The Freedom Challenge
Go until you blow in the 2009 Freedom Challenge
News Release / 24.06.2009
Starting from Pietermaritzburg 4 days after Barnes James put in three monumental days of riding to cover 500 kilometres and climb 11150 cumulative metres to reach the village of Rhodes high in the Maluti Drakensberg mountains, arriving there on Thursday half a day faster than Barnes. Needing to recover from the effort of the previous three days, on Friday James then only succeeded in riding 107 kms up the Sterkspruit river through to the next support station at Slaapkranz in the valley of the Vaalhoekspruit. On his fifth day of riding and having recovered slightly, he then pushed on through the Stormberg and by nightfall he had passed through the next support station at Vaalbank outside Jamestown and was heading on towards Molteno.
With this nighttime push through towards Molteno James will be building a lead on Barnes who at the end of his fifth day of riding had stopped for the night at Vaalbank. In the meantime, Barnes has managed to maintain a constant pace. Despite regularly pushing through support stations and riding long days, he appears to be riding conservatively. On his 6th day of riding he pushed from Vaalbank passed Molteno and over the Aasvoelsberg to drop into the Great Karoo, stopping for the night in the village of Hofmeyr. The next day he rode through the basin of the Great Fish River and into Olive Schreiner's Swaershoek Mountains. On Saturday he then took on the Struishoek descent at the back of the Bruintjieshooogte and the rest of the day was spent riding through the plains of the Camdeboo.
It now remains to be seen whether on the one hand James will be able to build on the advantage that he has secured by pushing through Vaalbank and on the other whether Barnes, through securing good nighttime rest, has laid a platform on which he can now start putting in a big push to the finish.
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