TIME TO GET READY FOR THE EPIC!Written By Jan Begemann | Date 2010-03-18It's only a few days left, and I'm getting a little bit nervous now. I'm always afraid of forgetting something. The worst thing that can happen to a cyclist is pitching up at a race, and 1 hour before the start it turns out your shoes are still in your garage - 800km away from the race! Happened to me once. Tried to race a criterium with running shoes on my Shimano pedals. Didn't work.
Tomorrow morning I'm leaving to Cape Town, and my shoes are in the car already (with the helmet). We are going to ride Raleigh bikes (a MR LTD suspension bike for myself and a RM carbon hardtail for my partner) with Sram XO groupset and Ritchey parts. The team is called Maxxis-Slime, so guess what tyres and tyre sealant we are using :-).
This afternoon I have to go shopping as I almost forgot about nutrition. The stuff that works for me has always been Powerbar Performance bars and Powergel. I don't even like it and it's way too expensive, but to me it works better than anything else and I'll use it for the Epic only. To me the best energy bar in the world is actually the banana and I'll have at least 2 of them per day as well. But unfortunately there is very limited space in my pockets. Someone should work on size and weight of this thing, the taste and consistency is already perfect, and I can't complain about the packaging either.
Then this evening my wife will drop our 2 dogs off at a friends place and I'll pack the car. The roof box is mounted already for the bags and the pram (my wife and little son are coming with), the bikes, tools and spares will fit in the trunk and my son will share the backseats with the food and the cooler box. Luckily my son is only 2 months old, so I don't need to pack a trailer full of toys...
Jan
