A Sad Farewell to the Epic Caper

It's just over a year since Bigman and I were fortunate to gain entry in the 'toughest mountain bike race in the world' and what a year it has been.

This will be my last post on the Epic Caper site (except for one more to send a link to the new blog site that we are about to start!) and I suppose that I wanted to reflect a little on what the year has meant to me personally.

It has been a year that I will remember and I have a terrible memory. From the first shout of excitement as Moonwalker won our entry to the disappointment of the crash and ultimately to the realisation that this wasn't about the Cape Epic as a race it was about us as people.

I have learned so much about myself during this past year. All the events I've done have been long distance solo efforts without a team mate. This race was the first I've done with a race partner. He may say with 12 months of experience that I should stick to the solo races!! The year also wasn't just about the 2 of us doing the race. In reality it could of been any 2 of the Posse travelling.

It's not all about the guys cycling. Our support crew with Wingman at the helm have been immense. Nothing too much trouble and wise council when required. The support and friendship that I personally have found around the group that I'm proud to call my friends has made the experience one of the best. You all know who you are and you are top people.

The experience of working as a team has really helped me in life. I have learned so much from the guys and girls who supported us riding out in the sun, rain, wind, hot (not often), cold (more often) and dark taught me about playing a team game and learning to hopefully be a better person as I move on. Time will tell on that one I suppose.

Bigman was a top team mate and great to be around. We gained an intuative knowledge during the year when to speed up or slow down based on how each other is feeling. It is interesting but you definitely have good and bad days on the bike - some days the legs are lead and others when preparation has been exactly the same are dreadful. So we worked together at the pace of the slowest with the Bigman dropping back to my pace or vice versa.

The encouragement of knowing that someone is watching for you is great and I think it's something that we have in the posse.

So on to a new challenge. There will be another blog with hopefully more contributors from the posse and something that we can all enjoy and take part in. I'll leave it to the Bigman to explain the detail and I'll do the techy bits and set up the Blog......

Link to follow.

Thank you all - it's been a blast!

John