The racing batch are off today and I’m sure they are going to amaze, astound, perplex and impress us with their antics. But it’s worth remembering that they are actually a sideshow and the real vasbyt happens in the rank and file riders who are already out there on the trail. There are those who are conservative and have their sights set firmly on securing a blanket without any drama. No Trophy Nicholson and his entourage fit firmly into that mould. They are progressing nicel

What's all the fuss? I still remember clearly where and when I truly 'got' it. It was on the track before reaching the district road that passes Sunrise School (also known as Prospect School) - you know it. It's where we turn off and head through Hellbron on the way to Masakala. You see how I'm still writing as if I'm there. Twelve years have passed but it's in my head as if it were right now. I got that deep visceral feeling of Freedom. Now everyone's experience of freedom i

I’m a cyclist and an artist so this blog may be a bit left of centre but I thought I’d look at the bicycle through a slightly different lens. Besides, who chooses to cycle is as multifarious as MacAskill to My Fok Marelize. So here goes… On a recent car journey with Mike Roy (head scribe of the illustrious FC writers group, and my lift down to the inaugural Freedom Circuit 700, where I was squeezed into his trusty Cruiser amongst fishing gear and cooler boxes), I was astounde

Sunday morning and the Buffalo Herders find themselves in Rhodes. We were a bit confused for a moment until we remembered that it is Freedom Challenge season and we have a job to do. Reports to write, dishes to be washed and other useful activities, not that I am able to list any of them but surely there must be at least a few. I’ll ask John the Geologist if he knows of any. It is cold up here in the mountains and the wind is howling. We passed the heavily wrapped Batch One

RASA and RTR 2021 is upon us. The race has already kicked off for more than half the field and a legion of dot watchers. This year I get to be a dot watcher for the first 10 days before slipping on my riding shoes and entering the fray as a dot to be watched. Opening the tracking site my eyes scan the familiar route from Pietermaritzburg to Diemersfontein. Zooming in, the granularity of memories born of traipsing down the trail over the last 14 years are brought into focus. L

As a woman, riding the Freedom Challenge has taught me many lessons. I will share one of them with you: the contents of the 2 litre ice cream tubs. I rode my first RASA in 2010. I was forty years old. Naturally my mother was concerned about my safety, health and future fertility. What made her feel much better about my "foolish behaviour", as she politely put it, was that I was riding with my husband Anthony. Somehow that made it completely acceptable, even praiseworthy. As w

At 6am on 1st July I will be on the steps of Pietermaritzburg city hall. No, I will not be starting the Comrades marathon. That would be too short. Instead, I’ll be pedalling my overweight bicycle to Wellington in the Western Cape. Given that I am not in an F16 nor in anything that requires the sweet nectar that is 95 unleaded, it will take me around 16 days to pedal the roughly 2150km. The word “roughly” is significant. When you sign up for the Race Across South Africa

Johannesburg 22 June 2021, the day after Winter Solstice Day Mike Roy The Freedom Poet suggestion in the first race report of a few days ago has elicited a response from Freedom Challenge alumni, friends and family. The upshot of all of this feedback is that we have discovered that we already have a Freedom Poet, alive and well and living openly amongst us. Six years has passed since Mike Devereux penned his offering after his RASA ride in 2015 and it has been up and visible

Johannesburg 16 June 2021, Youth Day Mike Roy It hasn’t taken long. We are back to where it all started, testing ourselves in inhospitable places in the bitter cold. RASA in winter, the mere thought of which is enough to quieten strong men and women. We heard the whispers during the two March events, the Race to Cradock and the Race to Willowmore. The inaugural Freedom Circuit race in April reinforced the fear that this year is going to be cold, very cold. I paid attention