Race Report – Munga Grit Tankwa 2024

Being humbled in the face of the hugeness of life, opens empathy and understanding for others.

In the spirit of gonzo reporting here’s an account of an abortive attempt at the Munga Grit Tankwa 2024. I withdrew at race village one – after 17 hours and 219 of the hardest kilometres I’ve ever ridden.

The weeks leading up to the event were an emotional roller coaster culminating on Tuesday with my significant other being diagnosed with breast cancer. We had arranged, weeks before, that she and my friend Trevor would see me off at the midday start and then do a tour taking in Monk’s gin at the foot of the Bainskloof pass, a few wineries and then hold the next stage of their “competitive cooking” series of which I am the primary beneficiary.

She decided not to come on the weekend and her twin sister flew down from Johannesburg to spend some time with her and attend a doctor’s appointment.  I went to the race awash in complicated feelings of guilt, grief, anxiety, admiration for this woman, gratitude and more.

To get on to the ride itself – I massively underestimated what this was. I drove through to Kaleo and arrived at about 9. I realised halfway there that I’d probably picked the first base layer in the pile which very often is the chick’s one, hopelessly too small and I voice noted Trevor who brought me one more my size but not before I’d pretended to be the hulk and ripped the one with the pink Ciovita logo in an attempt to fit it around the Mamil moobs.

I was there but also not there. We’d arranged for me to call into a doctor’s meeting halfway through the race briefing but the reception at Kaleo made that impossible.

I greeted friends, looked straight through a new acquaintance I met a few weeks ago at eroica and didn’t greet her – I’ve written to apologise. I packed and repacked my bags – walked from the car to the race start and back again umpteen times. I thought I was OK, but I don’t think I was. My stomach kept working. I wasn’t ill, just ill at ease.

12km into the race, a WhatsApp flashed on my screen confirming what we knew the doctor would say. I stopped and called her back and heard the relief and positivity in her voice, early days, Stage 1, Grade 2, no metastases, eminently treatable, excellent prognosis. The routine mammogram has done what it’s there for and I thought about the thread on the hub talking about medical screening as I tucked the phone away and set off after the four okes who had passed me and chirped “Lost already” as they went by.

For the first time I felt present.

The wind was strong and from the front and then a cross wind as we went into the first vast plain of the desert. A dead straight road, sometimes flat but usually a false flat. Difficult riding – the chilly wind feeling strange and unpredictable, not a constant blast like the south easter in Cape Town, but a restless, shifting, gusting zephyr, cold with malice. I chatted with Alex, one of the organisers, a warm and friendly man who had said a prayer at the race briefing that had reminded me about a conversation my S.O.  I had a while back about how one of the big problems with the Judeo-Christian godhead was that we had removed him/her/it from nature. Alex asked me which ride I was doing the 50 or the 24 hour. I said, “The 50 but there’s a long way to go”.

The desert is beautiful – ancient, full of spirit.

At 94 km, Water Point one offered me little comfort. There was water, the people were friendly, I ate a banana and some peanut butter, replenished my water. The riders around me were tense, focused – we all knew we were in for something huge in the hours ahead.

My mind was not working properly.

I had a 500ml papsak of homemade gel and a hammer flask with more gel in it. On the nameless climb halfway to water point 2, the hammer flask was finished, and I forgot that the papsak valve opens when you bite and pull on it. I was sucking on it like the runt of the litter on the last teat and nothing was coming out. I thought the fructose in the gel must have clogged the valve, so I stopped to unscrew the top and dispense the gel into the hammer bottle. This while facing a 35kmph headwind which grabbed the gel as I poured it onto my cockpit, handlebars, jersey …. Sticky syrup everywhere.

The wind laughed at me – puny little man swearing at himself and pouring drinking water over his gear shifter and brake levers.

The Munga folklore and marketing says, “There be dragons” and all newbies get a cool cloth patch and a bumper sticker saying so. I realised as I thought about licking my stem that I was the worst dragon under that ¾ moon rising on my right-hand side.

By the time I reached waterpoint 2 I was shattered. I’ve been shattered on long rides before and I know that a little rest, some proper food and the shelter of a well-run support station can recharge the body and refresh the spirit.

I ate some lasagne, had a coffee and some sandwiches and a potato. I packed 2 marmite sandwiches for the road. I noted the knowing looks a couple who were just leaving gave me about the next 50 km to race village 1. I wondered if I should sleep or push on to the Race village on the other side of ouberg. It was midnight – 12 hours since the start. I opted to ride.

After some confusion about the right way out of the waterpoint, I followed 2 guys who were picking nice lines through 10km or so of slightly technical jeep track. The wind had quietened down. I felt OK – not great but OK.

I ticked down the kilometres to the base of Ouberg.

If you’ve ridden Ouberg you’ll know that it is unrideable to all but the strongest of riders – people capable of putting down Zone 7 watts for 5 or 7 seconds again and again and again to get over the ruts and loose rocks and holes while recovering at tempo. Not many of us in the middle of the pack can do that.

The wind was merciless. Cold and so strong that it pulled the bike away from the ground. I had to wrestle with the bars to keep the wheels on the road as I walked up this brute of a mountain. At some points it was so strong that I couldn’t keep moving. I had to wait 10, 15 seconds at a time as gust after gust tore at me. Halfway up there was a 4×4 with a trailer stuck with a man asleep inside and a Jack Russell saying hello at the window. It felt surreal – dreamlike.

I laughed aloud when I remembered that I tell people that one reason I ride these crazy events is to be in the natural world and experience awe in the magnificent landscapes that the bike can take a person. “Jy wil mos” I thought, “here you are in this awe-inspiring landscape and in awe of this almighty wind that doesn’t give a damn about you and could rinse you off this mountain without even noticing that you were here in the first place”.

Awe is not just the captivating view from the top of Swartberg on a fine day with the sunlight warming the orange of the rocks and the road snaking invitingly into the cleft of the valley below.

Awe can also be a Mamil alone on a dark mountain, a sense of the inky arid void of a vast desert valley on one side, a cruel wind hammering from the front that feels like it could take you with it over the edge, a pool of light from the handlebars illuminating the next three meters of loose rocks and rutted trail ahead. It’s turning around and seeing four other lights dotted on the path behind and knowing that each one is another lone rider on the same path and with his own 3 meters of illuminated struggle ahead of him, surrounded by grandeur veiled by the night. He is in the same predicament that you are.

Being in awe, what I think religion alludes to when it speaks of being god fearing, that is; being humbled in the face of the hugeness of life, opens empathy and understanding for others.

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I got to the top.

I was in pain.

My ribcage hurt from the effort of pushing the bike into the gale. My calves were burning and tight. I mounted and could manage only about 120 watts on the gentle downhill slope to Race Village 1.  It felt like each change of gear on my sticky gear lever was tearing a thin layer of skin off my thumb.

I stumbled into the warm Race village and almost tripped into the warm smile of Alet who was serving great food with a cheerful and energized bustle. She didn’t look like she’d been awake the whole night.

The 46km from the waterpoint took 5 and a half hours. It was 5:30am.

I ate a bowl of cottage pie and a bowl of vegetable soup. Some others and I shook our heads at what we had been through. Someone told me that Dusty Day had smashed his derailleur on a rock while leading the race by 2 hours and had withdrawn and was asleep inside. This crystalized the idea of withdrawing in my mind. I knew there was a re-patriacian bakkie at RV2 another 100km on but if Dusty Day was here with a broken bike it meant ….  

I stumbled into a freezing tent closed my eyes. I opened them 2 and half hours later.

I was very cold.

My adductors in both legs went into a vicious cramp which stopped me putting on my shoes for 10 minutes and almost made me weep. This is not unusual, and I knew it would pass.

I felt ghastly. I saw a sweeper vehicle with some bikes on the back. I asked the driver what his plan was and he said “Not possible Meneer”.

I went inside. Alet was even more cheerful, and I told her so. She bubbled and chatted energetically.  Alex was there preparing to head out and continue his ride and I capitalised on the plunger of coffee he was making. A very fresh-looking person that I guessed was Dusty was there too and he was making plans with someone called Izak from Race village 2 to come and fetch him. There was another chap Gerhard from Welkom who had embarked on the 24-hour ride only to see his heart rate out of control in the first hours and had had an adventure involving a medic who was running out of diesel, and just making it to water point 1 as the support was packing up and the sweeper was backing out of the driveway. He was also looking for a ride home.

I stood on the stoep and looked at the dawn which was indifferent and bleak. The tireless wind had not lain down for a moment. I was nauseous – the coffee had not agreed with me.  I did not want to continue. I decided that conditions were likely to remain torrid. My body said, “no thank you”, my spirit agreed and the usually robust voice of resolve in my middle accepted their decision and grieved a little as I tried to settle my stomach with a Valoid and a Rennies.

I went back inside to grab the third spot in the double cab that Izak was bringing.

Another rider drifted in – a giant of a man, like Friar Tuck, a big ginger beard, forearms as big as my thighs and a gentle manner, arrived and ate enough spaghetti bolognaise for an Italian village. I heard him planning to tape his boa with duct tape because it had gotten smashed on a rock on Ouberg. He was cheerful, implacably calm, almost serene. He asked Dusty for help with his wahoo head unit which had jammed, and Dusty reset it and handed it back. I mentally said “chapeau” and told him he was a beast. I see now that he was the last man to finish – again “chapeau”.

Izak arrived – an affable man in his late 20’s. And after a coffee we packed the bikes into the bakkie. He laughed when I asked if he’d brought a duvet for my bike. Dusty told me how he had walked from halfway up Ouberg to the RV in road shoes because “He never walks on a gravel ride”. That’s a 15km nighttime hike in appalling conditions on road cleats with a carbon sole.

I teased him about his derailleur saying that he should have turned it into a single speed, and he said, “I would have but the chain is completely twisted”. He wasn’t joking – he would have done it and tried to hold on to his lead and win the race.

The third scratchee, Gerhard from Welkom had spent hours and hours in the sweeper van. He told how he’d rescued a buck that had bolted from in front of them and trapped itself in a fence. He and the sweeper driver had freed the creature and watched it bolt into the night.

Izak expertly drove us to RV2 – past the people I’d chatted with over cottage pie and soup, all with heads bowed into the bitter headwind. Faces determined. I felt rueful, a little sad but overwhelmingly grateful to myself for calling it when I did. I simply didn’t have the psychic energy, the “chi” to endure the hardship necessary to reach the goal.

I told Dusty and Gerhard how I’d sold the dynamo hub I bought to equip my bike for the Munga events three or 4 times on the way up Ouberg. I also changed my mind 3 or 4 times about whether I was coming back for the grit next year on the 6-hour car trip back to Kaleo.

At RV2 I met my mate Andrew who had also scratched after a torn tire and three tube blowouts. He had lain down under his space blanket and fallen asleep. The medics took him to the race village after assessing him for hypothermia. His third grit and his third scratching.  So unlucky because he was top 5 for sure.

Izak handed us over to his girlfriend who gamely drove us back. We had an adventure with a puncture on the bakkie at the Tankwa padstal. We laughed a lot. We handed jelly babies and electrolytes to suffering riders.

It was an entertaining trip – Dusty is a top rider obviously but also a world class gentleman who made sure that the young woman who was my daughter’s age who drove us was taken care of with food and diesel at Kaleo. I shook his and Gerhard’s hands feeling like I’d made 2 new mates.

Trevor was waiting at Kaleo and I followed him back to the accommodation where he fed me boerewors and pap met sous and chicken livers and plied me with gin and tonics and beer.

How do I feel now? If you’d told me on Thursday evening as I rolled down the hill from work to go home, pack my kit and drive to the airport to fetch the chica’s twin, that I’d suffer as I did and bail after 17 hours and 219 brutal kilometres, I would still have chosen to do the ride.

The desert did with me what it needed to. It was a rich, full, and varied experience jam packed with more poignant moments than I’ve described here. I made new friends, my existing ones deepened (another mate I haven’t mentioned finished 11^th) and I came back to my woman loving her more than ever.

I also stood naked before the cosmic blaze (a line from a poem about mortality) and had the state of my soul revealed to me.

Naked that is except for my state-of-the-art technical clothing, my satellite connected Garmin inReach safety blanket, and my gorgeous Top Fuel carbon racing machine with dynamo hub and Apidura bags carrying enough jelly babies to get a Mamil out of any trouble he might find himself in and leftovers to share.

My chica and I know we have an ultra-marathon ahead of us, she more than I. Given this circumstance I have decided that I will be selling my full Munga 2024 entr.  Anyone interested in finding the dragon can drop me a line.

I’m also glad I rode because the Munga munchers are good people and I feel entitled now to claim neophyte status in their community. There wasn’t a single person I encountered who wasn’t wearing his or her heart on their sleeve with dignity, generosity, good humour and humility. As Trevor observed over the Tex bar and Darling Sweet toffee with coffee we shared for breakfast,  there was none of the posturing, arrogance or aggression I’ve witnessed, experienced and participated in at many of the smaller events.

The Tankwa is a sacred place – or perhaps it’s better to say a place where the sacred is revealed more readily than elsewhere. I pondered this as we were repeatedly blinded by the dust pushed towards us by the horrible wind (did I mention the wind?) from way-too-fast-BMW’s and 3-million-rand SUV’s powering their way to Africa burn. Not my route to the divine for sure but I think these people are looking for a similar experience.

I’m not sure they need to have 2-meter-high wire sculptures of a bull’s head on top of camper vans to create it but, as those who have no comprehension of what a bicycle is and the deeply personal self-exploration that endurance sport offers have said to me, “Each to his own”.

 I also don’t think it’s an accident that the grit finishers were routed around the burn traffic in a way that made the ride more arduous. We come here to get away from Beemers and Range Rovers.

In addition to drinking the Munga koolaid, I bought the memorabilia – a cap, a classy single logo T shirt, socks. I’ve been looking for a way to break my rule that says I can’t wear any clothing from an event I haven’t finished because I want to wear the T shirt and the cap very badly. In my efforts to find a loophole in my rule, I realised that this is a series where you get a medal for lining up on the start line.

I have 2 badges on my bedside table – one that says Grit 2024, one that says there be dragons. I’m going to sew the “there be dragons” badge onto my cap and wear it as a marker of pride and gratitude for the experience.

The socks, however will make their debut only when and if I complete one of these things.

Thank you Munga people. I’ll see you in a year’s time for another experience. I hope to finish but if I don’t, the compensation for the disappointment will be as ample as this one has been, I’m sure.

As for my chica, she had a dream that came straight from the earth while I was in that wind. She’s going to be OK.