with little to no planning, yet more than the first failed attempt, the unofficial "team-sponsor-this-space" crew set off into fading light and pouring rain just before seven friday afternoon. the rain stopped when hartbeespoort was reached, at 60km, 10km from the halfway mark. it was just before 22:00 and as good a time as any to eat. the trip progress was discussed, and things were going good with an extra hour and a half already gained on the planned time.

set off 22:45 to face the music and the last 80km. we knew this was the worst section. the rain had stopped, and temperature was perfect. turning left at the stop sign, i could feel i lost some strength while sitting down earlier. legs burning slowly, i was suddenly not so proud on the good speed and time we made thus far.

the bounces started in the southern shadow of the magaliesberg range, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. up and down past the last few hotels and guest lodges. it was silent all around. earlier we decided to take a few mp3's along for the trip, it came in usefull.

the endless road was made longer by the mist that covered the whole mountain. it was hard to figure out where we were and this soon left us feeling rather lost. the km's came by slowly and i got worried that we missed the turn off. finally i lost confidence in my night-nav abilities, and felt lost for a while. i was driven to stop and confirm our position when i saw a guy and his wife pull into their farm.

the lady was quite startled, which was no surprise being suddenly confronted by two riders with shining lights all around at 2:30 in the morning. even at her home, she seemed quite lost too, but assured us that we still have quite a way to go. things did not really add up in my mind until we got to the t-junction. a t-junction i completely forgot about.

confident we continued, for about an hour, when i got shaky again. we found the road that turned off to the mountain, but it was not he way we remembered it. not at all. after having a short discussion about how lost we thought we were, i convinced my team mate that we had to continue another 23km at least. things did not add up, but i knew this way we would be sure at least. he himself lost confidence in where we were after a few dissapointing surprises in turning directions. "yes, i know, the road goes left after that hill" did not always turn out that way. by now we had stopped the music playing in the headphones as it started to hamper concentration.

as we turned around another boer came around, we switched on our lights that we decided to ride without for the last few hours, in order to avoid any early warnings to oppertunistic locals. just as well that we stopped him, as we were perfectly on route thus far, and was about to make the wrong decision. thankful we turned around and continue to the base of the mountain to take a nice rest.

this ws the second time the evening, or morning we found ourselves lying in the middle of the road, taking a rest, and concentrating to stay awake. sleeping right there felt so good after being awake for 24 hours, and dead tired from the day at the office, the race to get our trip going and then the peddal to get where we were.

we started riding up the mountain, it was steep, muddy, and in poor condition, as we entered the mist, the headlamps was rendered useless, and we had to rely on the handlebar mounted light, of which we only had one.

reachng the summit, pushing our bikes in order to get some rest, we were as relieved as we could be. all went perfectly well thus far, and we were doing way better time than anticipated. going down the other side was slowed down tremendously, and quite dissapoint due to the thick mist. it was a criss cross zig zag manouvre from one side of the road to the otherside, taking a beating from the eroded road.

the disaster struck, i felt my rear wheel going into a lock, managed to stop thinking it was just a break block that came loose and got jammed in under the rim. it was not. the rear deraileur had lost its screw and got caught up in the spokes. we broke the chain, removed the deraileur and i freed to the base of the mountain. had to push some uphills, and got towed using a spare tube on some other, but there was only 10km's left between us and our destination. as 6am arrived, so did we.

we started pushing the bikes to the campsite we decided upon, when we realised the grass veld, had become quite a forest in the last few weeks due to the extreme rains. we turned around and decided to lock the bike to a tree in the hotel's parking lot. it started raining again, so we decided to go sit it out, and get some rest, while waiting forthe support crew, who left and hour earlier from pretoria.

total trip time 11 hours, total riding time just under 8. about as much fun as you can have on a mountain bike.