Stage 3

Oudtshoorn – Ladismith
Distance: 130km
Time: 7h 30min
Climbing 2 700m

The most difficult stage of the race! Helps hope so! We are very glad to see the end of today!

Quotes of the day:
Chris: “This race is not for sissies!”
Fellow rider: “I used to be friends with my partner!” This was after he explained to us how he wrote all over his 2005 Epic dvd: Never and again!

They said that day two was going to be the most difficult day, then again they have said many things which have yet to materialize!

“Not too much further, only 15km to the end!” The finish line ended up being 25km further up the road!

So yes we have stopped listening to anyone other than our bike computers, however even those tell us that the finish line should have come 5km before it eventually does!

When you have been in your saddle for over 7 hours and climbed the equivalent of two and half Table Mountains two you can just imagine how excited you are to put your feet up, down a cold drink and do absolutely nothing! This is where our seconders come into their own!

Andrew and Julia are absolute legends, the first thing other than that ice cold coke that goes down is our protein shakes, which A & J have pre mixed! One thing you learn when doing this crazy race is how much energy your body can burn! We have been eating enough food btw the 4 of us to feed an army!

We set off as usual at 7am sharp and took our usual casual approach to possibly the toughest Epic day in history! Majority of the riders were off in a shot while Chris and I held back knowing that we would be seeing them shortly! The first hill/mountain would bring everyone back together and we wouldn’t have expensed too much valuable energy!

The key is to ride your own race and not get too influenced by the other riders around you. This may sound pretty straight forward but believe me it quickly gets competitive out there, with everyone sizing each other up, “big carves! Strong arms etc etc!! LOL Don’t be fooled, we have seen some very average looking riders, including woman power themselves past us!

The first of two major mountains, in all previous bike races I’ve ridden you look out for the hills, then again this is no ordinary bike race, came after 40km! Our tactics worked a treat and all the riders who flew ahead earlier were back with us.

This is a bike race but once again Dr Evil (route organizer) thought a little hiking would be fun! So off we walked, pushing our bikes up a ridiculous steep gradient for about 45min. The views down over the surrounding valleys were incredible, we had to keep reminding ourselves to take it all in, anything to get our minds off the never ending track ahead! The down hills have become our strength and where we seem to over take many riders, not that we are racing! (more about that later!)

This decent was probably the best of the race so far, a 20km stretch all the way back down to the next water point!

We were flying with about 3 other teams along the banks of a beautiful river when Chris got a flat! Our first after 280km of riding through some of the toughest most testing conditions I have ever been through, not bad going indeed! You see teams down, well sometimes only a single rider, fixing punctures the whole time and your heart goes out to them! Well we now know what it feels like! While we repaired our puncture about 4 different bunches (50 riders) came screaming past! (Who cares we aren’t racing!) Fortunately it was 2km before the next water spot and we were quickly reunited with most of them less than 10min later!

The next mountain was similar to the first, we all attempted to ride as far as we could up the absurdly steep slope before it was impossible to go any further, dismounted and began hiking! 30min later we were flying down the other side unsure what lay around the next corner!

Beautiful fruit orchards carpeted the valley, lying in the shadow of some of the most beautiful rock formations! Their rich reddish / orange colour contrasting against the luminous green plum trees. Sorry but you have to do anything to keep your mind off the repetitive peddling action!

Then came the Carlitzdorp Crusher! This is an understatement! Out of now where rose this massive mountain! The only way was over it! Mlevi the Landy took some serious strain and we are very grateful to have our support team with us!

1000m, 10km later we finally reached the summit! We were all ready relieved and thought that was it for the day!!

Alas another 30km and 400m of climbing later we eventually found ourselves in Ladysmith!!

Wow that was exhausting just thinking back over today!

A further 35 teams didn’t make the 5pm cut off and won’t be recognized as official finishes!
It is heart breaking stuff, at exactly 5pm every day the race organisor turns his back to the line and fires a gun signaling the end to another Epic stage. Anyone who comes in after that have their numbers cut off their bikes and are issued with a blue number! They may continue riding, if however they don’t make it during another stage they are not allowed to continue the next day.
There you have it another Epic day and we are holding up strong!