Day 13: Willowmore to Prince Albert.

168km/16.5hours. My toughest stage so far, no doubt about it! This stage is relatively flat and normally takes riders 7-10 hours to complete. I've been dreading it since the start because on a singlespeed its murder. The surface is all dirt road but the quality is shocking! Thick sand and long stretches of bone jarring corrugations keep trying to rip bike and body apart and they came close to succeeding. By the end, I had to tighten up both bottle cages which had rattled loose! On arrival in Willowmore yesterday, I felt really good and thought about pushing on but opted to get a bit of dinner and sleep first before deciding, since it would've meant back to back stages of 160km+. In hindsight I shouldn't have waited that long because when I did get going at 10pm, I was feeling sleepy. Thereafter followed 16 hours of riding, walking, rattling, chain skipping and cat-napping, with a bit of early morning rain thrown in for good measure, all of which got me to Prince Albert for lunch (instead of for breakfast as originally planned) I stopped in at Visgat farm and had tasty vetkoek for breakfast. Along the way I was met by the legendary Johan Rissik, a fellow singlespeeder and Prince Albert local, who gave me some coffee and rusks to perk me up for the final stretch into town. He's now trying to solve my chain skipping issues while I get some much needed sleep. The tranquil ambiance at Dennehof Guest Lodge should ensure I sleep well. Really glad that today's stage is over.

Day 12: Cambria to Willowmore

165km/14.5hours. Left early again, wasn't sure how long it would take to get over the big climbs in the Baviaanskloof with the singlespeed. It took long, had to walk them, no power to pedal over. Kloof was cold, dark and eerie and wet feet from river crossings made it worse. After sunrise things warmed up and body started waking up. Got to Dam se Drif for brunch (unfortunately no 'death by chocolate' this time) and put a new chain on too. Put some music on and tackled the last 90km to Willowmore. Legs felt better and ended up having a great ride, even managing to pedal up the whole of Nuwe Kloof pass, my small victory for the day. A candlelit dinner of lamb stew went down well. Rumours of another front on the way, so tomorrow may be a surprise!