Autopsy of a bike race - To Hell & (not) Back

[DJR]

Be warned that this is definitely not a factually accurate account, rather a roller coaster tale of emotion and sentiment from an oxygen starved old brain that saw the race through a pair of badly bleeding eyeballs.
This one was truly my ride into Hell and very possibly the worst day I have ever spent on a bike! It is all too easy to talk about a rough day on the bike, but keep in mind that I’ve had days that ended with broken bones in the claws of the orthopaedic surgeons.
Deciding to ride the two-day To Hell and Back mountain bike stage race, was very easy, because my gnarly old roots lie deep in the folded rock layers of the Swartberg Mountains. Doing it with Beattbox was equally logical, because we did enough races together, as team Pain or Shine, to know that we are compatible. To Hell and Back is the oldest stage race in South Africa and this year was the twenty first edition, somewhat of a milestone for a small laid back race in the middle of nowhere. The five hour drive from Cape Town to the start was great, registration was quick and easy, we camped 50 metres from the start line at De Hoek, on the Oudtshoorn side of the pass, and were ready with time to spare before the gun set the whole adventure off and we eagerly flew down the road early on the Saturday morning.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me shift to an easier gear, and tell you about the history I share with those mountains:
I grew up in the beautiful and sleepy little town of Prince Albert, nestled into the foothills of the rugged Swartberg Mountains that forms the divide between the Little and Great Karoo. From there my favourite road leads into the Swartberg Pass and over the spectacular mountains where it snakes upwards along incredible hairpin bends and at near impossible gradients along death defying drop offs and through seemingly impenetrable kloofs with high cliffs towering above. The pass is an artwork of nineteenth century construction, with beautifully handcrafted dry stone walls keeping the road from cascading into the chasms below. It dates back to a time before dynamite, bulldozers and cars existed. Deep in those same mountains, there lies a hidden valley called The Hell, but its real name is Gamkaskloof, meaning valley of the lion in the language of the ancient locals. It got its nickname, The Hell, from outsiders, because the locals saw it as paradise. For more than a century the only way in or out, for the dozen or so families that lived and farmed there, was a two day trek on foot or by mule. The Road to Hell was only built in the 1950s and it turns off the much older Swartberg pass to snake its way across, around and over many a steep and rocky mountain ridge until it suddenly descends down into the fertile valley. This last part is called the Elands Pass and it drops 500 metres in just 3,5 kilometres with the steepest gradient about 25%. The distance from the Swartberg Pass junction to The Hell is only 40 km, but it still takes two hours to negotiate in a modern four wheel drive vehicle. The road to this Hell is certainly anything but wide, straight and easy!

To be continued.

Edited February 19, 2016 by DJR

[DJR]

This is what it looked like long ago - and today! The zig-zags on the Northern part of the Swartberg Pass.

[BenReaper]

Great write up so far DJR,I will patiently await youre next chapter.

[Mads]

This race is on my bucket list. Will wait in anticipation for the rest of the story.

[Matchstix]

Always worth while did no 14 last year and it is always a winner

[Mads]

So I have heard yes..

Sounded like 2 hard days in the saddle...but one would not want it any other way. Would one

Edited February 14, 2016 by Mads

[Warthog]

This race is on my bucket list. Will wait in anticipation for the rest of the story.

 

+1. Please don't linger DJR...

[DJR]

I'll let you have another old picture, taken of the same hairpin bends as above, but through the frame of my old Trance. That (Northern)side of the pass is not part of the Hell & Back route, but it is on the Pioneer!

[arendoog]

Snap!

Edited February 14, 2016 by Blitzer

[milky4130]

Nice Report, did my one & only in 2014, would've love to return there this year again but it's on DC weekend, so sadly postponing until 2017. That beauty of climbing that Swartberg Pass just left me In awe. Just Imagine doing a continuous climb for 1 hour for some it was much more, when you gaze up along the route towards the top of the pass, You just see tiny ants or so it seemed but they were really just the other fellow adventurist.

[Skubarra]

DJR - Swartberg Pass is probably my favourite place in the world to ride a mtb. The scenery combined with sense of isolation, especially on the northern side is amazing.

 

Think Hell&Back is one of the most underrated mtb events in the country, but that is part of the appeal to me. That time of the year it is the W2W, 94.7 and DC that gets all the hype while this one flies under the radar.

 

Last year we booked one of the houses in the valley for family & friends and the H&B weekend became a special social outing! Will definitely be back for this one some day!

[Underachiever]

DJR - Swartberg Pass is probably my favourite place in the world to ride a mtb. The scenery combined with sense of isolation, especially on the northern side is amazing.

 

Think Hell&Back is one of the most underrated mtb events in the country, but that is part of the appeal to me. That time of the year it is the W2W, 94.7 and DC that gets all the hype while this one flies under the radar.

 

Last year we booked one of the houses in the valley for family & friends and the H&B weekend became a special social outing! Will definitely be back for this one some day

1000% with you on this one.  Swartberg Pass is pure magic.  Seweweekspoort also stunning.

[Sepia]

Last year we booked one of the houses in the valley for family & friends and the H&B weekend became a special social outing! Will definitely be back for this one some day!

 

Definitely a magic place indeed, very, very special. Interesting book out about the Kloof.

[DJR]

Instalment 2:

 

At about the age of fifteen, I cycled over the Swartberg Pass for the first time with four of my friends. We weren’t cyclists and our bicycles varied from my 12 speed roadie, a chopper and a “dikwiel” farm bike. The road was rough gravel, and still is, but since we saw a bicycle simply as a means of transport, and a road merely as a way to somewhere, we just rode it on whatever bike we had. The mountain bike was something that would only be invented a decade or more later, but that little handicap didn’t stop us from mountain biking! There was no such thing as training, that was something we did for rugby, we just rode bicycles, pure and simple! We had no cycling clothes, or cycling shoes, no helmets and no gloves, but we had a sense of adventure, natural fitness, wanderlust and the freedom to explore.

 

Many years have passed since then, I cycled up the Swartberg Pass on more occasions than I can count, and flew down it unscathed every time, perhaps because my guardian angels were always willing to work overtime. What stayed the same however, without fail, was that simple joy I always got from riding that road. I got tired, but never bored, of sweating up the zig zags on the Northern side, I always marvelled at the roly poly folded rock layers at the Dansbaan where the thousand metre high bright yellow lichen painted rock faces point their fingers at the sky. From The Top, on a clear day, it was possible to see the next mountain range over 160 kilometres away across the arid Great Karoo plains. Occasionally, on Teeberg, I saw shy Klipspringer watching my progress. One evening at dusk as I made my way down the narrow kloof, I came across two dreadlocked figures playing their Djembe drums. The unearthly booming reverberating sound came at me from all directions as it bounced off the rock faces and Africa really talked to my soul. I mostly cycled on my own, but on occasion I shared the ride with friends and I have done it with my two sons. I’m not sure how much they felt of the somewhat spiritual bond that I have with those mountains, but for me, it just got better and better over the years. The place became my cathedral of cycling!

 

I’m sure you will now understand how natural a thing it was for me to come and ride To Hell and Back, almost as a pilgrimage to my cycling roots.

 

I’m getting side tracked, it’s time to get back to the start of the race……

[DJR]

Our base camp at De Hoek

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Dawid, you're absolutely right. Those rock formations are truly astounding in their stoic beauty. Awe inspiring, and older than old. 

 

It's a place I would happily live, if given the chance to throw off these consumerist shackles.