|
|
|
|
|
Red Bull Cape Town Man |
|
|
|
Written by Adam Craig
|
|
Wednesday, 30 November 2005 |
|
Page 2 of 2
We did all kinds of other random stuff, going shopping in the open air markets for foodstuffs and curios (souveniers) was particularly interesting. The locals have a way of putting something in your hand and making you ! buy it, even if it’s a ceramic soap dish. There were three particularly entertaining evening activities, two were sort of typical tourist stuff with a twist, the other was quite unique. Our second night started with a visit to our porter, Makuma’s village for a visit with his extended family. We spent a couple hours in the thatched courtyard watching the locals sing and dance as the day faded into a beautiful sunset. From there we went straight to the full moon gorge swing party down at the river. Basically you had dinner (or not for the queasy), were tied into a rope suspended across the 150 meter deep gorge, freefell 55 meters and swung out across the gorge bathed in moonlight. Then you had to hike out in said moonlight. Pretty cool sensation and view. The next evening we paddled from upriver, straight through hippo territory, to the lip of Victoria falls, getting a view of one of the seven natural wonders of the world few experience. As the sun went down we were swimming in the Angel’s Armchair, a pool perched one meter from the lip of the 350 foot cataract. On our last evening we did a drive in Steve’s pickup through the local game preserve where we saw pretty much every animal I never thought I’d come across (except lions), Giraffes, Elephants, Warthogs, Water Bucks, Baboons and all kinds of other random foreign creatures were everywhere. From the game drive we went straight to a sundown cruise on the upper river with a large crew of local kayakers and random passerby! s. Sampling the local liquor, Cane (distilled from sugar cane) while floating past groups of hippos and a massive elephant under another gorgeous sunset was a good cap to our Zambian adventure.
On to Cape Town! After sleeping under a mosquito net in hot, humid Zambia for five days, Cape Town promised a comfy cool bed, all the water I could drink and temperatures in the bearable zone down by the water. It didn’t disappoint. Red Bull put us up in a pretty nice place right on the beach (unfortunately the water was a bit brisk on this side of the cape) that included a large sand sculpture depicting the event when we walked in the front door. Everyone had their own nice room, a bit of a foreign concept for the bike racer in me, but I quickly adjusted. The day before the race I spent riding around town checking out the mountain bike leg of the race and getting my bearings in general, which was difficult considering the opposite path of the sun and ocean in the wrong direction… The co! urse was fairly straightforward from a terrain standpoint, but very unique in many respects. A team briefing by the organizers (synopsis- kiter completes speed course in about an hour, hands off to biker who leaves the beach, does a loop around the flanks of Table Mountain, tags a runner who runs straight up the gut of a gully to the top of Table Mountain, tags a paraglider who flys down to signal hill, packs up his rig, runs 2k to Lions Head, relaunches and lands on the soccer field at La Med, on the beach) we knew what the program was. Unfortunately our rooftop dinner was moved inside due to high winds (the kiters were stoked and the paragliders were bummed), after dinner and a bit team strategy and getting to know each other everyone went their separate directions to prepare for the early morning event start. Some went out on the town, and those still reveling in the fact that they could sle! ep in comfort, like me, off to bed. The morning dawned clear and calm (kiters bummed, paragliders stoked) on race day. After a bunch of decision making and forecasting the organizers opted to cut the Kiting leg and start with the mountain bike leg from the beach. This involved 60 riders running 100 meters to their bikes then continuing up a single lane boardwalk through the dunes. But not before an inspiring demonstration by a Red Bull stunt plane showing his stuff over the beach. The gun went off and we were soon across the dunes and giving ‘er along a golf course, complete with confused golfers as to the state of their calm Saturday morning suddenly gone awry with a bunch of guys on bikes riding over tee boxes with a helicopter filming the whole ordeal from! about 20 feet up… Good times. Sid Taberlay, a random Austrian guy and myself got off the front on a sandy singletrack before the 5k push into Cape Town proper on the pavement. We worked and held off the group until a 180 degree turn which required climbing off the freeway over a fence when the chase group simply cut us off at the pass (so that’s how it’s going to be?). Our lead trio soon reestablished our gap on the dirt and pulled away in the scorching heat. Soon it was just Sid and I, with him getting a slight gap on a “portage” section that I was attempting, unsuccessfully to ride. We played cat and mouse (me the cat doing the chasing) until the ! last descent when I promptly re-remembered why teams have mechanics most of the time as a bolt fell out that made my bike very terrifying to descend on. With 2k of steep slippery fireroad descent separating us from the finish, I put it in survival mode and was glad to come in second, not too far behind Sid, and not dismembered after a horrific crash. I handed off to our runner, Tim Deboom who took off into the midday heat and his task of climbing 1000 meters up the boulder strewn side of the mountain. Turns out the top five from the Mountain Running World Championships were on hand with special shoes and all kinds of skills for that type of terrain. Our boy Tim lost a bit of time. He ended up doing a virtual tag to Othar (the winds on top had gotten too stif! f so the paragliders were only doing the 2k run and lower flight to La Med) in seventh place. OJ passed the struggling Mexican team and made a grand entrance to La Med with a series of loops and a smooth landing for sixth place. Pretty good for a bunch of Gringos who had never met or done one of these events before. The powerhouse favorite Austrian/Italian team took the crown.
A good Red Bull party, albeit one that started at 2pm when the race ended, capped off the race day and set up a fun evening of talking with other competitors and eventually moving downtown for some more local flavor. The next day I went for a morning exploration ride that didn’t find much other than sweet bike paths along the beach. For the afternoon activity the crew pirated one of the event vans for an afternoon wine tasting tour of the Stellenbosch region before going to a nice four course dinner in Cape Town with the Australians. Very nice finish to a very nice trip. Thanks to everyone over at Red Bull who made it happen, those guys put on a great event (that happened to be a catalyst for a great trip in general).
www.redbullcapetownman.com for more event info.
Adam Craig, Team Giant
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
