I groggily wake up on an air mattress that has slowly, through the quiet hours of the night, become neither a mattress nor 'air' related in any way. A figure stirs below the mezzanine floor on which we are sleeping and throws a few pine cones and some wood onto the dying embers of the fire. The fire is soon crackling loudly and the entire cabin warms up enough to risk getting out of my sleeping bag and watch the sun-rise over a massive expanse of ancient, indigenous forest. There is so much potential for epic rides in this area it makes my mind boggle and crave for some coffee stimulation.Our generous hosts, Andre' and Wodie prepare coffee and soon their little children are scurrying around, screaming and enjoying life to the full, as I wish I could do so early in the morning.
Raoul and I have been trying to sneak out on a long, fast, epic ride together for days. Word of our secret plans spread and the group grows to a few more. In fact, before we know it we are five people crammed into two cars (Thanks again to Andre and Wodie) with four bikes and are meeting Dave Mckay and Steve Burnett on route to the Homtini Trail, deep in the woods behind Knynsa.
We spot Dave and Steve at the meeting point, but we don't spot their car. It turns out they don't have one. After a few choice swear words from me, we manage to fit an extra two bikes and two people into the cars and drive into an unknown forest, without a map, without directions and without a GPS- all the ingredients that can lead to an epic!
We find the forest station easily enough, build our bikes up and try to make some kind of strategy about the ride and where Louise can pick us up. It turns out that none of us know the trail very well and were all counting on each other to lead the way! Louise pays for the riding permits as a trickle of rain begins- I am miffed about this but not as miffed as Raoul who has taken my bad advice and not brought along any warm layers as "it's never cold once you're riding in the forests". The rest of us don our warmer clothes (it is mid winter after all!) and we set off on a 7km descent through the forest roads.We enjoy the freedom of scuttling and bouncing down the hairpins after being cramped in the cars for the morning. The pace is nice and slow much to Ruan Erasmus' frustration (the young and the restless), but he is meant to be on a recovery day so I don't feel too bad. I slow down the group even more trying to get some video footage of the ride but everybody is in holiday mode and the forests' sense of calm seems to be spreading to those riding through it.
Eventually the downhill runs out and we pay our dues as we climb upwards for a few kilometers. Suddenly the darkness of the moist forest recedes and we burst out into a sunbathed section of grassland and fynbos, just long enough to heat up our bodies before we plunge downwards once more into the forest on a beautiful forest road with tight, blind corners and some tricky little sections. After doing some more video work, I find myself all alone at the bottom of a valley. I cycle downwards until I reach a river and have to stop at the absolute beauty of the spot.
I feel totally alone in this forest now, with giant ferns fighting for their space between the 800 year old yellow-woods. The Knysna Lourie makes a bold appearance, swooping through the canopy, his blood red wings giving him away. I kneel down for a sip of water from the black stained river water and start on my way up.
And up. And up. It's a 4 kilometer long climb before I meet up with the rest of the group but actually it doesn't feel all that bad considering that we're 16km into the ride by now and have only had to climb properly twice. That said, I notice that Dave has become very quiet- a sure sign that he is starting to feel some pain and my legs are starting to realise that they have not done enough riding lately.
The Homtini trail is all about the scenery, there's not too much to tax your legs and your mind. That is, until you hit the last 5 or so kilometers. The forest road gives way to a beautiful, descending singletrack that flows really nicely and has some interesting rooty bits to keep you on your toes. We exit the trail whooping and hollering and generally behaving like a bunch of yanks before crossing over the N2 highway into the Harkerville forest.
We've written about the Harkerville forest before (see http://irideafrica.com/tour-options/single-track-tour-information/singletrack tours) and it's probably true enough to say that this place is pedal paradise. Our group is quietly happy that we are in known territory once again and have ridden for about two and a half hours now. We find ourselves taking it easy though, as we know we have much singletrack to ride here and still have to have enough sense and energy to navigate through the forests back to Knysna.
By some coincidence, Ruan gets a call from his mother just as we are about to drop out of cell phone coverage. The news isn't good, we need to return one of the cars to her as she needs to get some important shopping done. The problem is we are in the middle of a forest, on bicycles, with no communication and no idea how to get the car back to her. There's nothing for it but to hammer on down the singletrack until we get back into phone coverage. We start speeding things up a bit and before long Ruan comes short (just out of video footage!) and takes what sounds like, a spectacular stumble.
He loses his phone in the process so we walk back and I instantly recognise that it's the same place that I had a huge stack on a few months ago. There's a crafty, faster line right between 2 little trees that grow on either side of the line. I was following my sister down there when I tried to take the faster line. It didn't turn out to be the faster line. Let's just leave comments about my skills out of it and say that my bars were just 1cm too wide and my tuck and roll technique was put to use. So the search for Ruan's phone commences and while we do eventually find it, we also discover that it must be a place that many a mountain biker has had his/her pride broken.
The proof lies in the scattered remains of many an accident. Amongst the findings are water bottles (unfortunately not the one I lost in my accident), torn helmet straps, a pair of broken sunglasses and the tell tale signs of "involuntary bush removal" all around the area. The two trees stand testament to the mini-battles between them and cyclists. The trees have chunks of bark missing from them, all at a constant height above the ground...Handlebar height. It definitely appears as though the trees are winning the war here and so we leave them in peace, with one more battle notch.
One reason Harkerville rides are so great is that you get to experience riding in dark, cool indigenous forest and then suddenly pop out on top of massive cliffs above the Indian Ocean, surrounded by fynbos and covered in sunlight. We followed the route onto the edge of the cliffs where we took a short lunch break and tried to get Dave to be a bit more talkative i.e. feed him. He mumbled a few words, something like, "still gotto run a marathon....get myself into these rides....pecan pie" and then stopped talking again. I took that opportunity to steal myself a few of his jelly babies so that I could avoid the same fate (I at least, still knew that we had a very long way to go!)
The climb back up to the forests are always an arduous affair, and 4 hours into the ride, this one is no different. People are a bit quieter but there's no grumpiness yet. Ruan is the only one with tonnes of energy left. He is racing fit and darting ahead and waiting all the time, much like a hyperactive Jack Russell. We try to avoid the big climb out of the valley by putting our trust in the woefully inaccurate maps given to cyclists and (as always) get back on the incorrect, boring route home. Luckily Steve and I catch our navigation error in time and can make alternative plans to get back on track.
By now communications are back up and Mannie and Ruan decide to leave the group and get picked up by Louise, so that they can grab a lift to the other car and return the car to Wodie, and Louise can then join the rest of us in the pub later and....Well, it's all very complicated and we didn't even know what we were really doing, so that's enough of that ramble.
And then there were four. Raoul, Steve, Dave and myself set off in the direction of Knynsa in the hope of finding more singletrack but really just hoping that we can find Knynsa. We run out of map but are not really worried as both Steve and myself have "built in compasses" in our heads. The only problem was that they both pointed to a different magnetic North! The conversation went some thing like this:
Steve: "Ok so North is errr, that way, so Knysna must be over there"
Daniel: "Well, I would say North is more like there" (pointing in a totally different direction)
Steve: "The tree's don't lie, Dan! North is that way, check the rings"
Daniel: "Hmmm, OK tree whisperer, lets follow your direction for a while then"
Daniel: (whispering to Dave) "The guy's nuts! What are these rings he's talking about?"
Dave: "Hmmm? Hmsphric...ffffck....pecan pie...."
After a while we reach a compromise of alternating between Steve's and my built-in compass'. Whilst definitely not the shortest route home, this zigzagging way of orienteering eventually allows us to spot the famous Knysna heads (waaaay in the background) through a gap in the forest and confirm that this new method was working well for us. In fact, I am so relieved that I point the landmarks out to Dave and upon realising how far away they still are, he actually manages to string a few choice words together. I can't quote them though as his response is not repeatable on this blog.
Five hours into the ride and we eventually start smelling home. On one particularly steep climb we stop at the top, watching Dave climb up and consider mugging him for the rest of his jelly babies and leaving him for dead. As he grinds, hacks and cusses up the climb, the conversation evolves- something about eating squirrels and bait or maybe it was squirrels eating us, my mind and body were also starting to go at this point so I cannot report accurately.
Five and a half hours after we started we find ourselves outside the nearest pub from the trail we've just exited. It's one of Knysna's busiest times of the year and, can you believe it? The pub is closed! Lady Louise comes to the rescue as she turns up in the parking lot with a knowledge of how we must be feeling and turns out beers, chips and chocolate which are devoured at an insane pace. We chat and laugh about the ride and decide that it wasn't really an EPIC ride as none of us got really lost, none of us blew in spectacular fashion (Sorry Dave, you hit the wall with grace) and we didn't have to eat any road kill along the way.
The pub owner sees the rabble outside his establishment and decides to open up, get us inside and feeds us lovely sweet local brew and huge plates of 'slap' chips. Before long, I am cramping, the smiles are back, Dave is talking again and the rest of the rabble have all turned up on some spectacularly neon coloured bikes and we all sit back and relax after another tough day in Africa.
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