“You should have sent a signal; I would have arranged mattresses” were the welcoming words of the prison warden in Volksrust where we were spending or first night after cycling from Pretoria, about 200 miles (320 km) distant.
In our group we had two of his colleagues and signaling was how communication was done in the Prisons Department in 1966. This was before Correctional Services.
It had been a tricky early morning start as Garth, our youngest member, was delivered with a huge backpack which had to allay the fears of anxious parents whose sixteen-year old wanted to cycle to Durban in the company of three seniors – we were almost 20. A convenient storm water pipe about a mile from our starting point at Fountains Circle had provided the spot where pajamas, hat, jerseys, torch, underwear, extra clothes, all but the essentials could be dumped –and retrieved two weeks later upon our return.
At the time cycling was such a delightfully simple and uncomplicated sport. Basic equipment meant t-shirt, PT shorts, shoes and perhaps a cap. Only the fortunate few had real cycling jerseys and shorts; even for them there were no helmets, gloves, sun screens or arm warmers. Gears were limited in number and in range; two rings in front, only three teeth apart, typically 51 and 48; four or five sprockets at the back ranged from 13 to 21. Bikes were tough, heavy and inexpensive and men were men even at 16.
With lightened load we made good time to Delmas for a Coke and half-white breakfast, then through places like Lesley , Evander and Standerton we went before reaching Paardekop, then a dying town because the ‘new road’ bypassed it. Greasy chips and Coke kept us going until the midafternoon December sun forced us to lie low for a while in a little stream only 50 km from our destination.
In our cell at Volkrust prison, us four dehydrated lads hardly missed the potentially comfortable mattresses. Fortified by deep sleep, sweet prison coffee and rusks we were on the road even before the Capricorn sun. We flew down Amajuba and before the advent of cycle computers our mathematician mate could tell that the 62 seconds we clocked for a mile equated to 93 km/h. A thrill!
Over the later part of that afternoon, our youngest member required some pushing to complete another 300 km day, but our spirits were high in the knowledge that we were so well up on schedule both time wise and financially, that tonight we would live it up in an Estcourt hotel. And live it up we did: R3.50 per person dinner, bed and breakfast was the rate and our wonderful Indian waiter explained the principles of the ‘combine’ where every item on the menu was combined with everything else. Soup with fish, fish with lamb, lamb with beef; right down to ice cream with cheese platter. What wonderful value!
From Estcourt to Durban had to be downhill, or so we believed. But on the third day of a long cycle tour unexpected things just happen. Your trusty Brooks leather saddle, until yesterday your comfortable allay, suddenly turns on you and conspires with the tiniest of bumps in the road to cause severe discomfort. And the very same legs that yesterday powered you up those final climbs on the big blade now insist on small ratios at the sight of the remotest incline.
But this was the final day and after a testing start up Griffons there were glorious Hilton and long down hills and high spirits and the rains came, but the drops were large and round and warm and our little group huddled together, half-closing the windward eye, dropping that shoulder, pretending to be hardened Flandriens fighting for glory over the final kilometers of an epic journey.
The Durban prison was easy to find and the signal had gone through; there were four beds and four mattresses. Bliss!
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