Wines2Whales 2015

Hell&Back was supposed to be next, but someone with a W2W entry had an unexpected wedding to attend, team Racemiere had an unwanted 2016 Sani2C entry. then there was a swop transaction and suddenly team Racemiere had a W2W Adventure 2015 entry!

My Transbaviaans suffering provided the base training and as I was preparing for Hell & Back anyway this was an opportunity not to be missed. My fellow Racemier flew down from Joburg and we met up with my cousin George and his W2W partner Tiaan at the Lourensford registration, these 2 & friends would provide good company the weekend.

The one problem with W2W is that it is in October and in the Western Cape October weather is a lottery. You can get anything from heatwaves to storms to snow depending on the wims of the weather gods. Rain was predicted for the W2W weekend but when we arrived at Lourensford on Friday morning the sun was shining (for now..)


Day 1

The organisers broke Team Racemiere's sequence of 4 group C seedings in a row by demoting us to Group D for Day 1 of the race. The day started quite leisurely with a slow long climb up Helderberg along with George & Tiaan who were seeded with us. A few new singletrack sections were added since my last W2W in 2013, unfortunately we were often held up a bit by slower riders on these sections, something that comes with the territory when you are mid-bunch in a mass participation event.

We had a quick meet & greet with our 2 supporters (mom & dad) at De Capo wine estate and then it was onwards to the infamous hike & bike up the old wagon trail on Gantouw pass, how the old farmers managed that path with ox-wagons is completely beyond me. Luckily the temperatures were relatively cool so we managed the walk easily.

Fun on the singletrack

The stretch between Gantouw pass and the finish at Oak Valley is easily my favourite part of the whole race (even more than the much hyped Day 2 "play day"). Lots of fast flowing singletrack and again, it was obvious how much extra single track was added since my previous ride. A lot of the relatively boring district roads was replaced by fun singletrack. Also by this stage the field was quite stretched out so we had open singletrack ahead of us with little congestion.

We finished Day 1 in a respectable 5h30 minutes, just missing out on promotion to Group C. We lost George & Tiaan along the way but they also managed to stay in Group C for Day 2.

Day 2

Starting Chute Selfie

The famous "play day", loads of singletrack, not a lot of climbs, all about having fun. My previous attempt at "play day" in 2013 was a bit of a disaster, a nasty fall early in the stage, almost slip sliding into a ravine, being called a dirtroadie by a girl and just generally sucking at everything mtb that day. However I have had 2 years of singletrack practice since then and 2 PWC Corporate mtb'ing events at Paul Cluver later I know most of the singletrack sections by now so at the very least familiarity could compensate for lack of skill.

The previous night the rain that was predicted finally fell on most of the trails, promising a muddy day out on the trails. Luckily the rains cleared up by the time we started so at least we started the day 3. Unfortunately the bane of spectacled riders was still present - mist...  Within a few kilometers I was riding virtually blind, having the choice of negotiating trails through misted up glasses or my own blurry eyes, both equally scary.

About halfway through the stage the mist cleared up and suddenly I was able to see again, we hit the familiar trails around Paul Cluver and were making good pace. A few kilometers before the end we caught up with George & Tiaan who took advantage of my temporary blindness to sneak ahead of us. We had a fun ride through the Kromco apple pack houses and then a long final singletrack descent back to Oak Valley.

Despite my struggles of the first part of the stage we somehow managed to move up a few places and sneaked back into Group C.

Day 3

If only they new what weather awaited them...

This was the day the threatening bad weather finally caught up with us. Although you would have not predicted this looking at the beautiful sunshine that woke us up.

The first few kilometers to Houwhoek was easy enough, again we were held up a bit on singletrack by slower riders (how they still managed to be ahead of us by day 3 is a bit of a mystery to me). After Houwhoek we descended down to Botrivier where our support were just in time to see us exiting the 1st waterpoint. After Botrivier the weather started turning, soon we were riding into gale force winds and shortly after that the rain started falling and temperatures started to drop. Conditions were tough, a number of teams dropped out of the race but we soldiered on through the storms. On one occasion I was literally blown of singletrack by a crosswind!

By Waterpoint 3 we were thoroughly cold, soaked, tired and my bike was singing like a canary with all the mud in the drivetrain. The weather cleared up somewhat and we slip slided through some more new singletrack near Onrus (I'm sure it will be big fun in dry conditions.). Then we had our last mishap of the day literally 5 kilometers before the finish when Pieter's chain broke, what a struggle trying to fit a chainlink in the mud & cold!

Dirty bikes at the finish

Just under 5h00 since we left Oak Valley we stumbled over the finish line in Onrus, had a shower and then dodged the next wave of rain to get into the car and get back to Durbanville. Overall an exceptionally well organised race and excellent route, easy to see why this is one of the premium 3 day stage races in RSA along with Sani2C.