Pete Smith - Team Jeep South Africa: July 2010

After a rather sporadic training regime in Europe, I was a little bit nervous about my form approaching Imana 2010. Nick and I, now in competing teams in the event, drove down the weekend before, as we have done for the past 4 years. After all the stress of getting down to Kei Mouth, it was awesome to relax and just enjoy being back on the Wild Coast. Nick and I stayed at our normal accommodation, Whispering Waves, and rode the first day backwards on Sunday after dropping a car at Kobb Inn. Iain, Nick’s partner, and Willie, my new partner, joined us on Monday evening before the race start on Tuesday.

There are a million stories, beautiful moments and small battles I could write about describing the week – so it is probably best to just give a brief summary, rather than write a book! I felt surprisingly strong up the first few hills on day 1 and Willie was right there with me. With a 30 second gap on the first beach, Willie’s hanger snapped. After putting a new one on and many kilometres of jumping gears, Willie’s derailleur then broke, and we spent the rest of the day running and towing. 1h15 down on the first day, and we knew we had to change our mindset and focus on stage wins, with an overall win now out of reach.

Willie and I had a strong day 2 and managed to win the day. It was also a different and special experience to start amongst the backmarkers (after losing so much time on day 1) and get a feel of what the race is like for them. More disaster struck on day 3 though, and after making up substantial time on the leaders during the first half of the stage, we were left running and towing after Willie’s bike’s freebody gave up. We seemed to have used up all our bad luck by day 4 though, and we had a great day on my favourite stage (the terrain is absolutely desolate, epic, wild and beautiful on the stage). We managed to beat Nick and Iain, who deservingly took the overall win, to the fastest time on the stage.

Despite the mechanical drama, the race was another unforgettable week. The race was my first navigating the unmarked route without a Garmin 9000 (i.e. Nick Floros), and I was happy that I was competent, well at least moderately so, at finding my way by myself. It’s also always great initiating and introducing someone new to the best race in the world, and Willie coped really well with the difficult terrain and with my “looks of judgment” when stuff went wrong! The 2010 edition was also the first time my parents were able to get involved in the race as part of the organising team (thanks Bex!) and it was awesome to be able to finally share the magic of the event with them.

Back in the real world now I am suffering from the post-Imana Blues (the realisation that life is not all riding down a beach into the sunrise with the taste of salt on your lips!), and looking forward to being down the coast again sometime soon.