Freedom Challenge, Day 2

"Tough nav day. Stumble through morning. Beats device awesome through forest road maze. Brilliant sunset moon. Big gate climb"

"Nav still tough and some hard terrain but beautiful"  

"This is not easy but i love it."

No cell reception at today's overnight stop, so only a little information is available via our sat texting messenger. Looking at the maze of trails/forest roads early on I worried about their navigation, but everything seemed to go ok, including crossing one of the infamous high (as in higher than a person) fences. Trang and I anxiously watched them stop at a house after 3 hours - maybe they got a brunch offered, we won't know until later. Turns out watching such an event is more exhausting than riding it!
After some technical issues with my little turn-reminder device (it occasionally gets into a funky state) it seems to have been quite useful and worked well today.

Unfortunately Liehann's shock isn't doing great apparently, as Trang, Liehann's dad and I scrambled this morning to get specifications for a replacement shock for Liehann's bike, after Liehann asked his Dad to look into that. It looks like that will be possible as we had the relevant specs, and a Freedom Challenge organizer will be driving down and deliver the shock in Rhodes if I'm not mistaken, which is still quite far away.

Freedom Challenge, Day 1

Trang (Liehanns girlfriend) and I will try to give updates on this blog every once in a while. 

Day one was ~114km, taking them around 10-11 hours to complete, with a rest stop in the middle. The terrain was tough with two major climbs and a long and somewhat sketchy hike-a-bike section along a river gorge, but both Jill and Liehann are in great spirits. It's pretty cold, but they feel good and are happy so far with the progress. Jill had a kid-in-the-candy-store glee in her voice on the phone as she told me how great the route was, so far so great. She was also excited because they didn't get lost so far!

Liehann had a broken chain early on (after just 6km) but of course that was quickly fixed. His front shock seems to be sticking a bit leading to a 15% sag without him being on the bike, a problem he had before the race that the PA bike shop apparently was not able to properly repair ... but it's rideable. Let's hope it holds up.

They already started day 2 again, and expect this to be a long and difficult stage. 

Freedom Challenge-bound

The weather finally cleared so I took the bike, kit, and gadgets out for a spin this afternoon. Loaded bikes are always a bit of a downer in the beginning, but after a few days you get used to extra weight and the heft becomes your new normal — or so I keep telling myself.

This week has been unseasonably cold in Cape Town — there was a dusting of snow on the mountains this morning, and reports of 6 below (Celsius) just a little farther inland. I managed to get everything but water, electronics, and a select few items of clothing in my bike bags, and Liehann's friends marveled at how we might possibly stay warm with whatever was located in these seemingly small bags. There's actually a fair amount of winter layers and spare bike parts, as well as two bivy sacks that I can double up — as I also am genuinely concerned about becoming so lost that I have to spend a night out in -10C.

When we tell others about the Freedom Challenge, most inevitably ask about the training, and whether we feel fit for this journey that will involve anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours of riding per day. I've been fretting about everything else for so long now that the question catches me off guard. Fitness? Who cares? If I were to rank my concerns, the list would look like this:

1. Navigation
2. Mechanicals
3. Water availability
4. Nutrition/food availability
5. Weather
6. Crime
7. Fitness

Not that riding and pushing bikes all day on muddy doubletracks and eroded cattle trails is going to be easy in the least. I have a nervous pit in my gut, and these pre-race days are always the least fun of all the days. Liehann and I are setting out on Saturday morning to drive across the country to Pietermaritzburg.  As such, my blogging opportunities beyond this point will be slim to nonexistent. I wanted to post some links for tracking our progress, if friends or readers are interested:

Beat has been refining his "Slogtastic" software to create a tracking page for the Freedom Challenge. He even went through and drew in the route from an old GPS track and maps. I'm jealous because Beat  (and anyone else who clicks on the page) will have a better idea where I am than I will. The page is currently still in progress but should be posted soon at this link:
http://www.beultra.com/routes/main_new.php?course=Freedom

If that doesn't work, my direct location page is here:
https://share.delorme.com/JillHomer#

I likely will have no opportunities to update my blog during the journey, but I will post occasional text updates via my Delorme InReach to my Twitter page:
https://twitter.com/AlaskaJill

Official Freedom Challenge site:
http://www.freedomchallenge.org.za/