I am pretty sure that I will have used the title of this post previously – once again I am faced with the start chute of an MTB race at 6.30am tomorrow morning wondering what on earth I am doing here. It’s a familiar feeling.

This time it’s the Tankwa Trek hosted at the Kaleo Manor guest farm up in the Koue Bokkeveld plateau outside Ceres. Koue Bokkeveld could loosely be translated as “cold fields of goats” – or perhaps buck. It’s a historical thing I think. It’s also differentiated from the Warm Bokkeveld – warm fields of goats. Either way there are goats in this story. So far though, we haven’t seen any goats.

The Tankwa T-shirt

Kaleo in the other hand is very specific. It’s not Kay-lee-oh as I thought but Kuh-lay-oh. Which is important to get right when a kind staff member is sharing the secret WiFi password with you. She was also kind enough to point out my erroneous pronunciation.

So what issue store for the next three days? Well, it’s rather worrying that there is a serious lack of hefty looking cyclists. Its never a good sign when the whole field looks like the A seeded group in the Argus. In fact, the standard greeting seems to be, “Have you done this (race) before?”. When you respond in the negative, the unfailingly follow up comment is something along the lines of, “You have no idea how hard this race is”. Why would anyone open with that as a greeting? Do they want to scare the bibshorts off us newbies? Well it’s working.

Other than that it’s the usual three day love affair with, I believe, gravel roads (not much), jeep track (quite a bit), single track (probably quite a bit too) and a grass start and finishing chute. Probably between 5 and 7 hours per stage – unless….. I am competing with my partner Tony Walker.

The competition we are currently locked in is a internal team affair to be on the Podium for lowest fitness level. So far it’s neck and neck but I think my cramps on the 12 min leg loosening spin deserve special mention. Only in the feet but I swear I can feel them creeping higher. Tony is contesting based on a fantastic run of illnesses through November and December and then, with remarkable timing, a supposed knee issue three weeks ago which required special treatment. My secret weapon is complete lack of training through December and a series of intensity drills last week on the back of poor fitness. that have left me legless. Stay tuned to see who ends up on the top, or perhaps in this case, the winning bottom step.

A convenience of this race is the race village does not move – out and back each day. What a pleasure not to pack up each morning. And, it looks to be a pleasant and comfortable camp with shady tress and that grass start and finish chute. And the bathroom off te function room used for meals (extended with a Bedouin marquee) actually has white face cloths for towels. Yes – a first for any MTB race I have participated in. Possibly the only one in the world?

Scenes from the village