Swazi Frontier MTB Race...What an adventure!

After months and months of talking about the Swazi Frontier mountain bike race, the day finally arrived where my man and I got to hop on our bikes and experience this rugged race. It was a tough one - probably one of the toughest stage races I’ve ever done. With a distance of only 60km a day, many of us were fooled into thinking it would be an easy undertaking. Wrong. It’s one of those race where you find yourself begging the same question over and over again: “Why I am doing this? Why am I doing this?”. But the social aspect of the race is quite special and easily compensates for all the relentless hills and aching hamstrings. I don’t think I even saw one pair of shaven legs amongst the men - always a good sign.

I can’t share all the stories about this adventure - there are just too many, but hopefully these pics will give you a glimpse into how beautiful Swaziland is.

With only 90 teams, it was an intimate race. To put it in perspective, a race like Sani2C has 700 teams. That’s 1400 people in a race village. Not pretty. Small races rock.

Need I say anything?..

We rode over swinging bridges..

and up rocky hillsides..

and we pushed our bikes. A lot.

and when we couldn’t push anymore, we stopped and took pictures.

But finally. Finally. We got to the finish each day and collapsed in a heap of sweat and dirt.

This is Jimmy…who rode with Jilly

..who is single, I repeat single.Look past the dirty face will you - a race in 40 degree heat would do that to you too.

And here we have Dr Steve and Mr. Clarke who show that you can still do tough races like this when you’re in your mid-50’s. Yes you can!

Well done everybody, we did good!