Selati Stage 4

Stage 4 “Jou Ma se (Long Tom) Pass” - Paul Kaye

 

3 down 4 to go.  Somewhere on the route would mark the halfway point of the tour.  Unfortunately that point was to be found somewhere on the 75km climb found on today’s stage.

 

The stage started in Nelspruit at an altitude of about 650m above sea level then made a steady climb to the highest point of the tour 2150m (that is over 500m higher than Jhb) 75 km later.

Interestingly the stretch of road at the top of Long Tom Pass is the highest tar road in South Africa!

 

This is the first day that Neil and I decided to take easy and as soon as the road headed up wards (after about 10k’s!) we sat up and began riding steadily.  There were a couple of guys riding with us, notably 3 of the over 40’s.  You would think once you reached that age you would be mature, well not these guys.  They kept on trying to attack each other.  I in the mean time kept a nice steady pace and can’t remember the number of times we reeled them in.  They eventually got away from us at one of the water points.  Riding up Long Tom in 35 degree heat requires a lot of fuel and it was definitely a good move to take a couple of minutes to refuel the bottles with Ice cold water and Powerade at the waterpoints.  Me thinks one of the vets won’t make that mistake again as when we past him (again) he was getting off his bike trying to recover from bonking because he had run out of water!!

 

The climb up the pass was a long tough one and you had force yourself to take a bit of time to look around and enjoy the views.  From some of the points you could see the Lowveld for miles and miles. 

 

Long Tom Pass is one that seems to go on forever and the steepest part of the climb comes near the end.  As easily as we took the climb, reaching the top was a welcome relief.  The last 20km of the day dropped about 700m which was nice.  The close encounter with an Audi TT wasn’t though.  There were road works being done on the decent and one of the lanes was closed so there was a stop / go for the cars.  When we reached it we were told to move into the right hand lane.  The cars coming from the other side however were let go too early and us and the cars ended up being on the same side.  We managed to move to the left side just in time and so after 3hrs 40mins we made it safely to Lydenburg.

 

Of that time 2:36 was spent climbing, 56min descending and the rest on the flat.

 

That night we were staying at the local high school.  What an adventure!  We got there and were directed to a hall which contained about 60 mattresses in very poor condition.  I don’t know whether they were leftovers from the Groot Trek or what??  Neil and I decided to pick a spot in the far back corner so that if anybody got up in the night they wouldn’t trip over us.  Oh well there were more important things to worry about so we set out looking for some food.  It was a toss up between the Wimpy and Nando’s.  Nando’s won even though it was a 20 meter further walk!  Just after walking out of Nando’s we bumped into Stephan Courtney, still grumpy that Robby Rodrigues sprinted past him at the finish after he had towed Robby for the last 25km’s of the race.  Anyway Stephan, because he finished so far ahead of us, had managed to get his own room in one of the other buildings.  So Neil and I as soon as we got back to the school carted our extremely heavy race bag up stairs.  This was a stroke of luck because the next day there were lots of complaints about the noise level in the big hall.

 

Credit must be given to the organisers who raided the local PEP and bought everyone a pillow and a sheet.  With these the accommodation ended up being quite comfortable. 

 

Only 3 more to go!