Cape Epic Days 2 & 3: Butt Sores & Friendly Boers

If you think that chivalry is dead, you need to move to the Ceres region. For the first three days of the Epic, we found ourselves in Op-die-Berg in the Koue Bokkeveld. (Yes, that’s really what it’s called). I don’t think you could really call it a town. It literally consists of two roads: one residential and one commercial. The commercial road boasts no fewer than two drankwinkels and a Spar. I don’t know if it’s the proliferation of liquor outlets but the residents could not have been friendlier.

We checked into Oppi Berg (not a typo) Guest House, owned and run by the Hanekom family, aka Oom, Tannie, Boetie, Sussie and Boetie’s wife. And each family member was more charming than the next. In fact, I think Tannie’s biefstuk may have saved The Husband’s life. I brought him back to the B&B at 10pm at the end of Day 1, battered and bruised by The Masseuse and just generally looking miserable. After a few bites of rump, he had regained his sense of humour and forgotten about his debilitating ITB from just an hour earlier.

Subsequent meals featured not one, but two types of meat. We’d be served chicken AND lamb the one night and then pork AND beef the next. Luckily, the surrounding dirt roads provided gorgeous, peaceful running routes for the two soigneuses, since every time we crossed paths with Tannie Aletta, she offered to feed us.

At lunch on Day 2 we shared the dining room with four friendly, khaki-clad farmers who’d tootled into town for Tannie Aletta’s famous grub. I honestly think I spotted one of them tipping his hat at us as he walked in. Before we knew it, we were “aangename kennis-ing” left, right and centre and 20 minutes later we’d been invited on a “farm tour”. Later that day, we had another taste of local chivalry. We were headed for Ceres to go and fetch the boys when a piece of industrial plastic flew up and got caught in our front fender. We didn’t feel like stopping and figured we’d simply rip it out when we got to Ceres 40 minutes later. But just as we were entering the outskirts of the town, we saw a farmer in a bakkie behaving rather strangely. He pulled over in front of us and seemed to be making hand signals at us. Ever the alert Joburg gals, we assumed he was the local loon and we put foot. Only to have him follow us. He was flashing his lights madly and seemed to be signalling for us to pull over, which we eventually did. He then appeared at our window, tipping his hat and smiling broadly, before ripping out the piece of plastic now wedged in between our front grill. He politely explained how dangerous this was as it would overheat, melt and cause all sorts of complications. And then he smiled, tipped his hat and was gone.

Then it was back to real life with “where’s my burger” and “go get my bike from the wash-bay” as we met our boys at the finish. “It’s fine,” I thought. “The Masseuse will exact revenge on our behalves”.

When we arrived at The House of Pain, we were greeted by the now slightly more familiar sight of near-naked men. But this time, one of the riders (a respectable dentist, I might add) had his jocks whipped into a wedgy to form a lovely thong up his butt. Not only did this reveal his taut bum cheeks, it also exposed the nastiest-looking boil-like butt sore I’ve ever seen. Ouch. And then on top of it, he was wincing in pain as The Masseuse dug her elbows into his quads. If only his root canal patients could see him now.

The Masseuse interrupted her work to thrust a box of Epsom Salts at me and to tell me to get The Husband into bath in these salts. I decided not to beat around the bush and told her that The Husband doesn’t bath.
“Just tell him he must,” she said, looking at me as thought I was nuts.
“I’ll tell him but he still won’t bath,” I said.
She looked at me as if to say, “what do you mean he doesn’t do what you tell him to do?”
I just stood there, so she grabbed the Epsom Salts in one hand, the Husband in the other and marched him off to the bathroom.

I heard running water and then The Masseuse emerged from the bathroom sans The Husband. I actually think she may have locked him in.

Welcome to the Boland. Where the men treat the women like ladies and the women take no sh**.
Love it.

Photo: The “Bum Clinic” inside the medical tent at the race village.

Cape Epic Day 1: Jock Straps & Strapped for Jack

/>epic |ˈepik|
noun
• a long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time

If only the Epic were a long film or a book. I’d be so much more into it if that were the case. But no. The Cape Epic – or simply “the Epic” to uber cool, inner circle, mountain biking peeps – consists of 8 long, butt-numbing days on a bicycle.

On Friday 19 March we rocked up at OR Tambo with new fewer than 83kg of check-in luggage between us. And bear in mind that the bl**dy bike only weighs 10kg. It’s some super duper, carbon-framed, fuel-injected piece of machinery and I’m not allowed to touch it. Anyway, so the remaining 73kg consisted of a few items of clothing for me (25kg) and then 48kg worth of Dischem products in first aid kit. I kid you not. The shopping list took up a full A4 page and the medicines filled an entire suitcase. One thing the emergency kit did not contain was a bottle of Jack Daniels. Big mistake, as it turned out. But I’ll start at the beginning.

The Epic began at Diemersfontein Wine Estate on Sunday 21 March. Only the home of my most favourite Pinotage in the whole wide world. At least this presented me with somewhat of an incentive to drag myself out of bed at 5am that morning. As we pulled into the wine farm, I was greeted by a row of bottle-green portaloos. The Epic had indeed begun.

The Husband and his partner eventually set off when the gun went at 9am. And my fellow soigneuse and I dutifully stood on the sidelines cheering for our boys, along with a handful of other “Epic Widows”. As soon as they were out of sight, we set off in search of wine.

Armed with supplies from the cellar door, we began the trek to our guest house in Op die Berg, north of Ceres. Ordinarily, we would’ve headed over Bain’s Kloof, but were told that it was closed for the lunatic cyclists’ use. Of course.

Six hours later we were once again assembled with the Epic Widows, but this time at the finish line. At 5:20pm, our boys came in – 40 minutes before the cut-off time and over an hour before the extended cut-off time of 6:30pm. (Cut off was apparently extended after an accident caused congestion on a section of single track). The boys had survived Day 1!

Or so we thought.

After they’d eaten their bicycle weights in burgers, we dropped them off for their daily massages. I didn’t tell The Husband, but I admit I was a little nervous when I met The Masseuse. I had spoken to her on the phone earlier and had pictured a bit of a bokkie from the Stellenbosch beauty college. Boy, was I wrong. She was blonde alright, but she looked more like a German shot-put champ, than a delicate dolly with a faceful of base. I left to take The Husband’s bike to the mechanic, just as The Masseuse was ordering him to strip down to his jocks. “Uh-oh,” I thought and made a dash for it.

Twenty minutes later my phone rang.

Me: Hello?
The Husband: I….OWWWW…aaarrgh….%#*&%#….OWWWW…*&^%**
Me: Uh-oh
The Husband: I need….OH MY GOD….aaaargh….I need Jack Daniels!
Me: Whisky? Isn’t that a banned substance?
The Husband: %#*&%#. I don’t CARE! Aaaargh…owwww!!! Bring me my Myprodol!

Since I had half of Dischem’s OTC supplies in the boot of the car, I could help out with drugs. Or I could try to persuade the Ceres Arms to sell me booze illegally on a Sunday night. I opted for the drugs.

When I arrived back at the house where the torture was being carried out, I was greeted by the sight of several prostate men in their jock strips. Most were writhing in agony. The Husband sounded the worst of all. No wonder – the German shot-put champ had her elbow implanted in his upper thigh and was leaning into it with her full (not insignificant) body weight. When he saw me, all he could manage was a strained “whisky!@$%#!” in between the screams. “Does anyone have booze?” I asked. Four elite athletes looked back at me as though I’d just asked them for crack cocaine.

Apparently not.

But that didn’t stop me from raiding every cupboard in the kitchen. I’d find their secret little stash if it was the last thing I did.

Except there really was nothing. Nada. Not a single drop of the good stuff. They didn’t intend to ingest a drop of alcohol for the duration of this 8-day race. Good for them.

Not so good for The Husband, though. Fortunately, by this time he’d laid into his stash of painkillers and his screams had subsided somewhat. He was just reaching for the Stopayn when he got his hand firmly smacked by The Masseuse. “No more drugs for you! You’ll get kidney failure! Anyway, I’m nearly done here.”

“Thank God,” The Husband groaned.

So The Husband survived Day 1 of the Epic. And the riding was pretty rough, too.