Mental block
Why would you mountain bike up the punishing Blockhouse trail on Devil’s Peak 31 days in a row? Because it’s there, writes
You need to know two things about Jean du Plessis. The first is that his Blocktober mantra is: This hill rides itself. The second is that when it comes to his Blocktober mantra Jean du Plessis is a liar. The hill doesn’t ride itself. I should know. Yesterday l cycled up it for the 31st time in a row. Blocktober, a daily ride to the Blockhouse on the slopes of Devil’s Peak during October, started as a pun and became a personal statement against gender-based violence.
Blocktober is not the first campaign to hijack a month of the year. From today, men will wear their hearts on their lips and sprout snot mops as they join Movember to support men’s health. How does looking like a refugee from apartheid’s Special Branch help the fight against testicular and prostate cancer? As far as I can tell, the only thing Mowearers will have gained at the end of Movember is a head start on Decembeard.
But back to Blocktober. When I moved to Cape Town in 2008 I decided to explore the city’s mountain-biking stomping ground and went in search of the Blockhouse, a defensive position the British built in the 1800s. I didn’t get far. Soon after I set out I heard gunshots. I panicked and fled back down the mountain, almost crashing into a hiker. I warned her of the crazed gunman on the loose. She laughed and explained that I’d wandered near the shooting range where pistol club members blast clay pigeons.
I turned around and, trying very hard not to look like a clay pigeon, climbed the gravelly, rocky track that twists its way up for 10km with about 500m of elevation. With each twist you are treated to a different slice of Cape Town — the leafy-green suburbs, the city’s twinkling lights, boats in the harbour, Lion’s Head, Robben Island and a white elephant — well, what would you call the Cape Town Stadium?
At the summit I discovered the
Blockhouse and a panoramic view that will do to you what the climb to the top just did: take your breath away.
It was soon after my first ride to the Blockhouse that I heard about Movember, which is when I came up with Blocktober.
For 10 years whenever Veganuary or any other awareness month with a catchy name rolled by I’d haul out Blocktober and tell anybody who’d listen that this would be the year I tamed the Blockhouse. I never did. Something always got in the way; that something was getting out of bed to actually ride to the Blockhouse.
During Ape-ril (orang-utan awareness month) I told my friend Jean about Blocktober. I didn’t give it another thought until a ping on my cellphone in
STEPtember (“step-up to support people with cerebral palsy”) informed me that I was co-admin of the Blocktober WhatsApp group, complete with a dozen recruits eager to tag along on some of our rides. Blocktober was a go.
Our maiden Blocktober was rocked by 198km gusts that nearly blew us off the mountain. Three kilometres after we set off my bike broke. Using a rock we tried unsuccessfully to hammer the bit that had broken off the frame into place. I rode the rest of the way using only one leg. Somehow I got to the top.
Each morning a hodgepodge of riders, including a French poodle named Betty, made the pilgrimage up the mountain.
Many of those who cycled with us or who we met on our rides were in dark places, battling problems like livelihoods disappearing in a puff of Covid-19 and crumbling marriages. The rides gave people an opportunity to purge their pandemic pain: it was two-wheel therapy, one part exercising, two parts exorcising.
Blocktober also became an opportunity for us to think about the deep-rooted problems in our society, such as genderbased violence, and discuss what we can do to help end it. While we rode we talked about how GBV is so pervasive and agreed that its solution is our collective responsibility. We committed ourselves to support local initiatives against GBV and take a stand against it.
We rode through raging headwinds, cappuccino-thick mist, blazing sunshine and pelting rain — usually on the same trip. My chain snapped on day 13, a spoke broke two days later, and my chain snapped again a day after that. My Blocktober was turning into Broketober, but we kept going.
On day 18 we reached the equivalent height of the peak of Everest (8,848m), the top of Mauna Kea (10,210m) on day 21, and summited Chimborazo (at 10,920m it’s the furthest point from the Earth’s centre) on day 22.
Fatigue set in on day 24 and I imagined a man standing in the middle of the track, staring up at Table Mountain and knitting.
“I must bail from Blocktober,” I told Jean moments later. “I’ve started to hallucinate.”
“Me too,” he replied, telling me he had just hallucinated a man standing in the middle of the track, staring up at Table Mountain and knitting.
We named the spot Needles Corner in the knitter’s honour.
Jean has just told me he’s found our next target: the highest mountain in the solar system, the 22,1287m Olympus Mons on Mars, which will keep Blocktober going until mid-November.
My legs are cramping, which is their way of saying to me: What part of NOvember don’t you understand?