Staring death in the face

[sapaul]

Did you miss me ???

Man I am still hyped, if for one minute you think Marshaling cycle races is boring, you would be so very, very wrong.

Our day started at 6 every morning. Bike check, fueled, gear stowed, trailer check, breakfast, morning briefing and out to start point. While the cyclists get their "poo poo" together we do a sweep and check of the immediate vicinity and our exit route out of town. Check foot Marshals and police presence if any.

Back to the start ready for the starter hooter.

Rolling road blocks are the coolest thing ever, our mandate is that nothing, and we mean nothing is moving when those cyclists go past. We pull everything off to the side of the road and park it, then we move on to find something else. This is really quick, point and shoot work as there are 20 of us all looking for targets and you sometimes have to ride 2-3kms at full blast to to get to the next moving vehicle, then you have to repeat this for the duration of the race, sometimes for over 200 kms.

Sometimes, you just know that the car in front is going to take a chance, now we have to park him and queue the other cars behind, sometimes up to 20-30 at a time. When you let them go, it's balls to the wall to get up to the front and past the other Marshals again.

I have had some wild rides in my life, but this one has to rank as the most adrenaline filled.
2 local days, then traveling 1100 to the next start point, and so it went until we reached Cape Town. So many incredible roads and mountain passes. Too much to write down now , but man, what a rush. I am still fired up.

www.tourofsa.co.za

[totalmotorcycle]

Wow, quite the exciting time you are having! You will have to find some time (somewhere) to fill us all in on the stuff you have seen and done!

Talk about a rush!

Mike

[sapaul]

Day 1 started in the Menlyn area of Pretoria on a bright sunny day. The PTA cops had everything shut down tight in the city centre and we only come into our own once we left the city limits. As we have a lot of cyclists here, the public is used to them using one side of the road. We had to stop them and explain that the rolling road block uses both sides of the road and the common problem that we had was that once the peleton had gone through people thought they could move. They were most upset when they were told that they had to wait for the back markers and splits to come through too. Sometimes having to wait for 30 mins or more.

This is the real dangerous part, when a police car is up front, people stop, but no one likes to be stopped by the bikers, even though we are in official clothing, branded and with full authority. It was a recurring theme throughout the tour to play chicken with drivers who thought they could push us out of the way. many times they stopped inches from our front wheels while we prepared ourselves to jump off the bike out of harms way. I can understand the frustration. You get stopped and a big bunch of riders go through, you then think OK I can go now and then a big hairy arsed biker stops you again, then some more cyclists go past and you think you can go, only to have a biker screaming at you face on, telling you to stop again. No matter how many times we told people that the police at the back would signal them to go, they would just not wait. Then we had the rural guys pulling out of the farm roads. We would stop them, explain and elicit a promise that they would wait for the last police car. As soon as the big peleton went through, they would slip behind causing all kinds of chaos. This left us having to wait and block one car and then having to push through the peleton to get to the front again, often squeezing past where there simply was no road to pass on.

Day 1 however was brilliant and the race leader broke away with some 6 minutes to spare.

[sunshine229]

Wow, sounds like you've really enjoyed the experience. Way to go!

[sapaul]

We did not have time to get a lot of pics but here are some.

Port Elisabeth start outside the soccer stadium. By the way, my motley crew are hard boys and very irreverent. I would not have them any other way

PE Start (Small).JPG (45.15 KiB) Viewed 4355 times

[sapaul]

George Start

[sapaul]

Karoo road block

[sapaul]

This was on the long road to PE from JHB

[sapaul]

The story of the NUTTER.

I was on my own coming over one of the many mountain passes on the tour. I was in between the Marshals up front who had gone over the top of the pass to close from the bottom on the other side and the Police cars in front of the Peleton. Halfway up the pass and 6-7 kms in front of the Peleton, I come across a car heading straight down the pass onto the the path of the cyclists. Duly, I pull this Lady over who has 2 dogs in her car. I explain what is going on and she listens and replies, sorry for you, my dogs will die of heat exhaustion, I AM NOT STOPPING. She promptly pulls away, leaving me to turn around , race after her and pull her over again. She insists she is not stopping and pulls off again, each time now getting closer to a head on with the cyclists. I chase again and this time am backed up by another Marshal who has come through the peleton and is racing to the front. We both stop her and this time she aims her car at our bikes and we just manage to get out of her way in time. I make the decision to race back to the police cars and bring one up the pass with me at speed. They now stop this woman and she goes into crazy mode telling the cops that we were trying to hijack her. They see straight through this and make her park her car as close to the mountain edge as possible.

By this time my blood is boiling with the stupidity of this crazy nutter. I race off to the marshals at the foot of the pass who let her through. As I get there, the traffic is stopped and the Marshals are standing around. I pull up fast, whip off my helmet and scream at the closest Marshals, "who let that women with the dogs past"

After a second of silence they all start pissing themselves laughing, pointing at me and saying,

BBbbaaawwwaaahhhhh, he got the nutter.

Well, the anger bubble burst and I also start laughing. Time for a smoke break as the guys tell me she was stopped but also broke out of the queue and blew through the guys manning the stop. They knew that she would be stopped somewhere, somehow and were even taking bets as to who would

"GET THE NUTTER"

[sapaul]

The crew