Day 9 of 9 - 76km from Jolivet to Scottburgh

The rain held up for us today and the riding conditions were near perfect except for the odd muddy bend which needed to be navigated with caution.

I found this stage to be really tough. The climbs in the cane fields were incredibly steep although shorter than what we had experienced over the past 8 days. My knees were killing me during the first 15km's and the pain in my butt just wouldn't go away. We also took a wrong turn. I'm not sure how we missed it but it added about 3 minutes to our time.

The change in scenery over the 8 days has been astounding. Today was no exception. This stage took us through forests, nature reserves and cane fields.

We finished in about 3h30.  I’m not sure what position we finished today in and I have no idea about final overall position. In the greater scheme of things, that’s not all that important. We are finished! … and in one piece.

This is certainly not a race for the faint hearted but with the correct training and race strategy it's an absolute blast. We met some great characters along the way and hope to catch up with them during some of our weekend rides.

Tonight we rest and I'm sure we’ll be discussing our next challenge over dinner :-)  I’ll keep you posted. We just need to warm our families to the idea first! Cheers for now



7am start at Jolivet. Yes that is the front of the

field just ahead of us. We certainly earned our place

in the 'A' batch for the start of day 9

Climbing towards Vernon Crooks

Another push of a hill. By this stage the pissing contest was over and we

no longer found it a challenge to get to the top without walking.

Valley of a Thousand Hills

Vernon Crooks Nature Reserve

Our first sighting of the sea with about 10-15km to go.

You can see by the mud on my face who was

sucking whos wheel today.

 

Finished at last! Total time 45h and 40th overall.
That's a wopping average of 5 hours of riding
per day for 9 days on the trot.