The Eskay Cycling Herald: The Smooth Knobblies ride Sani2C (Draft 1

Despite what anybody says, the Sani2C is the most sociable mountainbike race in the country. Without a doubt. And it just goes from strength to strength. If you don’t have any Sani2C clothing items in your wardrobe, where have you been? This blog entry has two purposes: to inform those of you who have not yet done it; and to share some of the stories that we as the Smooth Knobblies experienced.

The entry has always been a hot topic in the cycling circles. They have been as rare as an honest politician! But with 3 versions of the Sani2C now running back to back, I would assume that accessibility to the event is becoming less of an issue. Now you can do the race, the trail, and the adventure. The route is exactly the same for all three. Its just the crowd and the pressure that intensifies in each one – although I gather that the trail and the adventure are far more weighted towards the social aspects of the ride, whilst the race accommodates those of us interested in times, positions, and actual race mentality. We opted for the race because we felt that’s the heart of the Sani2C – you're riding against some of the most competent riders in the country and it’s a great gauge of where you are as a mountain biker. If you're more a trail and adventure person, then everything I write here is obviously still applicable – your version of events is just more laid back. Think of it as going to Woodstock but you missed out on the mud party when it rained.

Half of the Sani’s enjoyment is the build-up to the event. You're like a kid off to the circus for the first time! And boy do you want to talk about it! The Moose and I spent ages just talking nonsense about what we were going to pack; the spares we needed to take; flight bookings; bike boxing; do we take the cyclelab pre-paid package option or not; what if we have a serious mechanical etc etc… as cyclists we just love to analyse all of this over and over again! It’s part of the sport. Why do it if you can’t talk ad nausea about it all? But it was our second Sani2C – the rest of the Smooth Knobs were all Sani Virgins. Naturally we were willing to share all the do’s and don’ts of the Sani with our fellow riders (very much like what this blog entry also intends to do!)

SMOOTH KNOBBLIES TEAM PAIRINGS

First up it was The Moose and I. We had already done a Transbaviaans, Lighthouse2Lighthouse, Lourensford, Argus MTB and Argus Road together – so we had a good idea of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. When I bombed out, he would carry me, and vice versa. We matched each other well and our temperaments matched (and still do). He’s far more flamboyant, outspoken, and dramatic then I am. I'm the calmer rider who just gets on with it. (Now the Moose will kill me! Actually, it’s completely the opposite!)

Woody and Moose

Second pairing is the couple of the group – JayZee and Billy Bob. Riding as a couple doesn’t mean you're matched as riders – it means that you're prepared to take your relationship into a new arena. Sometimes this does not work. JayZee and Billy Bob are both exceptionally competent riders, but Jay Zee’s appetite for risk is higher. This can create some sticking points in a MTB race when the single track invites you to push as hard as you can – and the other partner may be a bit reluctant to brush their knees against the inner shoulder of a burm whilst the other rider wants to go all Greg Minnaar on the course.

Then we had the Heavy Weights. The Silent Assassins pairing of our biggest guys would not have been out of place packing down as locks for the Brakpan First XV Rugby Team. At a combined weight of over 220kg’s, the Silent Assassins combination of Dots and Timmy were always going to build their riding approach around downward momentum. And the Sani2C has plenty of that. It’s just the upward hills that get in the way of that strategy! And the Sani2C has enough of those as well.

Meticulous. Organised. Thorough. Compact. This is how you need to plan for this event. Flying from the Cape immediately adds to the logistical challenges for us. This is what you need to have in place a few months prior the event:

And you need to all of this yourself. Unless sponsored and pampered, you will be surfing the internet a few months before the time busy clicking and ticking away with credit card in hand. We tried to book as a group across most of the above transfers and accommodation and it worked out pretty well.

Sani2C is a fantastic ride. The distances aren’t to be taken too lightly however. Day 1 sees you cover more than 80km with some great singletrack. The start in Underberg is always cold though. Since the calendar start was changed to May (to reduce the risk of Summer rains making the Umkomaas Valley inaccessible) expect to set off on sub-zero temperatures. The A group left when the mercury was at a lowly minus 2 degree. Back in F group the Moose and I managed to extract some warmth from the dawn sun and leave at a crispy 3 degrees.

Day 1 also includes the now famous floating bridge section. Every year the riders are all keen to see who didn’t make it over. The Smooth Knobblies were naturally confident – all those years of riding around the rugged Cape mountains meant that we had no reason to fear a flat and winding bridge…..or did we?

Seems like Timmy was overheating at the time and decided that a dip was in order. Or it was all an elaborate marketing effort between Dots and Deloittes – why else would you veer off the floating bridge and splash into the drink? Timmy went in and the poor chap following him had to follow…. It got messy! Eventually Tim managed to pull himself out and splodge his way to the shore – this after a considerable traffic jam of riders had built up on the entering side of the bridge! Tim reckons he couldn’t touch the bottom and it was absolutely freezing. His poor body wasn’t too sure what had hit it when he had to reactivate the joints in a cold and crisp Drakensberg morning. And Dots during all of this? He did the right thing by cycling to the other side of the dam, did an about turn, and made sure he captured as much as he could on his GoPro (hence the marketing angle I'm suggesting here!)

Tim wasn’t the only one to come a bit of a cropper on Day 1. After 50km we were rushing through some singletrack when my back wheel popped up off a stump. This upward bounce led to me overcorrecting in the air and finding myself on a crash course for a tree. Well – I tackled this pine tree as though I was Joost Van Der Westhuizen lining up Jona Lomu in the 1995 Rugby Final! And I reckon the impact was about the same. How I didn’t break a collarbone, heaven alone knows. I was certain that it was snapped. Fortunately I eat my jungle oats and I came off feeling OK. More shaken up than in pain… It could’ve been so much worse.

Billy and John had a classic “Cookie Cutter” experience. On Day 2 the singletrack splits into 2 separate paths – and both run a fairly independent course before meeting up again. You are warned time and again that teams should choose the same track – separation could lead to kilometres of solo riding, each partner wondering who was ahead and who was behind. In this case, Billy was in the lead, on the right track (literally), and about to enter the dual track when she heard “take the left one doll”. At the last second she veered off the track and snuck into the left path…. Turns out it wasn’t John who told her to do a last minute track change. And the angle of entry was so sharp that John had no space or chance to follow! The last thing was expecting was for Billy to jump off her line and into the other path. It took about 20km before the two were reunited at the first waterpoint! Relations were somewhat frosty when both parties tried to analyse why this had happened. Turns out John tends to yell directions from behind more often than not and Billy assumed the instruction was a standard par for the course instruction…. But they’re all fine now and have worked out their following protocols so that they never getr separated again. Good lesson if you ask me!

The Smooth Knobs did really well in a highly competitive field. Out of 675 finishing teams, we placed as follows:

137. Nguni Bulls (Rens and Pierre) - 11hrs38:31
505. (and 11th in their Category) - The Golden Knights (Billy and John) - 14hrs42:45
580. The Silent Assassins (Dots and Timmy) - 15hrs45:41

To give you some perspective, if Moose and I had raced the Adventure, we would've placed 12th. And had we raced the Trail, it would've been a 2nd place finish! This highlights the difference in attitude between the various versions of the Sani2C. Everyone is catered for!

The Smooth Knobblies ride Sani2C (Draft 1 - more to be added)