Sani2C Trail 2015 - The Racemiere rides again

It's may, that time of the year 1000's of mtb'ers all over the country to flock to the little town of Underberg just south of the Sani-pass to partake in the biggest & most famous 3-day mtb stage race in the country - The Nedbank Sani2C.


Team Racemiere saddled up again for their second bite at the cherry and converged onto Underberg accompanied by the rest of their extended family/support team to participate. Not much has changed since our 94.7 ride in November, I still had a dodgy heart and Pieter still had a small baby in the house, so training rides were much less frequent & shorter than for our previous attempt, but at least we were not neglecting the all important pre-race tapering. Also, in a cunning plan to compensate for our lack of training Team Racemiere has now gone professional and procured a big name kit sponsor and were now known as the "Pragma Racemiere".

Pragma Racemiere - Ready for Day 1!

Race strategy was to go as fast as possible on Day 1, preferably avoiding the numerous mechanicals we had last time to get a good seeding for the descent down the Umkomaas on Day 2. Day2 we planned to go down the Umkomaas valley as fast as possible and then... well then that was that as far as strategy goes, the rest of the race would just have to take care of itself.

The race briefing was at a impressive new venue, Glencairn farm, more or less at the foot of the Sani-pass. Combined with the Scottburgh beach ending the race finally does justice to it's name tag of "Sani2C" as previously the "accurate-but-less-catchy" name of the event should have been School2School, starting at Underberg High and ending at Scottburgh High. 

Not for the last time the week we got an incorrect SMS from the organisers - this one stated the race briefing would be at 3h00, only for us to pitch up at 2h30 to hear the race briefing is only at 4h00. We decided to just rely on the bits we remember from the briefing 2 years ago, registered, grabbed our bike boxes, soup and free Nandos and were off to our accommodation for the night.

Day 1

Early Tuesday morning team Pragma Racemiere were back at Glencairn, ready to start the 265km journey to the sea. This year we were seeded in Group C and I was looking forward avoiding the queues and mtb-newbies we had to dodge & endure at our previous attempt from the back of  the field in Group J.

The start was fairly fast but we chose to hang back a bit not really wishing to burn all our (limited) matches in the first half hour of a 3 day race. By the time we hit the first singletrack sections our group was nicely spread out with us at the back, but the fast riders from Group D were still minutes behind us  - so unlike our previous attempt we now had the singletrack sections all to ourselves and was able to ride them at pace, a privilege denied to the masses starting mid-pack and later.

Singletrack! All by myself...

A new innovation from the organisers was to make the race "GPS - navigation only" ie no route markers, but seems the organisers had a last minute change of heart because each road split was marked, big arrows would show the way in case you were ignoring your GPS or had no intention to follow the obvious route with the bike tracks. But this was a good thing as my little Garmin 500 is good ay many things, GPS navigation though is not one of those things. Numerous times an alarm would go off out of nowhere telling us we are now off-course, only for the Garmin to change it's mind moments later to decide that we are indeed on the correct route.

Day 1 - Done & Dusted

My partner took the lessons learned at our previous Sani to heart, and exchanged his 26er for a proper bike aka a 29er before this race, so suddenly I had to work much harder to keep up, especially on the singletrack sections I was hanging on for dear life not to be left behind.


Our supporters were treated to a proper breakfast at the famous floating bridge, then we had another meet & greet & photos with our fans at the second waterpoint. When we got to the finish at Mackenzie club in just over 4 hours, they were picnicking under a tree cheering us onto the finish line. Despite being 2 years older and generally more unfit, our strategy paid off and we shaved about 40 minutes of our finishing time of 2013, our final time good enough to put us in Group C again for Day 2 ie Day 1 mission accomplished!

Day 2

Day 2, the day of the famous Umkomaas descent, undoubtedly the most hyped stretch of singletrack in Southern Africa. The hype is almost justified but unfortunately singletrack is just not something meant to be enjoyed by 1000's of riders at the same time so inevitably the descent ends up being a disappointment for a large portion of Sani2C riders who are destined to get stuck behind technically-challenged competitors.

Luckily being seeded in Group C meant that at least the riders among us had the basic abilities to ride switchbacks and negotiate rocks & tree roots, and for the most part were able to do it at least as fast as us.

The Umkomaas - Why so serious?

As expected, the descent down the Umkomaas was beautiful & fast & furious, unfortunately about 3/4's down the hill we encountered the bane of every rider with prescription lenses - MIST! Suddenly your glasses fog up completely and you have to follow a vague blurred figure in front of you at 30km/h+ on a narrow stretch of singletrack with trees jumping seemingly out of nowhere in front of you, however with more mercy than skill I managed to reached the bottom of the valley without killing myself.

The torment wasn't over though, I was still barely able to see in front of me, completely relying on the reactions of the blurred figure in front of me, had more close shaves than I care to remember, and I'm certain a few people behind me were stunned by how useless I was on the bike that morning.

Finally after about 40km the fog cleared and we reached the first waterpoint, the fun part of  the stage was now over, now it was the long slog out of the valley. The 28km's to the next waterpoint took more than 2 hours but at least I was able to see where I was going, a very under appreciated ability for riders blessed with proper eyesight.

Reaching the famous Nando's waterpoint, our supporters were waiting for us and we even had time for a friendly little chat with farmer Glen before setting off again!

Meet & Greet with Farmer Glen

The worst part was now behind us and we joined up with a few other riders for the last stretch and rush to the finish, finishing the 100km stage in 6h20m, again faster than last year and again, and again good enough to keep us in Group C.

Day 3

A flock of sheep aka Group C

I'm still amazed at how a group of 100 riders,all equipped with GPS's to navigate could manage to take a wrong turn only 100 meter after the start, continue for about 5km's along the wrong route before one soul is brave enough to suggest "Hey guys, maybe this is the wrong route?" A flock of sheep would be an apt comparison, but sheep don't have GPS devices.

So after 15 minutes, Team Racemiere rejoined the route about 100m from the start line, just in front of Group E that was about to start and finally we were able to commence our dash to the sea. I was  impressed on how Farmer Glen could plot a route among the rolling sugarcane hills of the Natal South coast with almost no climbing from the rider. For the most part the riding is fast and we passed a few riders that day that misjudged the fast descents and ended up crashing hard (probably fatigue setting in and making it hard to concentrate after 3 days of riding).

We met our supporters at the first waterpoint which was the last time we would see them before the finish, apparently the dirt roads of the area are not the easiest to navigate even with the help of a GPS.

Vernon Crookes - the perfect place for supporters to get lost

After just over 4 hours we reached the long floating bridge at Scottburgh, managed to cross without any mishaps and finished in 168th place for the day, yet improving our overall position of 124th after Day 2 to 108th (I'm still trying to wrap my mathematical mind around that one). Despite losing 15 minutes because of the wrong turn we still managed to beat our 2013 time by almost an hour, so overall, a very successful day.

Our support team making sure we manage the beach section of the floating bridge

Next up.. Finally I get to take on my first Transbaviaans in August.