The Roof of Africa
I have put this site together for family and friends and to maybe give those doing the roof for the first time some insight and what to expect.
Just a little about me, I am 44 years old and a diehard bike rider that will never quit no matter how hard it gets, to tell the truth the harder it gets the more I like it. My fitness is average to bad, Most of the riding I do is in the rocks here in KZN, I can hang with the faster boys but only for a short sprint and to tell the truth dont really like it when it gets to fast. My advantage is in the technical riding which I am pretty good at. I have been riding for around 30 years. In 3 years I have never DNF a race except the roof and had to be taken off the track by someone else, I have done all the WFO’s. I currently ride a Husaberg 300
What you are going to do to your body, mind and bike over a 5 day weekend will test how far you can push its limits and then some. You will have to overcome many setbacks some will seem larger than they really are because you will be so tired. Here are a few things I have learned after 4 attempts at the roof. My last attempt in 2011, I finished gold on the first day and was cut off at the last checkpoint for gold on day 2 by 20 min and I know why now. But it is too late, any one of the many issues I had that could have been avoided could have made the difference. If only I had read someone’s advice on what to be prepared for may have made all the difference. So I thought I would take the time to share my learning curve which has not been cheap and maybe make the difference for someone else. I am out this year because of a shoulder injury but will be back in 2013.
If you plan a serious effort to finish this race. Then by now you should already have good riding skills and speed, be eating right, doing some form of fitness training, and have started your preparation for the big day, from testing all your equipment and kit, bike prep , crew, yourself, kit, ect
Being organized helps a lot, pack 3 sets of kit, a second pair of boots and helmet are great, having said that in 2010 i was a little cash strapped and only had one set of kit and a few doubles like sox and gloves and it was enough, last year I arrived at the start of the second day and things went horribly wrong for me, when I had to send someone back to the hotel 20 km away to fetch my riding pants, he arrived just as I was supposed to start, I had pulled my bike off the trailer and was waiting for him in my jocks, finally kitted jumped on the bike, turned the fuel tap and fuel just poured out the carb overflow, quickly stripped the bowl off the carb by turning the carb to one side, started the bike all seemed good, I had missed my gate by 5 rows of 5 bikes, I was given the go ahead and off I went, my start was impressive really, and the reason my throttle cable had been disturbed when I turned the carb it was ok idleing to the start and stuck full open as i gave it full throttle, I had to remove my tank 300m from the start and was not allowed assistance, the whole thing cost me a lot of time. 100% the reason I missed my time bar.
Training, Normal fitness training is good but not enough, your body has to deal some serious extended exertion, your mind with overcoming the pain and staying concentrated, it all breaks down to how bad you want to finish and how far you are prepared to push your body, in my opinion your mind is more of a factor than your body’s fitness although this plays a big role, My reasoning: If you had the riding skills of a top rider you would easily finish the roof even if you are not that fit, this is because they know they can and they don’t struggle on the harder sections where we expend most of our energy. When you fall and have to retrieve your bike from a bad situation this takes massive amounts of energy. You have to prepare for this so on your next ride stop a few times and lay your bike down do a few pushups till it hurts then pick it up a few times then carry on riding. See how this gets you out of your rhythm and you will see how much energy this takes and how long it takes you to recover.
Something that most don’t think about is to practice getting up at 4:00 in the morning, this takes serious practice if you not used to it, You have to be fully kitted and ready to race at 6:00. the more time you leave yourself the better your nerves will be.
If you take a shower in the morning, don't wash your hair with soap your eyes will be stinging the first time you sweat, when taking your shower at night make sure to rinse your hair well.
Get dressed and go stuff as much breakfast into your stomach as possible, You not going to eat another good meal until late that night. I’m not an early breakfast type so packed some stuff to eat while driving to the start.
Choose the right lines, remember you can follow someone that is quite a bit faster than you, not having to worry too much about navigation, and line choice is much easier when you can watch someone else’s lines. Just be careful with this don’t get to complacent and end up behind someone that will cost you time.
If it is a hot day, you can never take enough fluids, you should be used to carrying 3L on your back, I suggest a 2 l tripper and throw in 2 X 500 ml bottles of water. (Can be used for the bike if you boil) running out of your energy drink is the worst thing that can happen. Renew your mouth piece before the race. I ran out of water 15km before the end on day 2 and had to fill my tripper with river water, you will drink anything at this stage when your body starts telling your brain what to do. 100% the reason I missed my time bar.
Carry some food, and make sure that you can get to it fast, when you are in race mode it’s really hard to force yourself to stop and waste time getting food out, make sure its mouth size portions and that you can get hold of it with your gloves on, I used a slightly modified card pouch on the side of my front fork.
Flash thunderstorms are common in Lesotho, carry spare gloves that are easily accessible nothing worse than getting blisters because of wet gloves, it often will pour down for 20 min and can get frigging cold, then the sun comes out but your gloves are wet so a spare set will make a big difference. Make sure they are easily accessible, carry a rain jacket of some sort, I used one of those disposable black plastic raincoats. It weighs nothing and when folded up is small.
Have a pit stop kit backed with spare goggles, gloves, refill for tripper, food, Bananas are great they go down well and give loads of energy.
Tape your hands, and this should not be the first time you try this. Make sure whatever tape you use will not make things worse, if not done correctly it will.
You will be broken at the end of the day, make sure you have a good crew to take care of you and the bike and know what you should be doing, like handing in your incident report form, we had to drive 10km back to do this because no one reminded me, As soon as you finish eat something and take a recovery drink, trust me you won’t want to. Your body has gone into emergency mode and your stomach is saying WTF
Make sure your bike is ready to race 2 rides before the roof, Loctite everything, just before you leave you should only have to change oil and filter, don’t start with brand new tyres cause they don’t stick so well to tar and round the houses will be risky. A mate of mine crashed while jetting his bike on the tar road the day before the race, he had brand new tyres on and the first little curve he went down, said he wasn’t even going fast but lost a lot of skin.
Suspension service is probably one of the most important things you need to do, you will not finish with a bad suspension setup and it’s pretty easy to do. I bought a brand new bike 6 months before the 2011 roof, and used this bike for practice, I thought the suspension would be fine, during the roof I blew out a fork seal on the second day during the race, later when back home stripped the forks and one had hardly any oil and the second a brown murky sludge. 100% the reason I missed my time bar.
Stay on top of things even stuff that is taken for granted an example. Fuel, a whole team of riders I think 4 bikes, seized their bikes during round the houses in 2011, because in all the excitement and who know what led up to someone forgetting to mix 2 stroke.
Tyres:
This has been discussed to death
So many options ?????? Mitas Mitas Mitas Mitas Mitas or Mitas if you haven’t go try out a mitas extreme you will be doing yourself a huge favor. You should be running a well-worn in Mousse. There are probably other tyres out there that work just as well but I have tried and tested the Mitas and for 2011 used only one rear tyre for the entire race. Given it was a dry race, I had a mates spare wheel with a brand new tyre ready to fit if it was wet.
You will need 2 extra air filters, oiled and glad wrapped ready to be fitted, one oil change, coolant to top up, Spare tyres front and rear in case it rains, a new front tyre is very nice, chain lube, Degreaser there will probably be wash bays but better to take your own prepsol so your crew can spray the bike before. 2 Stroke oil, Fuel, Mousse lube if you running a mouse, spare chain guide, Bike stand, Enviro matt,
Spares to carry, Chain link, plug spanner, spare plug, Levers (Break and Clutch) Gear lever is well worth taking with, its light and have passed many riders in my time that have lost theirs during a race. Epoxy, Cable ties, some wire,
Round the houses, I destroyed a brand new tyre but had a reason, At the start pumped so full of adrenaline I flew into the tyre obstacle a tyre bounced me off the course and ended up with so much bunting tape around my rear tyre that it had to be cut out with a knife, I just got going as the race leader came around for his second lap, I was not sure if he passed me if I would be disqualified and have to start with a penalty so not taking any chances had to better his speed and rode like a maniac. And those guys go fast. So my advice is ride well within your limits and don’t get yourself into a crazy position, avoid hard breaking it rounds off you knobs.
Below some of my experiences
Go here to my UTube channel to see a video of Round the houses.
a few pictures
Putting it sideways on the tar is scary at high speed and i was very sideways here
How to go from looking really good to a drenched rat in one second, felt like a submarine going down
And thats me with a dislocated shoulder, just an unlucky momentary laps of talent and thats it, I really should have put a new front tyre on the bike after day 1 as round the houses took the edge off of my rubber, in the wet conditions it was very hard to keep the front end stable and on a small step up it glanced off, I went in shoulder first and at the angle i fell i stopped dead, With the momentum and the full weight of my body on my shoulder.
A few pain killers later and a few hadfulls of horse gell I did manage to carry on but had lost to much time and was in severe pain, lost 40 places from when i crashed to the first fuel stop, Die before DNF took on a whole new meaning, I managed to get going again but took some time to recompose and adjust my riding, started racing again and gained 10 places over the next 7 hours but was just not enough to make the time bar at the bottom of Mad Cow. just a matter of 2 minutes :(
2008 The roof of Africa is known as one of the hardest Enduro's and probably the hardest 3 day event in the world, even harder is the training needed to be able to stand a chance of finishing. Training for this event requires dedication, perseverance and a whole lot of money. the roof of Africa attracts only hardcore riders who love the sport and live to ride, for those that do not have any form of sponsorship just finishing the roof is the goal for most, racing for top positions is for the super talented riders, even a large percentage of these guys fail.
2009 Top riders who train all year long for this event ended up dehydrated and out of the race, some injured and out of the race. and some with broken bikes and out of the race. Those that did finish day 2 were so tired when they finished they could hardly speak. Seeing Chris Birch totally knackered and blowing steam on some of the video clips shows just how crazy this event has become, the organizers have made that impossible for privateers, it’s no longer aimed at your hardcore weekend warrior, above average rider or talented but instead they have opted to redesign this event for elite riders. As a South African you will have to be in the top 15% to even stand a chance of finishing if you are not in this category you have to RACE from the start to the finish. it is still possible but Trust me this is easier imagined than done, there is not one section of the new roof where you get time to get your breath back, you will be working every muscle, organ, vein, tendon, sweat gland and nerve endings for over 12 hours a day, you will get big blisters in horrible places and loose skin in others, you will hurt everywhere and then you will need to get up at 4:00 and do it all over again.
In my intro for 2008 I wrote
“racing to win is for the riders who get given a brand new bike and
kitted out for the event with all the best gear ” this has now changed to
“Racing to
FINISH is for the riders who get given a brand new bike and kitted out
for the event with all the best gear and have a factory team backing
them at the event”
Last year 2008 was my first attempt which ended prematurely on the second day 35 Km before days end. I failed to make the time bar at the top of Baboons pass, Naturally I was very disappointed and at the time pretty angry with the organizers for setting the time bar so early, A time bar 35 km before the end and at 12:00. I know that i could have finished the day with plenty of light to spare, what made this even more aggravating, I had stopped to help someone who had hi-sided over a steep bank and needed assistance firstly to get his bike off him and then I made the mistake to taking the time to help him drag his bike back up the rocks, I lost more than 20 minutes here, the second reason was being a first timer I had started right at the back of the field, somewhere around 260th place, I had to fight my way up the field and kept on loosing time with the numerous bottlenecks formed by riders unable to negotiate some of the obstacles, one of these bottlenecks cost me 45 minutes and ended the race for me right there. You need to be in front of these guys that battle on the really technical stuff. This being the 200 odd riders that don’t finish the event bar a few who had the wrong game plan or just plain bad luck. lesson learned.............the time trial is of utmost importance.
Looking a bit worse for wear.
1) Some advice for anyone racing and wanting to finish, remember less than a third of the riders that start this race finish it, Round the houses is one of the keys, you don’t want to crash out here but you need to race and get the best position that you can, taking it easy here or "Playing it Safe" is making the rest of the ride that much harder, once out there nothing is more frustrating than racing for 2 hours getting into a nice rhythm then coming to a bottleneck and losing all that time you have made, The only solution here is to get in front of these guys early in the event i.e. the time trial, it’s all very well conserving energy so you can keep a good pace for 3 days but I would rather be dead tired and still in the race than have all my reserve energy but not in the race. GIVE IT ALL YOU GOT.
2) Make sure your bike is well prepared and it’s so important to have everything properly tested, I had all the protection you can buy fitted to my bike and fitted an exhaust guard shortly before the event, during the event my exhaust guard took a heavy knock and one of the mounts cracked and lodged itself between the casing and my gear leaver, later I established it was design error, I had to bash it out with a rock. I had a small gap between my bash plate and my clutch casing, needless to say a metal pipe lying on the track found this gap and put a hole in my clutch casing. Fixing stuff like this breaks your rhythm and costs you time and energy.
My experience for 2009 after months of preparation, training and organizing
Re-jetting my bike and doing final check in Lesotho
Round the Houses
All started out well I finished round the houses in 10th position with smoking hot tyres (no kidding they were so hot you could hardly touch them), I started on the second row from the back but managed a great start and on the first long straight was already in about 15th position, a Honda was on my left, when we hit top speed engines singing the poor guy seized his bike, I heard an audible “klack” when something in his engine broke. This made me back off a little not wanting the same to happen to me. I can’t imagine how he must have felt his race over before it even started.
DAY 1
Out on the Time trial it took some time to get the blood flowing and
all the muscles loosened up, I was doing well, every 15 minutes
or so I would catch and pass someone, The time trial was a nice flowing
course and we were making the distance fast, with 4 km to the end the
worst thing that can happen happened, It was the last technical
downhill I could see the DSP in the distance and my front tyre skidded
over a loose rock and I went over the handle bars, would not have been
so much of a big deal if I had not dislocated my thumb and crunched my
index finger, I was on the bike in a few seconds and had to drag it
back up on to the path using lots of energy, I got going again but my
thumb was hurting like hell and 20 meters later I was over the handle
bars again, my exhaust cage caught on a rock which slowed my momentum
and put me off balance, when my front wheel came down there was a nice
rock which stopped the bike it in its tracks, my momentum carried me
over the bars and about 10 meters before I landed on a whole bunch of
jaggered rocks, later I found bruises and cuts on both legs, my hip,
hands, shoulder and arms. I was seriously battered and bruised from
that one, I wasted a lot of time getting back on the bike this time and
a whole bunch of riders came past me and i lost a lot of time. Getting my bike off the rocks and
upright had taken too much out of me and I basically sat there of 10
minutes to recompose myself, all the time knowing I was loosing
valuable positions for the following day.
Going over the bars for the first time
20 metres later
DAY 2
Up at 4:30 , my wrists and thumb strapped up, one voltaren
injection a few anti cramp tabs and I was ready to start at 6:00, my
starting position 97 really not so good but then again I was starting
one row ahead of Andreas Lettenbichler (not so bad after all). A short
time after starting Letti came past me like i was looking for a
parking, he glided up a rocky section with such style it was amazing to
watch, he very quickly disappeared, Bottle necks are a major issue and
extremely frustrating, starting with nearly 100 bike in front of me
meant quite a bit of traffic to deal with and all because of one stupid
mistake the day before, not being a very fast and aggressive rider but
strong on the technical stuff is a big disadvantage here, in lots of
sections there is only one or two lines and if you have someone stuck in
front of you then you just have to wait wasting valuable time. On some
passes you could see a line of more than a kilometer of bikes inching
their way up the pass, later after watching some video of how riders
were basically carried pushed and pulled up some sections which I rode
up unassisted you realize just how much time it had cost. This year it
was exceptionally hard and the organizers just can’t seem to get it
right, last year there were cutoffs imposed because of fear for riders
being caught out and having to sleep the night in the mountains, and
they got it right by making the cut off so early my race was over at
12:00 on the second day, the answer was they had sent a rider out to
time this section, my suggestion here would be to send someone who knows
how to ride a bike.. This year this was not a concern and we were sent
out on a never ridden loop so the organizers had no idea how long it
would take, obviously the concern of riders having to spend a night out
in the mountains was no longer a concern, lots of guys ended up
sleeping out there, no one actually finished the roof this year because
the course had to be cut short and even the top riders were assisted
up some passes and were on their bikes for over 10 hours, when they
finished the day they were basically gobsmacked when reporters tried to
interview them hardly able to speak. Top riders who train all year
long for this event ended up dehydrated and out of the race, some
injured and out of the race, and some with broken bikes and out of the
race.
On a pretty technical section I stopped to make sure the
local rider Shamus was OK he had fallen and hurt his back, he said to me
it was around 1:30 when he fell……..it was already 4:30, we talking
about a back injury here and he had been lying there for over 3 hours.
Not so cool in my books. I already knew I was out of the race, now it
was becoming a concern whether I would get out before dark, the rocks
never stopped never a chance to relax on the bike. It just went on and
on and on, what were the organizers thinking here, I rode into the fuel
stop at 6:30 to see the worried faces of my brother and wife light up.
That was my roof of Africa over. I was hurting everywhere especially
my thumb and in a way happy it was over, later my happiness would
chance once everything had set in and I realized how much of a mess-up
the organizers had made
I so desperately wanted to make a better go of it this year
and had I ridden the pace that I did this year in last year's event I
would have easily made the last day. Last year I decided to do the roof
and use it as a training and learning experience for this year’s
event, this plan fell apart when they decided to make the event more
difficult and change a few things and all my preparation based on last
year’s event was useless.
Simply put the organization of the roof can only get better,
from the setting of the course to the information provided to the
safety to the attitude and it seems they don’t learn from previous
years mistakes, having said all this its the greatest race in the world and I will do it as long as i can still ride a bike.
So if you have the odd 20 grand lying around and a fully prepared bike
with a garage full of spares……………………………. Go for it………….. Till 2010...................I will be seeing you there.