude etc will help a little bit. But ultimately it is probably 70% a mind game and the 30% body (how your body deals with the sitting in a seat for 6 or 7 hours a day). Talking to some people and their consensus is that it is difficult to train for a journey like this, you basically train yourself while you are doing the race (or that is what I hope!).