The evening of Thursday October 15th and I arrived back in Stellenbosch with jetlag, which I suppose I am getting used to and a holiday on the horizon. Not just any holiday, but a six-day “fun” stage race with my good friend and World Class MTB’er Christoph Sauser. Next morning I dragged my sleepy body to Greengate a local café we frequent here in Stellenbosch, for a much-needed caffeine hit! I was greeted by XTerra man Dan Hugo and team mechanic Dylan Van Der Merwe!

Dan: “Bobby how do you feel about The Cape Pioneer?”

Me: “I’ll be grand Dan, we’ll just take it easy and sur how bad can it be”.

Dan “Bobby seriously now, have you checked out the profile”?

Me: “No haven’t got to that yet”

Dan: “Bobby I think you should check the profile”

Me: “Sur I better I suppose”

And on we went with our coffee accompanied by quite a few chuckles from their corner! Damn this must be harder than I thought I pondered! “The Little Shit” better not kill me I thought to myself … he is getting a phone call.

So I wandered back to the office a little mindful of the impending event. A quick look at the route online and alarm bells sounded! Hold crap! A quick call to Switzerland.

Me: “Susi shit this thing is bloody hard! You told me it would be easy. Holy crap!”

Susi: “We’ll just ride easy. It will be grand”

Me: “Susi there’s over 2,500 metres of climbing some days. I am dead!!”

Susi: “Ah we’ll be fine”

The Swissman has broken a few partners in his time (anyone who knows The Epic knows the deal!) and I hoped the Irishman wasn’t going to be his first Irish victim!

I love driving (one of my favorite things to do), so I blasted down to Oudstroom (just over three hours), where I met Susi and the next day Monday Oct 19th the race kicked off. With about 100km of riding per day with elevations gains on some days of over 2,500 meters, this was going to be a tough event.

Rather than conserve energy on day one I rode pretty hard for me mainly in second place until with 40km to go the wheels came off the cart. Big time cramping started and did not stop until I was on the massage table!! It was agonizing!

Day two and stupidly I rode pretty hard early on and when we hit the day’s major climb (The Swartberg Pass) I clicked the stopwatch, as I wanted to get a split. In two weeks time I was going to see this pass again in The Hell MTB Race an event I placed 10th in last year. Today was going to be a good reconnaissance mission! Well that’s what I thought!! About 2km later my legs exploded, not in a good way, but in a bad way! I crawled up the climb and at one point Susi pushed me!!! A photo was taken little to my knowledge!

The next morning I woke, turned on my phone and the text messages, emails etc just poured in! Abuse from the Stellenbosch boys!! I was now infamous, but for the wrong reasons!! Apparently there was a photo of me being pushed up a climb in a national newspaper!!!! Christ!!!

Day three and I tried hard to make amends! The leaders went early and after a bit of a tussle on the final paved road Susi and I rode to second. Squirt the third placed team on the day, did have many mechanical problems though. Day four and five were hard hard hard! I struggled but pushed as hard as I could! The highlight was definitely the stage five-podium girls!!!

I still had to redeem myself. I threw caution to the wind and attached early on in stage six, Susi came across near the top of the climb and away we rode. We won the stage! Take that yee Stellenbosch ******** I thought to myself!! Haha!

It was a very tough but awesome week. Susi and I had many laughs and met some sound people.

It’s so good to be back in Stellenbosch now, my own sofa TV, coffee shops and office. I’m a guy of routine and back I am!