Day 1; and the Warriors had a 141km to cover on a relatively easy cycle to Standerton. The day went well but there was a casualty as Marzanne came off her bike in what was described as the perfect fall by Johan, she managed a perfect somersault and landing predominately on her hip and shoulder. No broken bones and only bruising and Marzanne was back on her bike. 

After a good night’s sleep and all the riders having there niggles dealt with, day 2 destination Newcastle began. Day 2 was a relatively easy ride but was marred by bad roads and a ton of road works. At one point the roadwork’s reduced the road to a single laned dirt road, subsequently it forced all the cyclists onto the back of a truck to get over road work ridden road. 

The further ride into Newcastle was dealt with easily and the Warriors had the gruelling 171km day 3 on their minds. This meant I had a good 5 hours of work ahead of me, preparing the riders for day and making sure they were all in working order. Day 3 got off to a dampener as Warrick’s bike had been stolen overnight. This meant to day started without the man who had put the whole event together. 

Warrick managed to get back on the road albeit 2 hours late as the owners of the B&B bought him a new bike. After a good two hour stretch and the team in full force, the Warriors were Estcourt bound. Adele, who has done the ride twice before, had been warning the team of the three sisters as your approach Estcourt, they were duly renamed – unfortunately the newly profanely named mountains are not for sensitive eyes, ears or anyone who was in a km radius of us during them. 

Day 3 dinner was a rather subdued ordeal as the sun had taken its toll and the Warriors headed to bed for a good night sleep before what Adele had described as 8km climb out of Estcourt ending up at the cell towers, the days ride was only 114km and everyone felt invincible after the 174km ride. 

After 22km up hills that the support vehicles struggled to get up and the Warriors finally reached the cell towers in their drips and drabs. The stronger guys had been doing circuits as the helped the ladies up the hills. Christo, Dave and Johan did each mountain, every day and not only on the tough stages, at least twice as they helped them all up. 

Day 4 ended in the humid air of Pietermaritzburg and a much appreciated thunderstorm during the night – luckily it stopped early enough for the road to dry out in the morning. The final day saw a few interesting climbs as the riders started along the Comrades Marathon route (after seeing it, I’m never running it). “Luckily” we veered off the Comrades route and into the Valley of a Thousand Hills to the remote Abambo School where the Warriors and First National Bank volunteers planted some of the 700 hundred trees they raised funds for as part of their Cop17 initiative. 

A short journey onwards, headed down some of Durban’s busiest roads – all my fault, and the Warriors arrived at the ICC. Unfortunately the team couldn’t get a photo nearly as close to the ICC as they would have liked as they were chased away by some hefty UN security officers. The journey aptly ended at Durban’s North Beach with a bottle of champagne and 12 very tired Warriors and two tired support team members.

The team included: Warrick Lee, Johan Steyn, Dave Aitken, Leonard Smith, Christo Carstens, Nicholas Litton, Herman Koellner, Marzanne De Villiers , Marna Mara , Christine Magua , Michelle De Villiers and Adele De Kock. The support vehicles were driven by Edy van Niekerk and myself.