The Freedom Challenge’s Race Across South Africa (“RASA”) is an annual non-stop mountain bike race from Pietermaritzburg to Wellington. It covers about 2 300km and ascends 37 000m (if you don’t get lost). And it’s unquestionably the toughest ride Caren Henschel has ever done.
Race Across South Africa
The Freedom Challenge follows a prescribed route known as the Freedom Trail. Unlike most other races, it has no route markers and GPS tracking devices are disallowed, so the key undoubtedly lies in the navigation. Participants are disqualified if found using any GPS; instead they are dependent on a consecutive series of 82 x 1:50 000 topographical maps, simple narratives of the route, a compass, a simple bike computer and whatever knowledge they can glean from more experienced riders.
RASA takes place in June, spanning the winter solstice and guaranteeing cold frontal conditions as well as minimum daylight. Riders start in small batches of about five to seven riders, over a week each aiming to finish within the 26 day cut-off. The average rider takes 20 days while the winner of this year’s race, Theo van Dyk, completed it in 11 days, 8 hours and 53 minutes. This year 37 riders started with 27 finishers, and less than 200 individuals having completed the RASA in its 12 year history.
Caren’s Freedom Challenge
I started in the dark, early in the morning of 11 June. It was raining when I left Pietermaritzburg. After 19 days, 19 hours and 15 minutes I finished at twenty past one in the morning in Wellington while an icy storm blew freezing rain upon me. But the rain and cold couldn’t dampen my spirits. I’d completed a long anticipated journey and mastering a multi-layered challenge.
Whilst it is an individual event, and some riders choose to ride on their own, many meet up with others along the way. I chose to ride from start to finish with a riding partner, Tony Wright. Our plan was to ride conservatively for the first nine days to each of the designated support stations and then to make up time to finish within 20 days.
The Route
The route is almost exclusively on dirt roads, trails, foot or cattle paths or no paths, with a few short linking sections of tar.
The first day took us down to the beautiful Umkomaas Valley and up Hella Hella pass, to Allendale, near McKenzie Club (familiar to sani2c riders). From there the route heads south and inland, skirting the mountainous border of Lesotho towards Rhodes. The route picks out the most scenic, unspoiled yet challenging terrain, such as Ntsikeni Nature Reserve and Malekgolonyane. The countryside is remote with few people outside of the scattered villages. We rode through forests, nature reserves, wide open land, climbed mountains and passes, crossed rivers and entered small rural villages. Navigation was often tricky.
On day 6 we needed to cross over the Drakensberg via Lehana’s pass to Rhodes. For this we shouldered our bikes in a buffeting gale for four hours. Our mantra for the climb became: “If in doubt, go up.” There is no path to follow, so standing at the bottom of the mountain you need to look where you want to go and pick a line that will hopefully get you to the top.
After Rhodes the route took us out of the high, cold mountains before dropping off the plateaus towards the Mountain Zebra National Park near Cradock and on to the majestic Baviaanskloof. Here we tackled the difficult abandoned wagon trail in the Osseberg which has thwarted a number of riders in the past. We then reached more familiar areas, where the navigation was simpler. But the ever present head wind no less cruel. Willowmore to Prince Albert, then through “Die Hel” into the Little Karoo before entering the Cape Winelands via Montague and McGregor. The final brutal test through the Stettynskloof followed, and on to the welcoming finish at Diemersfontein in Wellington.
During our journey we came across a range of wild animals including eland, kudu, springbok, nyala and buffalo (including one in the road in Baviaanskloof) as well as wild horses, donkeys, goats and of course big herds of cattle and sheep. We met the warm, cheerful people of the country along the way and enjoyed the generous and amazing staff and farmers who cared for us at the overnight stops.
The Challenge
Riding 2 300km over mountains and through rivers is a challenge enough. Then add an 8-10kg pack on you back and the added concerns of mechanicals, injuries or other health issues, then throw in the icy cold temperatures. The RASA is truly the toughest race I’ve ever done. The biggest obstacle, despite all the aforementioned challenges to me though was the navigation in the rugged terrain.
Thanks to thorough preparation of our bikes and the spare parts we carried we had no potentially race-ending mechanical issues. We looked after our bodies and health as well as we could; trying to replenish lost calories, fighting exhaustion and managing our sleep deprivation.
The Cold
In the Maluti Mountains we had to deal with temperatures dropping to minus 13°C. The water in my bottle froze within an hour and I wore four pairs of gloves to ward off the cold. I also wore every item of clothing that I had in my backpack. Over time my fingers and feet took most of the strain, to the extent that a month later I still don’t have proper feelings in my toes or fingertips.
Reading the Maps
Navigation was the major challenge. Why? Do you think that you can read a map and follow a route description? It sounds easy but, believe me, it is far from it! Even experienced riders get lost on routes they’ve done before. Map reading can be very tricky and it is time consuming. Our mantra was: “Navigate it twice, ride it once.” But even this did not always help.
The maps are not always accurate, or do not record smaller, relevant details, or landmarks might have changed since the maps were compiled. At night most of the landmarks are invisible anyway. As a result, almost all riders got lost or disorientated at some stage. Some were forced to sleep in the veld with only their space-blankets wrapped around themselves for shelter.
Tony and I fortunately didn’t get badly lost or had to sleep out, but we learnt our lesson early: navigate together and always know where we were on the map. On day two we got disorientated on a normal forestry road before Donnybrook simply because we thought we knew the route but the forest had been harvested, so we took a wrong turn. We caught the error fairly soon but finding our way back took precious time. Time to orientate ourselves, time to read the map, time to read the narratives and time to orientate ourselves again, then time to get back on track and make up the lost ground.
Even without getting lost the navigation takes a lot of time because you constantly need to check where you are and where you need to go. This (and the difficult terrain) makes the average riding speed very slow and the days often very long. Our average riding speed was between 4 and 10km/h. Our average day was about 12 hours long. Our shortest day, day 6 into Rhodes, took 7 hours and 45 minutes; while our longest day was our last one, 21 hours and 20 minutes riding into the teeth of a cold front to Wellington. On both these days we pushed and carried our bikes far more than we rode them.
Portage
The route is planned to avoid any normal roads taking in dirt roads, farm roads, trails and tracks, paths or simply no track or path. Many of the paths are difficult and hard to ride, or not rideable at all. So you have to push or carry your bike. It’s estimated that riders portage their bikes for about 60km of the RASA.
Stettynskloof
Stettynskloof is the menacing final test. The valley has no path through it and is overgrown with thick fynbos and other dense vegetation, including impenetrable reed forests. We started in the dark at 4am, planning to skirt the riverine growth. We decided to take a route high up on the right hand side of the valley. However, we made a mistake by going up far too early, resulting in us crossing a series of deep rocky gullies; an exhausting and extremely time consuming navigational error.
To make it easier to push our bikes through the bushes we took the pedals off before sunrise and only put them back on well after sunset; spending over 12 hours to move about 12 kilometres without pedalling a stroke!
We eventually scrambled to the top of the remote valley after the last light, knowing that we were the only people there. In the dark, we then battled to find the faint path down from the top of the mountain. In the meantime, an ominous cold front had moved in; the rain was pouring down on us with the wind blowing like a banshee.
I then realised that I had lost my rear through-axle in the valley, as my wheel was hanging loose. In those freezing conditions we improvised an axle out of a spoke and sections of wire that allowed me to limp to the finish: cold, wet, hungry, exhausted but elated and deeply satisfied.
We made it anyhow, somehow; we got to the finish and we got the finisher’s blanket: an original Basotho blanket that serves as the finisher’s prize and enrols one into the select group of Race Across South Africa blanket-wearers.
Bio:
Caren Henschel has been a cycling enthusiast since her childhood in Germany. In South Africa she’s found the perfect place to match her passion for cycling with her love of the natural environment. If you’d like to find out more about Caren’s riding adventures you can email her on caren@bikeandmore.co.za.
