Cycle 2 350km along the back roads and byways across the country and it will take you a good deal of time.
It took Tim James 13 days, 15 hours and 45 minutes in a new record time in the annual Freedom Challenge, now taking place between Pietermaritzburg and Paarl.
Bicycle travel along animal tracks, footpaths and old wagon tracks, with a 10kg pack on your back, can be very slow. James managed to complete the distance averaging 7km an hour. This includes sleeping time.
In fact, part of his successful strategy in blitzing across the country is to keep sleeping to a minimum. In the last five days of riding he slept just 11 hours. This was four hours on the first of these nights, followed by three, two, one and one.
Sleep deprivation is the least of the challenges of this extreme event. Riders this year had to deal with bitterly cold conditions, snow, thunderstorms and driving rain, which left much of the trail a muddy mess.
James (51) says that at one point, several hundred kilometers from the finish, he was so sleep-deprived that he nodded off. ”I pulled over and had a 30-minute sleep. When I started cycling again I couldn’t believe how strong I was and flew the next 20km.”
James had a sleeping bag with him, but only used it once, near Dordrecht, after cycling along a tiring muddy section of the trail. He found a shed used for shearing sheep and slept on a bale of wool. ”I slept for seven hours solid,” says the SAA pilot. ”It was my best night’s rest.”
About 40 riders attempted the ride this year, which started on June 13. The riders start in batches a day apart because accommodation options can be limited at some of the overnight stops. These include farms, B&Bs, lodges and a rural village.
Two riders had finished at the time of writing on Wednesday this week, with the rest of the field stretched back to Pearston, the halfway point of the trail.
James, a previous winner and the record holder, said he felt he needed to do his very, very best. ”I thought I could do a little better than last year. I was not quite satisfied,” he said. He broke his record by 21 hours.
James says that his ride this year was the best he could have done. He feels no pressure to come back and beat the record and says that during the final, near-sleepless run to the finish he promised himself not to do it again. ”There is no pressure to race again.”
James finished on Monday this week. I spoke to him on Wednesday. He was back on the trail, by car this time, delivering a new wheel, with Milo and biscuits, to Mike Woolnough and Glenn Harrison, who are riding the Freedom Challenge on a tandem.