Stage 7...... Final day

Oak valley estate has been wonderful. The mountains towering above the race village are surreal, it looks like middle earth form Lord of the Rings. Last night was great sampling some of the local wines and visiting. We have met great people from around the world and have been in the company of some of cycling's royalty for 7 days. The last stage to Lourensford estate is very exciting, everyone wants to finish a tough week of racing. We are all in the starting gates, ready to go, and they tell us to look up, out of the sky comes the Red Bull stunt plane, dive bombing towards us. This guy put on a unbelievable show right above our heads. Only in Africa would you see a show like that directly above the crowd. If this guy had have passed out or lost an engine he would have killed us all. The gun goes,,,,, and off we go, only 65kms to the finish. Gary and I had a strong ride with no crashes and passed many riders. The finish was fantastic, 15000 people, live concert and great food. It was great to be done the race. I am happy that Gary decided to carry on after that very rough day that took him out. He only missed 100kms of the race, but received the full experience of the Cape Epic adventure by choosing to carry on. The Red Bull plane showed up again and put on another crazy show overhead...... WILD. It was great to get to enjoy the day with our family, Gary and Joleen, myself, Kim daughter Lisa, inlaws Marnie and Charlie. They all made our race experience that much sweeter buy sharing it with us. We return home April 6 and i am looking forward to spring. It's a first for me to go from fall into spring. Africa and it's people have been wonderful. Please visit if you ever get the chance.... It's EPIC. I would like to thanks Syngenta for their sponsorship over the years. This race brings to a conclusion my quest to race the big 4 mt bike stage races. We have raised money for Canadian diabetes association and have experinced countries a prairie boy could only dream of. It has been a wonderful experience. I would also like to thank my family on the farm for allowing me the time to persue my racing dreams.

Stage 6

Got up this morning to the sound of cool African music, they pound it each morning to wake us up. This race is so unbelievably organized. The breakfasts are great and coffee is ready at 5 am. Gary tells me he is ready and I feel super charged. I have changed bikes, yesterday I tore the sidewall off a tire and had to tape it and use a tube to finish. My front shock also blew up for the second time this week and my new XTR brakes are loosing pressure. My second bike is the Flash, 16 lbs of cruise missile, the perfect weapon for the biggest vertical climb day. Once again we are at the back starting gate. 500m out of the race stadium I tare a sidewall off my rear tire. Because we are now in separate categories in the race but choosing to stay together as a team we wouldn't be penalized for not crossing the timing mats along the race course. Gary continues on solo and I run back to the start area, find a young guy crawling out of his tent after working on bikes all night and together he sets me up with a new tire and stands fluid. 32 min later I head out again but this time I encounter that the signs and race course marking ribbons have already been changed for our return to the finish line later in the day. I decide to follow the 1000 tire tracks and soon feel I'm heading the right direction. I don't catch my first rider until the 14 km mark. Then my front tire has begun to loose air. I throw some CO2 in it and continue on, not seeing signs of a hole in the tire. 8 kms down the trail it's flat again, so I inflate it and hope to reach the first water stop. When I get there I'm low again so I open the tire and dump 3 stands sealant in, inflate and head out. I've lost over 45 mins on tire repairs but feel strong and the bike loves to climb so we put the hammer down and finally catch Gary at around 100kms. He has had a steady day but doesn't want to flow up in the last single track so sends me on. Without the downtime I would have won the individual competition that day in the standings. It felt fantastic to have had such a strong ride and was without doubt my favorite riding day.

Stage 5

Cooler cloudy day, 26c. Because we are a blue and black plate, but still riding as a team, we start in the last gate. We are on fire, passing hundreds of riders. It's all I can do to hold Garys wheel, he seems really strong until 100km, then the wheels come off for him on the big climb of the stage. He was hurting bad but sucked it up for the wild technical descent to the finish. I cant imagine the feeling of riding that rock strewn decent bonking... But he did it.