Day 2: Kasane to Bush Camp

Nowheresville, Botswana - I think I was the first one up this morning, I was so nervous about the long ride. We were supposed to ride 160km - that's officially a century (100 miles) - farther than I have ever ridden before. Plus, I knew I had to pack my bags up and take down my tent and wolf down my breakfast before starting.

It's important to get an early start because it's nice and cool in the morning so you want to get in as many miles as possible before the sun gets high and hot - which is about 10am. So I was up at 5am, eating breakfast at 6am, and on the road before 7am. 

I was definitely operating according to the old truism: Slow and Steady. A few hills and a steady crosswind added a bit of challenge, but for the most part, the route was flat and straight. Good for the knees. I honestly felt like I could go forever at that pace!

The landscape varies from agriculture to grasslands to scrubby growth. But it's all flat. I was riding with the video camera so I stopped to do some filming for LPTV. I also did some filming when I got to the lunch truck. The problem is that I was really taking my time. There were a lot of other riders phaffing about the lunch truck, but I didn't realize that they were not going to cycle the second half of the ride. They were waiting to hop on the truck. This is perfectly legitimate for somebody who has been on their bike for three months, as most of these riders have been.

But I am only here for 11 days and I certainly wasn't going to hop on the truck on the first long day of riding! So I was actually the last rider leaving lunch, followed shortly by the sweep. That's the staff member who rides last to make sure that everybody makes it. Of course the sweep caught up to me pretty quickly and I felt bad that he had to ride at my dawdling pace for a while. 

Fortunately we caught up to some of the other riders who were making a pit stop, so I was able to "speed" on ahead. And I was not last coming into camp!

All in all, it was a pretty good day, although I learned my lesson about dawdling. Slow and steady is fine, but don't forget the steady part.