Zekreet Rambler

Congratulations to the 51 hardy souls who came to the event and, thanks to the weather,  soldiered through what must have been one of the toughest MTB races held in the past few years. 

First a quick anecdote about setting up the course.  The weekend before the event, I had spent a morning hammering pins in the desert which were used to support the flags. The pins are thin sections of rebar and I was setting them at a distance that I felt was appropriate to mark the course but without too many which would have required more work. The night before the event, I put all the flags in my Pathfinder and proceeded to find the stakes and set the flags.  To my dismay, there was absolutely zero wind and all the flags drooped limply on the flag poles. I thought that there was no way anyone would ever see the flags unless there was some wind to unfurl them. I secretly prayed for some wind on race day.   I set additional flags to ensure visibility to compensate for the lack of wind.  To my surprise on race morning there was a fine breeze, not too strong but enough to unfurl the flags and make them visible. I drove the course once more to ensure all the markers were still in place and my first thoughts were “I put in too many flags!.  This is going to take forever to clean up  after the race was over.” I was then tempted to start taking down every second flag to get a head start on cleaning up the course.   I thought “ Even a blind man could follow this trail, we don’t need so many”. However, the race start was coming up and I decided to just leave them in.  What a good decision that proved to be!

Now the report.   51 participants took to the start line at 9:00am.  The wind was strong from the south at 20kph and the temperature at 24C.   The riders received a pre-race talk at which point the race I left with 2 other SUV’s to drive to the check points. Ben Keane gave the start signal and the riders were off!!  Aided by the strong tail wind, a well formed track to follow and few technical sections, the riders screamed up the cost at some very good speeds. As I stopped my car at the 7km point to wait for a lagging support vehicle, I was disconcerted to see Jaco Anderson, the big man from South Africa almost catching me on his bike!.  I gunned the engine and managed to get to the first check point to leave one of the officials only just in time before the first riders arrived.   Those with the big gears, legs and the skills on the rougher sections soon pulled away from the bunch leaving the field spread down the coast. Nearing the northern section the route slowly turned to the east and eventually to the south and into the face of wind.  Jaco was the first up the climb to the antenna followed by 3 minutes later by Henry Pascal and Murray Thomas another 3 minutes past him.  Murray was being shadowed by Richard Pritchett until the climb on the antenna at which point he pulled away after fiercely stomping on the gas. The rest of the riders followed in clumps after that, and all found their moment of truth as they crested the hill at the antenna only to realize that the bill for having such a strong tail wind earlier had just come due. The wind was now directly into the riders teeth and becoming stronger with every minute.  Jaco experienced a “bruto momento”  when he failed to heed the pre-race instructions and missed the turn off at the movie set fort. He travelled 1 kilometer down the road before realizing his mistake and backtracking.  The mistake allowed Henry Pascal to assume the lead and also allowed Murray to close in. Down off the plateau, Jaco’s size acted against him as his body became a huge parachute, catching the wind and slowing him sufficiently to allow Murray so shoot buy in the soft sand. Both riders closed on Pascal towards the end of the race with Murray, a true “rider of the storm” passing Henry only 2 kilometers from the end to take the win.  Henry took second with Jaco a well deserved third and no doubt ruing his mistake.

A bit further back, the pack was discovering the “consuming sands of Ras Abrouq” as they struggled off the plateau and into a full blown sand storm. Visibility which was good on the plateau despite the wind, deteriorated rapidly in the sands. In some cases visibility was zero.  Riders emerged like phantoms out of the dust as they passed my park car.  Luckily most riders could always see one flag ahead of them which enabled them to keep on the right track.  My decision to leave the “extra” flags up earlier that morning now proved huge.  Of note was Christophe Duclos, who somehow lost a complete crank arm on his bike and was riding with one leg.  Refusing to give up, he left his bike at my car and promptly announced that he was not giving up but would instead run the last 8 kilometers to the finish. Off he went no doubt travelling faster on foot than on his bike.  Kudos most also go to David De Villiers and Justin Sturm who rode at the tail end of the pack.  By this time, my car and the other support vehicles were packed to the gills with bikes and riders… no room at the inn as it were… and we could not offer them a ride back to the finish. They soldiered on for quite awhile in good humor before a vehicle could return for them some time later.   In the end 35 of the 51 starters made it to the finish which was a lot higher than I thought would given the conditions.

Special thanks to John Crookshanks and Marga Van Liemt who provided “sag” support with their vehicles and generally sheparded riders to the finish line. Thanks to Ben Keane, Claudette Bennett and Diane Davis for helping out with the registration and for acting as race HQ during the event and to Joe Roop for helping with course cleanup after the race.   Also thanks to Michel Turchi, who provided the materials to construct the course and who also rescued my son Julian after he found him lost in the desert after having accidently veered of the race track during the height of the storm.

Please note that I have a pile of completion certificates that were not collected at the end of the race. If you have not reveived one and would like to have it please let me know and I will make arrangements to get it to you.

…. and one more thing. After the race ended and everyone went home, I went back out to collect the flags sometime around 2pm.  Incredibly, visibility was back to normal, there was no dust or sand in the air and I could see for kilometers out in the desert!!