20 Apr 2006 - travel days
Phil and Co left Wales behind them at midday and headed for Basingstoke to team up with Lloyd and fly to Cape Town at 8pm. The bikes were tenderly packed and luggage kept to a bear minimum. We managed to check in at Heathrow with no excess weight!
The eleven hour flight passed without a glitch and we arrived at 8am on Thursday. Passports and customs over and done with the next hurdle was to fit 4 people, 2 Specialized bikes and 4 bags into our hire car: a Fiat Cinqecento!! Only joking, an MPV driving for several hours saw us arrive in Knysna - the start of the Cape Epic for real.
Phil and Lloyd were accommodated several miles apart but eagerly unpacked their bikes straight away. Lloyd’s rear mech had been ripped off and Phil’s rear wheel had been badly buckled, the headset allen bolt was snapped and front wheel skewer was bent beyond use along with a broken spoke. Nightmare. Unbelievably we managed to find a local shop that was more than accommodating at short notice. They fixed us up straight away and we breathed a collective sigh of relief.
