tour de soweto

It’s a surreal experience being stuck in the middle of Soweto with a dead cell phone, no money, no vehicle and no clue.
Twice.
Twice.

I did the Tour de Soweto this weekend – the 52 kayer. Well I attempted it, and after 15 kms, I got a puncture on my back wheel. I haven’t the first fudging clue to change a tyre, so I sommer just parked off on the side of the road and waited for someone, so willing, so help me put in my spare.

One guy stopped, including a few interested locals, who bless, seeing this frustrated and cursing female came to chat to me.

Freewheeled down the road, then climbed the hill again – the almost exact spot – not ten minutes later – I get another puncture.
Un-lucky.

Then the chain falls off, I have no more water, everything that possibly could go wrong, did. I limped to a Metro Cop, who seemed positively disinterested in my demise. The locals and other cyclicts were very gung-ho though, always asking if I was alright and willing to stop.

Eventually some gelled-up biking tycoons picked me up in their Golf 5 – and as I sat down in the freshly air-conditioned car, smelling vaguely of magnolia musk, the two bananas in the back of my jersey split open and smooshed into their spanking new seats.
Nice.
Mortified, I sat in the banana moosh for close to half an hour without making a squeak, then jumping out very quickly.

It was odd to feel frustrated at not finishing a race, when the Old Peas would’ve felt relief and copping-out, would’ve headed to the nearest bar to drink and smoke her lungs out in celebration. Not today. Now I was mad. And had a mini-tantrum down Vilikazi Street – the same place of the Soweto Uprising of 1976, coincidentally. (“Where you now Hector Pietersen? Huh? Flat tyre(s) here, hello?”) Smoking Legs managed to finish the whole thing, that little machine.

I got to skinny dip in Dick’s mother’s pool afterwards, my naked noombies shedding their dim light over the greater Westcliff area, as the pool and house are on top of a hill.

PS: I'm a little bit mad today with chicks in general. Women can be unbelievable.

PPS: It's me and Dick's five month anniversary today. Bless.