RTC 21 March 2019
Photos: Llewellyn Lloyd
Today saw the start of the racing batch consisting of Mike Woolnough, Jurjen Draaijer, Ingrid Avidon. Lee Macpherson nd Grant Cowen also started today but with no intentions of racing, they just had a delayed start from their origional scheduled start on 16 March.

Mike charheged off the startline, passing through chesneywold around 9am, slaapkranse at 11:30, Moordenaarspoort at 4pm and Kranskop for dinner. Jurjen kept within an hour until he went a bit wrong on Bonthoek portage and soon realised that racing the freedom trail demands a certain amount of school fees be payed.

On the other end of the trail the first batch arrived safely in Cradock. Justin Dowdle rode through Newlands on 20 March, cutting his intended 6 day ride by a day and reunite with Andrea a day early. The Basels left Newlands at 02h30 to get make it to Cradock for lunch whilst the remaining foursome of Roger, Dom, Andrew and Rob all ariived mid afternoon in high spirits.

Team hardcore all doubled up from Elandsberg for a long and tough final push to Cradock which left them emotional and amped on the finish line. Celebrations and war stories kept the crew up late into the evening. There is no doubt that this experience was a real bonding experience for the durban group of mates!

Unfortunately this day ended with a bit of a sour taste in the mouth as Jason, Gary and Don confessed to having caught a lift 20km to Romansfontein after a day of endless mechanicals and accepted disqualification from the event.
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