Ugene Nel’s adventure races are not to be missed. They are few and far between, for starters, but when they do happen you can rest assured that only the purest quality uncommercialised, unrefined and unpasteurised AR will be served to you.
Don’t expect a goody bag. In fact, don’t even expect a pre-plotted map. What you can expect is a well thought-out race course, with numerous options and traps laid for the amusement of ‘Race HQ’. Ugene spends countless days scouting these routes and laughing out loud as he conceives his diabolical plans. It’s worthwhile having a laugh yourself once you realise you’ve been caught out. Again. Not much else you can do.
A fine example is a CP conveniently placed on a farm gate with a road behind it that goes exactly where you’re headed to the next CP after this one. The road looks like a good farm road and extends as far as the eye can see into yonder hills. The map shows this road and shows it following a fence line practically delivering you to the next CP in about 4 clicks. Should be about 15 minutes then, allowing for some undulations in the topography. No further discussion required, one sets off and admires the rolling farmland, allowing yourself some time off the maps for idle chit-chat.
You hardly notice the trail gradually deteriorating until you find yourself hugging the fenceline and trying to scout a route through dense fynbos and several small but menacing gulleys.
Soon you are carrying your bike on your back up a hill with all manner of flora clinging to your socks. Your fence runs out and delivers you to a remote hilltop in the middle of nowhere with scant options in terms of trails from there. Intense scrutiny of the map reveals that perhaps there was an easier way, in retrospect, knowing what you know now, but it’s too late. You’re in too deep. You’ve invested too much. And so you push through, suspecting that Ugene is chuckling behind his binoculars somewhere.
Then there are the so called ‘organic’ trails. These are keywords Ugene uses in his race descriptions as euphemisms for “fokol” trail, save for a few cow paths and such. Now much as one can hope that the cows frequent your next checkpoint, they usually don’t have much interest in that fencepost, prominent tree or road junction. And piecing these organic trails together can be quite tricky, especially at night.
Inbetween this type of fun, you should also note that Ugene likes to keep his racers clean. “A clean racer is a good racer,” Ugene says. For that reason, he’ll let you swim with your bicycle and all your gear in the most splendid scenery so that you’ll emerge feeling refreshed and smelling better. The uphill hike-a-bike afterwards is ideal for warming you up again.
Lastly you have your easy-to-find variety of checkpoint which turn out to be less so. I mean, how hard can it be to find a hilltop trig beacon? Even at night, surely, you just head up the hill until you get to the top. Except that the top is flat and a kilometer wide, with very few discernable features. And the ground is covered in bushes and trees. And the beacon is in there somewhere. And it’s dark. You stand in a spot you think you should be and shine your torch around. Idle banter stops. You get that old sinking feeling. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. The silence is broken by some choice words and then the back and forthing starts, this way and that, totally stuffing up any odometer readings you may have been using and the hunt is reduced to a game of chance.
So after trying various angles of attack and spending the better part of the evening for absolutely no gain in checkpoints, one’s water and food tend to run almost as low as one’s morale and torch batteries. Afterall, four hours is a long time to spend on one checkpoint. And so it goes with new unexpected delights to be discovered at every turn.
This particular race was like a buffet, in that you could gather as many checkpoints as you liked and once you’d had your fill of adventure you could retire to your quarters to reflect on the day’s proceedings. While the Rustproof dudes showed sheer grit in managing to sample everything on offer, the rest of us had had our fill before midnight, with some teams even managing to enjoy several bottles of red before the race clock stopped. No corkage was charged.
Now who wouldn’t want to spend their weekend doing that? Let’s face it, like golfers have their ‘Gary Player’ golf courses; every adventure racer worth their smelly socks should try a ‘Ugene Nel’ adventure race course given half a chance. It keeps one honest about your abilities, helps you re-evaluate your training and, above all, does an excellent resilience test on your sense of humour.
Authors: Dirk Schreuder and Ronald Jessop, Team Parallel | Quantum Adventures 150k MTB AR, 11/12 May 2014
Photos by Ugene Nel.
I must admit that the only thing that helped me deal with the unbelievable FOMO that I was experiencing due to a chest infection was being able to sit with Uge and fellow co-driver Sarel and giggle through binoculars and what could very possible have also been me getting ‘Uged’ out there!
Uges races are everything that Ronald has described….and more! His passion is visible in everything he does!
Well done to all who took part and kept the smiles going despite the cold water and sometimes questionable route choices!