About 48 hours after finishing the “Tour de France of Mountain Biking” I am at 10,000m moving along at around 850kph. The seat is comfortable and there is even a little fold out table to prop up the iPad as I type. The Lumineers are loud in my ears having become a sort of unofficial musical backtrack in the camper over the last days of the Cape Epic. The demands on a working man are back and I am bowing to them, heading up to Joburg for the day.

As we lifted off from Cape Town International the horizon behind the Helderberg mountains was glowing as the earth turned lazily toward the sun. The very same mountains that we had battled against on Stage 7 of the Cape Epic looked stunning in crisp silhouette against the deep purple sky.

The final departure out of Stellenbosch on Sunday was a rather a spectacle. A stunt plane looping overhead marking trails across the blue sky, three helicopters jockeying for the best shot of the surviving teams lining up as the crowds marked the railings of the start chutes. Who would get priority? The photographer? The sponsor? Or the live TV broadcast?!

The final countdown….

Nestled between the horseshoe arms of the mountains surrounding Stellenbosch the way out was up. No surprise there! But it was up for half the day’s mileage. So we dutifully climbed for around 29km towards the saddle between the Helderberg and Hottentots Holland mountains along a spectacular rough mountain pass. With a classic Dr Evil twist. Most mountain passes aim to crest at the lowest possible point – the saddle. Just ask Thomas Baines or John Montague. But not so for this beast. As we rounded a shoulder, I exclaimed to Jayson that we were already higher than the saddle and was fully expecting to head straight down to it and on to the finish the Lourensford finish last. “No ways mate, look at that string of riders way above us!” was the dispiriting rejoinder. So we slogged up another couple of 100m until we could descend toward the saddle. Again, superlative views for the couple of seconds I could lift my eyes but mainly I was focussed on the inviting farm road descents stretching out below for the other half of the day’s distance.

It’s all downhill from here… not!

It goes without saying that it wasn’t all downhill from there, but with the juicy carrot of the finish line dangling tantalizingly within our grasp, the occasional short but challenging ups were dispatched without the usual disgust reserved for nasty surprises in the last gasps of a stage. And then, somewhat surprisingly, we were there. Really there. On the grass, between the barriers with the loud cheering and applause from the huge crowd welcoming us we raced over the final finish line of the 2013 Cape Epic. Africa’s Magical, Untamed Mountain Bike Race.

Really, really there!

There was the full gamut of emotion around us – exhaustion, tears of relief, tears of joy, smiles, whoops of delight and two marriage proposals. Mmm, what would have happened if they had not made the finish for some reason?

Marry me. Er, and my bike…..

Up onto the stage to receive our winners finishers medals and then we were surprised to be sent through the Amabubesi chute to collect our three times finisher’s medal. I hadn’t at all remembered that for both Jayson and I this race would be the third Epic for both of us. Although it was our first Epic together, it was also our third long stage race together (the others being the inaugural Joberg2C over 9 days and the 7 day Terra Australis in Victoria, Southern Australia) so it was kind of a fitting end!

One rider claimed to have conquered the Epic. I would have to disagree. Similar to my experience on big mountains, you sneak up quietly and get the job done, hoping the tiger doesn’t turn around and find you holding it’s tail. About 150 riders didn’t escape at all, and many others survived through sheer tenacity. Yolande Speedy (who took the ladies race with Catherine Williamson) crossed the line with a broken collarbone and two broken ribs. How??

Spare a thought for Andre Hoekstra. Entered the Cape Epic in 2008 only to break his collarbone the week before, colliding with a runaway pram (no baby) near Noordhoek while racing the Argus and so didn’t even make the start line.

Five years later he enters the 2013 Epic to give it another go and ends up breaking his same collarbone in a road race (not the Argus) three weeks before the Cape Epic. The doc whipped out the old plate and popped in a new one so against the odds it looked like he would still make the start line! Until on his final training ride in Tokai forest, just two days before the prologue, the tiger whipped around and took out two ribs and that, as they say, was that.

The say a change is as good as a rest so on Monday…..

And finally……
(With sincere apologies to The Lumineers)

Ho, Hey, Ho, Hey
I been trying to do it right, I’ve been living a lonely life,
I’ve been sleeping here instead, of sleeping in my bed, biking’s in my head

Ho, Hey, Ho, Hey
Hey!