Today’s stage was billed as the “play day”, but I don’t think too many riders got lured into believing that. The numbers were just too ominous – basically 90 km in distance, with 2650m of climbing, making it the ‘steepest’ day of the week. And, to all intents and purposes, the numbers of today’s stage made it very similar to the Queen Stage and the two other big days that preceded it.

Let me add some perspective to the scenario. Attakwas is pitched as the toughest one-day MTB race in the country, covering a 121km route with 2900m of climbing. Critically, no part of the route is on (energy-sapping) singletrack. The four big days this week haven’t diverged dramatically from those numbers, and there’s been loads of singletrack involved in the week. We’ve kind of done Attakwas four times this week.

Having completed today’s stage, 2019 is unquestionably the toughest Epic I’ve done.

I should mention that today’s climbing was generously seasoned with climbs that have a 20-degree gradient. Much of the rest of the climbing was on singletrack.

Oh, and we did about a fifth of the climbing in the first eight or nine kilometres, with a brutal climb up Botmaskop (hence the bottle we’re drinking tonight).

From Botmaskop we went down Skyfall at Bartinney, and then all the way to the top of the Banhoek valley, where it was extremely tempting to dive into the river. Then more singletrack climbing before a fun descent to the first water point.

More vineyard climbs followed, with a big ascent up the Simonsberg side of the valley, where we linked up with the extensive network of Simonsberg trails, and loads more climbing.

Around this time the temperature hit 30-degrees, eventually maxing at around 35.

Before the second water point we had a testing climb up Klapmuts Kop, with more climbing to get us to the desperately needed water point. The gap between first and second water points was probably too big, and I was almost in big trouble by the time we got there. It took me a good 25km to bounce back from being this close to the edge. Piet was magnificently patient with me.

From the second water point on, there was no shortage of water or hydration points, which didn’t make any sense.

The final waterpoint was at the top of the old Helshoogte pass, with not much climbing remaining for the day. I found a second wind as we came out of the culvert, and we finished strong over the final 8 km.

Once again, we had loads of friends cheering us on the route. Thank you, guys!