XMspread Mountain Bikers without borders #nedbanktdt14

MOUNTAIN BIKERS

WITHOUT BORDERS

Dust. Heat. Major endos and bloody wipe-outs.

Minimal electricity. Elephant up close and in your face. Six or seven hours in the saddle if you’re at the back of the pack. And more dust … this is the legendary NEDBANK Tour de Tuli, a 4-day mountain biking stage tour, a wild ride traversing three countries along a route linking the shared border regions between South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. You KNOW you want to do it …

XM MAGAZINE AUG 2014

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STORY & PHOTOGRAPHS JACQUES MARAIS

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THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM …

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have to admit I’m a bit beyond all the hype surrounding mountain bike racing. Give me a wilderness trail any day of the year, though, and I’d be as keen as the next guy to saddle up and explore beyond the horizons.

NEDBANK Tour de Tuli allows you to do exactly this, with endless gritty game trails traversing premier Big 5 reserves situated within the Tuli Block where South Africa borders on Botswana and Zimbabwe. The riding is tough in places, with lots of rocks, some sand and a gazillion thorns, but the rewards are huge.

If you survive the drop-offs and thorns, there are still thousands of elephant, lion, buffalo, crocs and cheetah ranging free upon these arid plains to consider. It is exactly this sense of free-riding within a dangerous game environment that draws the hundreds of cyclists who come to take part in the TOUR DE TULI 4-day Stage Race every year.

If you do saddle up, the joys of riding wild upon ellie tracks awaits, and you will probably never think of mountain biking in the same way again. Groups are in the company of experienced wilderness guides to ensure their safety, and have the opportunity to come face to face with animals, up close and personal and across their handle bars.

The rider contributions go towards funding CHILDREN IN THE WILDERNESS, a charity educating kids about wild life and the environment. Last year, in excess of R1.6 million was raised towards this cause, hopefully ensuring a sustainable outdoor environment for many generations to come.

The photos of today capture the riders arriving at the Limpopo Valley Airfield, where a colourful COLEMAN Tent Village had been erected for registration and the opening ceremonies. Ahead of everyone, four days of free-range riding awaited, with myself and Peter Kirk fortunate enough to join the participants - on the trails on our MTBs - in order to capture their adventures. Here’s to #NedbankTdT14!

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DAY 1 INTO ELEPHANT

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TERRITORY…

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you’ve not been to Mashatu Game Reserve, you are missing out on one of Africa’s truly special places. The dramatic sandstone landscape unfolds on the Botswana side of the sluggish Limpopo, which was uncharacteristically in full flow this year, and a corker of a course had been marked out, mainly along elephant tracks ducking and diving amidst mopane and arid savannah vegetation.

The first group of cyclists set off before dawn, with me and my riding guide Tony Roche missioning to the Tea Stop with our Landy Man Grant Roddan to catch the first groups there. With a total distance of 62km, the slower groups were expected to spend anything up to 8hrs in the saddle, so this ride is definitely not for sissies.

Gritty single-track via giant Mashatu trees took us into the sandstone outcrops overlooking the Shashe River for some exceptional play-biking, with grand herds of giraffe and eland to keep us company while verraux eagles soared high above.

The final 10km of trail into Amphitheatre Bush Camp was fast and flowing, and it was fantastic to see the Botswana Minister riding hard along with the likes of Wilderness Safaris’ Grant Woodrow in the ‘Game Viewers’ Group. It must have been the good company I kept, because it was right here that we bumped into a huge herd of elephant, making for some stunning shots.

Ice cold beers, Bean There cappuccinos, hot showers, Coleman tents, friendly #TdT volunteers and fantastic food awaited all the cyclists in camp, making for one of my most memorable days of MTB shooting ever. I cannot begin to thank people like Russel Friedman, Nicola Harris, Chris Crewdson, Janet Wilkinson and their team enough for being part of this amazing Nedbank Sport event; nothing can touch it as far as organised adventure biking goes.

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DAY 2 CROSSING THE

SHASHE RIVER …

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mphitheatre Bush Camp is a pretty cool place, but you can’t lurk within the beautiful wilds of Botswana for ever. A world of wilderness awaits, and at dawn, a few hundred mountain bikers once again lay tracks onto virgin elephant trails as they pedalled towards Zimbabwe.

Today it was necessary to carry your passport in your back-pack, as one of the unique things about the NEDBANK Tour de Tuli is that you cross two borders during the course of the actual ride. The Shashe River awaited, but to get there you had to man up and deal with a whole lot of attitude from Mother Africa.

Icy morning temperatures; a couple of muddy stream crossings; stacks of dust clouds kicked up by the bikes; chacma baboons barking in the basalt outcrops; lilac-breasted rollers flitting in the dry branches; giraffes in ballet poses attempting to snack on top-side branches; galloping gnus; gliding grey herons; a widow-maker of a hill climb; and a whole bunch of sandy washes perfect for real-time endo exhibitions ...

What a day. There was even a sliced-off toe for Bruce Viaene and a couple of water birds having sex, and a giraffe skull as we cranked past the historic Fort Tuli and Zimbabwe’s oldest jail. And at the end of the trail - as usual - the excesses of the day’s camp awaited.

Cold beer, cappuccinos, sizzling steaks, a Pirate Bar on a sandy spit, brandy pudding, and more cold beers, just in case.

As night fell over the Shashe, hippopotami grunted further up in the river bed, and night jars trilled in the whispering trees surrounding camp. Sleep came easily once we eventually sidled into our sleeping bags, and was sorely needed, as another big day awaited just a few hours beyond dreamland.

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DAY 3 ZOOM-ZOOM

ZIMBABWE …

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verybody comes short on the NEDBANK Tour de Tuli at some stage; it is just the nature of riding wild on ungroomed and challenging tracks. I had a few tumbles, fortunately innocuously enough, but sometimes you fall at just the wrong time or place.

Today it was the turn of Tony Roche, my guide, as we missioned through a dense stretch of mopane. A branch caught his handlebars and he came down hard onto a spike of ancient lead-wood, right onto the side of his calf.

It was not a pretty picture, and it basically looked as if someone had used a blunt axe to split his leg about 2cm deep, mashing the skin into the wound. The Rochenator might have been down but he was certainly not out; a quick patch job later and he was up and riding again. (The bush doctor later had a fun time stapling the gash up, with 13 stitches in a jagged line).

Highlights of the day (and there were stacks once again): the school back-pack handover, where the riders gifted school rucksacks from WILDERNESS SAFARIS to a host of primary school pupils; a stop-over at the local shebeen to partake in an early morning No. 17 (yup, they still brew LION Lager in Zim); and flowing, fast trails all the way to Fly Camp.

As usual, there was a final 2km of testing sand that saw riders really take the puch as the heat and terrain sucked the last smidgen of energy from their psyches. But determination and cameraderie (there is no shortage of the latter at #TdT) saw them home in the end.

And what a home for the night; Sentinel Limpopo Eco Safaris is an incredible place, with a rocky view point across a natural amphitheatre where more than 40 elephant came to feed as the sun set upon the African plains. It is a truly magical place, and must rate as one of the most spectacular settings for a wilderness camp on the whole of the continent.

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DAY 4 THE ROAD TO

MAPUNGUBWE …

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kay, so I’ll come straight out and admit it ... I’ve been dragging out the Uploading and Posting of my NEDBANK TOUR DE TULI images to Facebook. It’s not a lack of time or lazy thing, but rather a way of avoiding the #FOMO of not being there by living vicariously through the beautiful memories my cameras were allowed to capture while playing up there in the big-ass heart of Mama Africa.

Everything eventually have to come to an end, as did #TdT, but even on that final Day 4 I tried to drag it out. “Tony, let’s stop here and take in the view”, or just lagging behind and dropping a gear or three so that the sounds and sights and smells of the sub-continent could wash over me. Maybe permeate my grey matter like trail dust to make me remember the raw and visceral beauty of this place we are so fortunate to call our home.

But the kilometres clicked over inexorably, and the sandstone trails morphed to footpaths leading onto the wide and wet Limpopo River, where we had to carry our bikes over our heads through croc territory and onto South African soil.

And still the adventure wasn’t over. Twice we bumped into elephants, with the second encounter literally face to face with a herd right in the dense riverine forest, only a few metres from us. I’m not sure who had the biggest skrik, but I had whippped that Silverback Technologies Slider about before Tony had even reached for the anti-elephant spray. They lumbered silently into the bush, while I whimpered at warp speed in the opposite direction.

And then, the final climb up Mapungubwe Hill and into the finishing chute ... such a bittersweet feeling to finish this amazing race. The fluttering of green Nedbank banners along the home run; hundreds of orange and grey Coleman tents buzzing with riders on a postride high; huge Supergroup pantechnicons delivering food and other logistical material ...

Add to this Chris Crewdson’s flood-lit baobab trees; a supper spread fit for kings; the everpresent Bean There coffee guys and their life-saving cappuccinos … all in all a fitting end to an event that riders from around the world keep on coming back to. Roll on 2014 is all I can say!

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“ Riding for The Children”

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#NedbankTdT14

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