The biggest day of the CPT didn’t finish well.

But it started well!

Starting out at 7am, half an hour earlier than usual, we headed on to the beach for about 6km of wave dodging. The tide was quite high so the sand was pretty soft which made for tough going. Especially when swerving to avoid a wave. Which didn’t always work. Poor bike!

Thumbs up for Water Point 2

Then into the hills. As Henco the race director said, even the contour path was up and down. Hilana had a storming ride – easily the best I have ever seen from her. I on the other hand didn’t. My entire upper body was really sore and it was hard to breath. Things went pear shaped as we caught up to Yolande se Villiers and Johan Labuschagne. Hilana suddenly got a bee in her bonnet and took off. I followed as best as I could. At the last water point I had just filled my bottles when I saw her 150m down the road riding hard. What happened to “not racing”??

I was clearly not as focussed as I should have been and so about 5km later while descending a fairly smooth and innocuous forest track I suddenly found myself flying off the bike and hitting the ground hard with my right knee. I rolled over on to my shoulder as slid to a halt. About 35km/h to zero in slow motion.

Blood streaming down the leg from a couple of holes about the size of R5 coins. And a few really a bad contusions. Which is medico speak for a thumping great bump. Also a hole in the thigh and forearm. I knew immediately that I could not continue. Funny how one just knows. It’s nothing to do with the level of pain, you can just feel when things aren’t working right.

Hilana eventually came back to see what was up and was keen that I should try ride to the end. Not bloody likely!

As luck (??) would have it, a medic wandered down the road within about 5 minutes and patched me up and organised a lift to the medic tent for the doc to put everything back together. So I’ve upped my tally of stitches to 16 in all.

And so my race came to an end when the fat boy screamed.