Day 4 of Lesotho Sky took us from Malealea Lodge to Roma. A journey of 89km with over 1800m of climbing.
Today’s ride can be summarised as follows: It was hard and it hurt. There were lots and lots of rocks. Lesotho has various kinds of rocks: loose pebbly rocks, slippery, smooth wet ones, large “baby heads” and every variety in between, each requiring a different plan of attack.
It started innocently enough with a short climb up to the Gates of Paradise Pass, followed by 10 km of glorious rolling cattle trail, which lulled us into a false sense of security. Our inexperience showed itself in a few silly mistakes. On the start line Nick checked his bike for the first time and noticed a bolt on the chain ring was missing. Luckily the single-speeding duo came to the rescue with a bolt but this still saw us start a minute or so after the rest of the field.
Then at the first water point I was happily chatting to the other riders and left my bottle behind. This meant an abrupt about turn to collect it, and we lost the fun group of riders we had been sticking with up until then.
The remainder of the day featured some truly tough terrain: loose, rocky hike-a-bike climbs and muddy river crossings, as we traversed several valleys. This was followed by about 40km of “rolling” farm roads with a strong headwind, and finally some more flowing cattle tracks.
Needless to say we are pretty tired now. Time to refuel for tomorrow’s big climbing stage back to Ramabanta Lodge.
again, such rad terrain