the alaskan version of the freedom challenge is SO on my to-do list.
it might not happen next year - it interferes with Argus, and I'll be going for my 21st next year, so will have to sort that out first.
But reading through the blogs and what these riders experienced - WOW.
entries for 2011 open on 8 april 2010 - race starts on 27 Feb 2011.
2012, anyone??
Showing posts with label freedom challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom challenge. Show all posts
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
on a bike to cape town
(picture from the hatman's site)
There are different ways of getting to Cape Town on a bicycle.
You can load your rigid with panniers, buy an air ticket back, and take 2 weeks to solo-tour from Joburg to Cape Town, visiting friends and family along the way.
Or you can ride from Pietermaritzburg to Cape Town on the freedom challenge, cycling in snow storms over mountains to experience the best of South Africa's singletrack and the best of its hospitality.
If you like the idea of having a backup vehicle to transport your luxuries for you, or just want to experience a little more then just South Africa, you can maybe join Tour d'Afrique on their ride from Cairo.
If you have enough time you can, like Riaan Manser, start out from Cape Town and circumnavigate the continent before returning a few years later.
Or you can cycle from Durban to Cape Town on a unicycle.
One unicyclist and one blogger left Durban on 28 December - 3 weeks later, and they're in the Eastern Cape somewhere.
They're raising awareness of the horribleness of landmines. The tour was almost off due to lack of funds, but Rotary Umhlanga donated R5000 towards fuel, food and blogging expenses. They'll need more - their banking details is on their website - go have a look at the pics and if you've got change lying around, here's one way of spending it.
1 100 kms to go - good luck guys!
Friday, December 11, 2009
gumption traps
gumption: the energy you throw into what you're doing - the enthusiasm, initiative, sparkle
gumption trap: something that drains the gumption - energy sucker, enthusiasm damper
I just finished reading Robert Pirzig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - a book that is not about Zen, not about Art, and not much about Motorcycle Maintenance either.
But this is not a book review, it's about things that drain the gumption - cycling gumption in particular - and possible ideas on preventing it. Or at least minimizing the damage.
Gumption traps (said Pirzig) can be external or internal.
External Gumption Traps are things out of your control. Examples are
- horrible thick mud that collects on your mountain bike and builds up so thick that the wheels refuse to turn.
- ill weather - a non-stop south-easter, or never-ending cold fronts, or hail storms every afternoon exactly when you planned to ride.
- injuries / illness - you have all the gumption needed but can't put it to use because of an injury.
- mechanicals
Internal Gumption Traps are things within yourself. Examples are
- tiredness
- boredom
The essence of Pirzig's advice for bypassing Gumption Traps (in Zen & Motorcycle Maintenance) is to take time off. He calls it 'to go fishing'. Sit back, do something else. The answer will find you, you don't have to search for it.
I have seen this parallel principal at work very often with work-related problems. I would struggle with a problem on the database, not knowing exactly how to solve it, and then go onto Chain Reaction's website to browse through e.g. red bitsies for the bike - and next thing the solution would jump into my head. On a more dramatic note, i have gone to sleep at night with an unsolved problem, and wake up in the middle of the night with a clear solution - which i then immediately email to myself at work, and usually would work on the first implementation.
I have seen this parallell principal at work in cycling as well.
Some gumption traps that I have fallen into, and possible ways to bypass them:
The thick sticky clay on the first after-rain lap at the 24-hours
This was both an external and internal gumption trap. External because the mud simply didn't allow my to continue cycling. internal because I was frustrated that i didn't want to damage the bike (I spent almost R2000 at a bikeshop after some mud in last year's Sabie Xperience) and had to give the lap up.
Afterwards i was curious as to how other cyclists managed to cycle through the mud. I hubbed the question and got some pointers:
- Ride through every puddle you see. It washes the clay off and would allow the wheels to keep turning.
- Just keep pedaling. The clay will fall off after a while.
- Try to avoid changing gears.
The emotional trap I solved by standing back and changing the goal. Originally i wanted to do as many laps as possible. When the mud happened, I realised that I could either try to continue to race (and pay for teh damage) or just give up the race. I took a lot of time off, cleaned the bike as well i could, socialised with members of an x-adventure racing team, D&D buddies, hubebrs and other people i knew. Then went to sleep until i realised a long time later that that particular piece of mud was not part of the laps any more. I felt refreshed, the bike was reasonably ridable, and i got back on.
I'm going to have to train more to be able to ride through mud, but at least the take-time-off worked for getting back on.
the broken gear-cable at 94.7 MTB
I was flying - has a good seeding (2nd batch) and haven't been passed by many people in my group - in fact, I was passing people on the climbs and on the downhills. I felt good. Until the derrailleur stopped working at about 15 kays into the race. Stopped to check it out, and the gear cable broke off clean.
- learn how to fix it - or at least how it works.
When there's no gear cable, the chain goes to the smallest chainring - the biggest gear. A knight stopped and changed the limit-screw on the derrailleur so that the chain came to rest on the second-smallest chainring. This helped. A cycling-friend afterwards sugested that i could also have put a stick between the derrailleur and the gear where i wanted it. It would have manual gears, but it would have been better than singlespeeding in a difficult gear.
The ultimate place to see these make-shift fixes in place, is on Freedom Challenge. gadget epoxy'd a bottom bracket into place, the Gardener singlespeeded for a while, Doug rode with broken shoes, the tandem, the snowstorms and high winds and driving rain for days on end .... good grief, now that i think about it, the Freedom Challenge blogs are ALL about overcoming every possible kind of gumption trap - i wanted to still talk about getting bored with training, and with the ride itself, tiredness and other gumption traps - but there are far better examples of this out there - fiona's blog or doug's or the tandem story or gadget's story - so i'm logging off :)
gumption trap: something that drains the gumption - energy sucker, enthusiasm damper
I just finished reading Robert Pirzig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - a book that is not about Zen, not about Art, and not much about Motorcycle Maintenance either.
But this is not a book review, it's about things that drain the gumption - cycling gumption in particular - and possible ideas on preventing it. Or at least minimizing the damage.
Gumption traps (said Pirzig) can be external or internal.
External Gumption Traps are things out of your control. Examples are
- horrible thick mud that collects on your mountain bike and builds up so thick that the wheels refuse to turn.
- ill weather - a non-stop south-easter, or never-ending cold fronts, or hail storms every afternoon exactly when you planned to ride.
- injuries / illness - you have all the gumption needed but can't put it to use because of an injury.
- mechanicals
Internal Gumption Traps are things within yourself. Examples are
- tiredness
- boredom
The essence of Pirzig's advice for bypassing Gumption Traps (in Zen & Motorcycle Maintenance) is to take time off. He calls it 'to go fishing'. Sit back, do something else. The answer will find you, you don't have to search for it.
I have seen this parallel principal at work very often with work-related problems. I would struggle with a problem on the database, not knowing exactly how to solve it, and then go onto Chain Reaction's website to browse through e.g. red bitsies for the bike - and next thing the solution would jump into my head. On a more dramatic note, i have gone to sleep at night with an unsolved problem, and wake up in the middle of the night with a clear solution - which i then immediately email to myself at work, and usually would work on the first implementation.
I have seen this parallell principal at work in cycling as well.
Some gumption traps that I have fallen into, and possible ways to bypass them:
The thick sticky clay on the first after-rain lap at the 24-hours
This was both an external and internal gumption trap. External because the mud simply didn't allow my to continue cycling. internal because I was frustrated that i didn't want to damage the bike (I spent almost R2000 at a bikeshop after some mud in last year's Sabie Xperience) and had to give the lap up.
Afterwards i was curious as to how other cyclists managed to cycle through the mud. I hubbed the question and got some pointers:
- Ride through every puddle you see. It washes the clay off and would allow the wheels to keep turning.
- Just keep pedaling. The clay will fall off after a while.
- Try to avoid changing gears.
The emotional trap I solved by standing back and changing the goal. Originally i wanted to do as many laps as possible. When the mud happened, I realised that I could either try to continue to race (and pay for teh damage) or just give up the race. I took a lot of time off, cleaned the bike as well i could, socialised with members of an x-adventure racing team, D&D buddies, hubebrs and other people i knew. Then went to sleep until i realised a long time later that that particular piece of mud was not part of the laps any more. I felt refreshed, the bike was reasonably ridable, and i got back on.
I'm going to have to train more to be able to ride through mud, but at least the take-time-off worked for getting back on.
the broken gear-cable at 94.7 MTB
I was flying - has a good seeding (2nd batch) and haven't been passed by many people in my group - in fact, I was passing people on the climbs and on the downhills. I felt good. Until the derrailleur stopped working at about 15 kays into the race. Stopped to check it out, and the gear cable broke off clean.
- learn how to fix it - or at least how it works.
When there's no gear cable, the chain goes to the smallest chainring - the biggest gear. A knight stopped and changed the limit-screw on the derrailleur so that the chain came to rest on the second-smallest chainring. This helped. A cycling-friend afterwards sugested that i could also have put a stick between the derrailleur and the gear where i wanted it. It would have manual gears, but it would have been better than singlespeeding in a difficult gear.
The ultimate place to see these make-shift fixes in place, is on Freedom Challenge. gadget epoxy'd a bottom bracket into place, the Gardener singlespeeded for a while, Doug rode with broken shoes, the tandem, the snowstorms and high winds and driving rain for days on end .... good grief, now that i think about it, the Freedom Challenge blogs are ALL about overcoming every possible kind of gumption trap - i wanted to still talk about getting bored with training, and with the ride itself, tiredness and other gumption traps - but there are far better examples of this out there - fiona's blog or doug's or the tandem story or gadget's story - so i'm logging off :)
Thursday, July 9, 2009
after R2R: other bees in my bonnet
Safely back home from R2R, I followed the Rasa riders' progress with mixed emotions.
A part of me SO wanted to become part of this legend.
A part of me was grateful to be back in the office, watching them cycle through the snow and mud from the comfort of my office chair.
And, while waiting for blog-updates and sms-updates and twitter-feeds to come through, catching up with life in general, and emails in particular.
One of the emails was from a friend ... about possible dates for her Everest-trip. Since January, when she conquered mt Vinson, I kind of suspected that she might go for all 7 the summits, and suggested that I'll get a few supporters to go cycle around the mountain when she's on it. Figured that it'd be a while before she would be able to get everything together.
And then, between updating the blogs and waiting for updates on the Freedom Challenge website, I stumbled across her proposed dates - next year April/May.
So I naturally had to go search for mountain biking in the Everest area.
AND FOUND THIS: http://www.everestmarathon.com/bikerace/
A mountain bike race from Everest Base Camp to Katmandu.
Including a piece of road that is possibly the world's longest downhill, a drop of about 4000 meters over about 100 miles.
Although not that technical from a pure mountain biking point of view, I can't imagine a race that would have better scenery.
It includes one week of acclimatizing (and doing touristy things while doing so), a flight from Katmandu to Lhasa (with Everest probably not that far below you), one week of bicycle-touring to base camp (getting used to the altitude), 2 days in base camp to explore and get ready for the race, and then 5 stages of racing.
Now all I have to do is to persuade Elsie to go climb her mountain in July, instead of April/May :)
A part of me SO wanted to become part of this legend.
A part of me was grateful to be back in the office, watching them cycle through the snow and mud from the comfort of my office chair.
And, while waiting for blog-updates and sms-updates and twitter-feeds to come through, catching up with life in general, and emails in particular.
One of the emails was from a friend ... about possible dates for her Everest-trip. Since January, when she conquered mt Vinson, I kind of suspected that she might go for all 7 the summits, and suggested that I'll get a few supporters to go cycle around the mountain when she's on it. Figured that it'd be a while before she would be able to get everything together.
And then, between updating the blogs and waiting for updates on the Freedom Challenge website, I stumbled across her proposed dates - next year April/May.
So I naturally had to go search for mountain biking in the Everest area.
AND FOUND THIS: http://www.everestmarathon.com/bikerace/
A mountain bike race from Everest Base Camp to Katmandu.
Including a piece of road that is possibly the world's longest downhill, a drop of about 4000 meters over about 100 miles.
Although not that technical from a pure mountain biking point of view, I can't imagine a race that would have better scenery.
It includes one week of acclimatizing (and doing touristy things while doing so), a flight from Katmandu to Lhasa (with Everest probably not that far below you), one week of bicycle-touring to base camp (getting used to the altitude), 2 days in base camp to explore and get ready for the race, and then 5 stages of racing.
Now all I have to do is to persuade Elsie to go climb her mountain in July, instead of April/May :)
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
the giants out there
It was perfect weather for PMB to Rhodes.
When we saw the guys (and girls) off in Rhodes, it was cold, and we knew it would be a hard and difficult journey to Cape Town, but everyone was cheerfull and expected to finish.
But the weather is not playing nicely any more. It is scary to read on the website about the people who are pulling out - I have cycled with some of those guys, and trained with some others, and know how strong they are - mentally and physically :(
Some of the strongest dudes and dudettes that I know, blog about how hard the days' cycling was. I read about gale force headwinds, stan's freezing in the tyres, painful knees that makes cycling virtually impossible.
Everyone here in the office is cheering them on, everyone wants the tandem to finish, I could already hear 'chariots of fire' as ordinary people cycle into Diemersfontein after an extra-ordinary journey ... I so want the people that cycled with me to Rhodes, and the people who trained with me, and the bloggers and everybody else to hurry up and finish the race so that I can concentrate on work again ....
And I want to shout 'hang in there, keep going' when I read about hailstorms and sore knees ...
But when does it become just a little stupid to continue? At what stage is it sensible to listen to your body and stop cycling and give up, so that you don't damage your body and can come back next year to finish what you started?
When we saw the guys (and girls) off in Rhodes, it was cold, and we knew it would be a hard and difficult journey to Cape Town, but everyone was cheerfull and expected to finish.
But the weather is not playing nicely any more. It is scary to read on the website about the people who are pulling out - I have cycled with some of those guys, and trained with some others, and know how strong they are - mentally and physically :(
Some of the strongest dudes and dudettes that I know, blog about how hard the days' cycling was. I read about gale force headwinds, stan's freezing in the tyres, painful knees that makes cycling virtually impossible.
Everyone here in the office is cheering them on, everyone wants the tandem to finish, I could already hear 'chariots of fire' as ordinary people cycle into Diemersfontein after an extra-ordinary journey ... I so want the people that cycled with me to Rhodes, and the people who trained with me, and the bloggers and everybody else to hurry up and finish the race so that I can concentrate on work again ....
And I want to shout 'hang in there, keep going' when I read about hailstorms and sore knees ...
But when does it become just a little stupid to continue? At what stage is it sensible to listen to your body and stop cycling and give up, so that you don't damage your body and can come back next year to finish what you started?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Filling a 100 litre tub
It's so much easier, doing the r2r.
You can, for instance, pack a clean set of cycling clothes for every day.
Warm (clean) clothes for the evenings.
A full-sized toothbrush :)
Big towel and soap.
Shampoo.
Living up to the RASA expectations of looking like a tourist in the evenings, all clean and dry and smelling of soap.
You have, after all, 100 litres' worth of space.
Which is about double what the Freedom Challengers have, at 26*2 litre ... for about a quarter of the distance. Yes, lots of space.
With the Freedom Challengers' boxes already on its way to Capetown, and with all the talking and blogging about what they packed, and how, and how to get everything else in the 30-litre-backpacks, you feel a little left out. So you decide to go find a 100 litre box (to get an estimate of quantities) and put your stuffs together.
Just in case you have to go to the capestorm shoppie once more.
'If in doubt, take it with', one of the freedom challengers said, 'you can always leave it in the box if you don't need it.'
'I'll carry your fruitcake', you replied. 'I've got planty of space. Need me to carry some coke for you as well?'
100 litres. LOTS of space. Clean clothes for the evenings, warm stuffs, pretty pink fleeces and cute beanies with hair. Polar buffs. Gloves from the last time you climbed a real mountain.
Throw everything out in the spare room, box goes in the corner.
Big box. Lots of space.
Start packing.
In the box:
You'll have to rethink the game plan, then.
Back to the drawing board.
You can, for instance, pack a clean set of cycling clothes for every day.
Warm (clean) clothes for the evenings.
A full-sized toothbrush :)
Big towel and soap.
Shampoo.
Living up to the RASA expectations of looking like a tourist in the evenings, all clean and dry and smelling of soap.
You have, after all, 100 litres' worth of space.
Which is about double what the Freedom Challengers have, at 26*2 litre ... for about a quarter of the distance. Yes, lots of space.
With the Freedom Challengers' boxes already on its way to Capetown, and with all the talking and blogging about what they packed, and how, and how to get everything else in the 30-litre-backpacks, you feel a little left out. So you decide to go find a 100 litre box (to get an estimate of quantities) and put your stuffs together.
Just in case you have to go to the capestorm shoppie once more.
'If in doubt, take it with', one of the freedom challengers said, 'you can always leave it in the box if you don't need it.'
'I'll carry your fruitcake', you replied. 'I've got planty of space. Need me to carry some coke for you as well?'
100 litres. LOTS of space. Clean clothes for the evenings, warm stuffs, pretty pink fleeces and cute beanies with hair. Polar buffs. Gloves from the last time you climbed a real mountain.
Throw everything out in the spare room, box goes in the corner.
Big box. Lots of space.
Start packing.
In the box:
- a few spare tubes
- a chain
- a tyre
- half a bottle of stan's (cos you have it)
- lube - wet and dry
- a front derailleur (because you have it)
- 2 skewers - front and back (because they were lying around in the house)
- 2 of those little wheel-thingies that goes onto the derailleur
- some tools
- 6 sets of cycling clothing - shorts, shirts, long- and shortsleeved
- a fleece or 2
- fleece pants for the nights
- 2 sets of legwarmers
- 1 set of armwarmers
- a fleece headband
- 2 buffs
- civvies for day after the ride
- full sized toothbrush
- sunscreen
- odds & ends
- rain jacket & pants
- make-up and unmentionables, as suggested by Gadget and his buddies and buddettes
- you're sure you read somewhere that someone recommended you take a sleepingbag with
You'll have to rethink the game plan, then.
Back to the drawing board.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Cycling with FreedomChallengers
So.
I signed up for Ride 2 Rhodes.
The kindergarten-version of the Freedom Challenge, complete with a guardian to look after us :)
Gotta do a bit of training. Even though this is the novice-version, there would still be hills to climb. But when Dave suggested on Saturday that we go for a ride with Fiona and the Freedom Challengers, I was a bit wary ... these people are going all the way to Cape Town, and they probably trained accordingly - if their blogs were to be believed. Intimidating!
But I allowed myself to be talked into riding with them ... they would be cycling with full kit and apparently were tapering, and who could resist a ride in the Magaliesberg area anyway?
An early start on a coldish morning.
Dave lead us down a tar-hill to test the buff's ability to keep the ears warm, and to find out where toe-freezing-point is. Then up again, through the gate, and heaven. This is why i cycle. For dirt and pretty views and rocky climbs with gnarly downhills. On towards the dam, then down, another little singletrackie through grass, and coffee.
Then a portage - 'cos the Queen Bee said so, and even though i was gonna do the kindergarten-ride, i, too, will have to go over Lehanna. That's what they said, so I went with them.
'they' also confirmed a few other things for me:
The Freedom Challengers quickly replanned the route, and we went up the vegetable farm, a short climb, a nice downhill (the bike loved it!) then up some gravelroad, and then up a stunning little rocky climb. heart rate monitor's battery is flat, but i'm sure with the last remnants of last week's cold it would have been a ne max heartrate. All of them with backpacks approaching 40 kg's, way up ahead on the climb, and me trailing a km or 2 behind them with my 2 litres of water in my bag. (That's why I do the novice ride.)
Did I ever feel left out of all their talk about ice-cream boxes that had to be packed and sent down to capetown, or about their final preparations, or about parts of the route that i wouldn't do? Not at all. Just very thankful for a few things:
thank you, Gadget, for the entertainment provided :)
Good luck, all ye Freedom Challengers! Two weeks to go!
I signed up for Ride 2 Rhodes.
The kindergarten-version of the Freedom Challenge, complete with a guardian to look after us :)
Gotta do a bit of training. Even though this is the novice-version, there would still be hills to climb. But when Dave suggested on Saturday that we go for a ride with Fiona and the Freedom Challengers, I was a bit wary ... these people are going all the way to Cape Town, and they probably trained accordingly - if their blogs were to be believed. Intimidating!
But I allowed myself to be talked into riding with them ... they would be cycling with full kit and apparently were tapering, and who could resist a ride in the Magaliesberg area anyway?
An early start on a coldish morning.
Dave lead us down a tar-hill to test the buff's ability to keep the ears warm, and to find out where toe-freezing-point is. Then up again, through the gate, and heaven. This is why i cycle. For dirt and pretty views and rocky climbs with gnarly downhills. On towards the dam, then down, another little singletrackie through grass, and coffee.
Then a portage - 'cos the Queen Bee said so, and even though i was gonna do the kindergarten-ride, i, too, will have to go over Lehanna. That's what they said, so I went with them.
'they' also confirmed a few other things for me:
- the ride 2 rhodes is 6 days, not 7 - so i have enough cycling kit (the luxury of not having to carry everything, therefore being able to take clean kit for every day)
- the 20 litre bag will be big enough, even with travel-size makeup and other unmentionables in the bag
- thank you Fiona for all the tips on navigating! i'll see how much i can remember
- apparenlty my pet cat looks more like a dog, but in the end they admitted that maybe it could pass for a lion-cub, which is feline, which makes it a cat.
- my lift back from rhodes was in fact riding with us in the group (i only had email contact up till then)
- blue is a very good colour for a camera - now it must just arrive in time, otherwise i'll have to take the SLR
The Freedom Challengers quickly replanned the route, and we went up the vegetable farm, a short climb, a nice downhill (the bike loved it!) then up some gravelroad, and then up a stunning little rocky climb. heart rate monitor's battery is flat, but i'm sure with the last remnants of last week's cold it would have been a ne max heartrate. All of them with backpacks approaching 40 kg's, way up ahead on the climb, and me trailing a km or 2 behind them with my 2 litres of water in my bag. (That's why I do the novice ride.)
Did I ever feel left out of all their talk about ice-cream boxes that had to be packed and sent down to capetown, or about their final preparations, or about parts of the route that i wouldn't do? Not at all. Just very thankful for a few things:
- i didn't have to climb that rocky bit with a backpack almost as heavy as fiona herself.
- i know people who know how to connect all the juicy bits in the mountain in the best possible way, creating a stunning ride :)
- happy to be on my bicycle -the bike absolutely loved the ride
thank you, Gadget, for the entertainment provided :)
Good luck, all ye Freedom Challengers! Two weeks to go!
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