‘I don’t know if it’s possible to prepare’ — Bok legend Joel Stranksy takes on mammoth 2,500km race

On 18 November 1995, Joel Stransky played flyhalf for South Africa against England in a Test series, scoring three penalties. Fast forward 30 years, and Stransky is taking on his toughest challenge yet.

“I’m a little stressed about this flippen ride,” Stransky told Daily Maverick.

The Springbok legend is embarking on a tough endurance race – The Hope Ride from Sea to See – in which the former World Cup-winning hero will attempt a 2,500km, 14-day journey from Durban to Swakopmund to raise funds for eyesight screenings and glasses for South Africa’s most vulnerable children.

‘Start riding’

Stransky retired from rugby in 1999 from a persistent knee injury, and the doctors told him that he “would never play again”. “The damage was at a point where [they] said, ‘You need to get a bicycle and start riding’,” Stransky said.

Years later, Elana Meyer, a former South African Olympic long-distance runner, asked Stransky if he would ride the Absa Cape Epic for charity. “I didn’t even know at that point what the Cape Epic was,” he said. Stransky agreed, marking the start of his cycling journey. Stransky rode the Cape Epic for the first time in 2010 and has since done 14 Epics, raising a substantial amount of money for his charity each time.

“Why I love mountain biking so much is, firstly, you ride with a partner, you ride in a tribe or community. It’s comparable to rugby. You know, in rugby you have a team, you train hard, you go out there and you play, and you get physically battered and bruised. And you share the highs and the lows. And mountain biking is the same,” he said.

Bumps and bruises

During an event such as the Absa Cape Epic, a rider is bound to experience highs and lows. Riders endure the elements for hours.

“There are moments where you feel like you’re going to die; it’s a roller coaster of emotions,” Stransky said.

For Stransky, it is mental fortitude that gets you over the line and when you do cross the finish line there is a “feeling of satisfaction that you’ve achieved something special”.

Stransky crashed during the prologue event of the 2017 Epic in Meerendal, and sustained several injuries: a punctured lung, two broken ribs and a damaged right hand.

The injuries sustained during races are a metaphor for life.

“We live in a country where every day we have our bumps and bruises and our knocks and our adversities that we face. But we get up, and we are resilient and we are tough and we keep going forward,” Stransky said.

‘Desert Dash’

Stransky set up his charity, the LumoHawk Foundation, in 2012, with an acute focus on the educational needs of previously disadvantaged children.

“That came quite simply from Madiba. I was blessed to spend a bit of time with him, and he always emphasised to me and whenever he could that education was the cornerstone of the future of our beautiful rainbow nation,” he said.

It was brought to his attention that a lot of disadvantaged children needed prescription glasses.

“They’d learn to read in the dark and quite often their eyes didn’t develop fully,” he said. This would impact the learning capabilities of the children.

The organisation focused all its efforts on sight, buying equipment to set up screening drives to test children’s eyes. To date the organisation has tested about 20,000 children and provided glasses to 12% of those they have tested.

Six months ago, Stransky spoke to a friend about possible ways to raise money for the charity. “I said, ‘Well, why don’t we ride across Africa?’” he said. A few months later the team started in Durban on 22 November, and ended day one of their endurance race in Mooirivier, to complete 170km.

Day one’s route was predominantly uphill. The team will also look to maintain an average speed of 20km/h during the first three days of climbing. The strategy is to average about 200km a day for 11 days, with a total race day of six hours.

The endurance charity race will pass through towns including Harrismith, Ficksburg, Kimberley and Upington. The final stage, the “Desert Dash”, is a gruelling 400km route between Windhoek and Swakopmund. It will take place between 5 and 6 December. “I don’t know if it’s possible to prepare,” said Stransky. “Nothing prepares you for that, to start at two in the afternoon and ride through the night and most of the next day and finish it sort of lunchtime after lunch.”

Stransky says that it is about mentally managing your efforts. “It’s about understanding that you’re going to suffer and you’re going to hurt, but you’re going to get through it.” What motivates Stransky is “the little children who struggle to see”.

“It makes it a whole lot easier to deal with the adversity.”

One of the reasons Stransky and his team planned to embark on this endurance race was to raise more money and set up a second testing team in the country. The organisation has spent the past nine months testing the eyesight of children in Alexandra, Johannesburg. It has set up screening drives at 13 primary schools and six high schools in the area. “Another team would give us a bit more reach in the rest of the country, and that’s what we’re hoping to do, to raise enough money now so that we can buy another set of equipment.”

‘Unfinished business’

Stransky and his team have already raised R1-million and aim to double that at the end of the race to support the children for the next two years.

“That’s what makes me a little nervous,” he said. “What makes me nervous is that we need to be the best we can possibly be in terms of raising money, raising awareness and doing a great job in what we do,” Stransky said.

Riding alongside Stransky and his LumoHawk foundation team will be Arrie Rautenbach, the former CEO of Absa. Rautenbach and Stransky attempted the “Desert Dash” together four years before, but Rautenbach crashed and failed to finish. “I phoned him to say, ‘This is what we’re doing, we’ve got some unfinished business’,” said Stransky. Rautenbach, who is suffering from early onset Parkinson’s disease, agreed to help raise money for the charity while also raising awareness of Parkinson’s.

Stick to rugby

Stransky says he would have loved to have started cycling earlier in his life but would have never been a pro cyclist instead of a professional rugby player.

“If I look at how some of those pro riders suffer at the Tour de France or at the front of the Absa Cape Epic, there’s a part of me that thinks it’s much better to have to tackle Jonah Lomu or Eben Etzebeth than try and stay strong on the bike for all those hours,” he said.

“I think I’d stick to rugby, to be quite frank.”

Stransky has already secured another former Springbok, Breyton Paulse, to join him in the race next year.

“I know Barney [John Smit] would love to have ridden with us, but I mean it’s his work schedule plus the fact that as a big guy as a forward, probably the pace and the climbing would be quite tough for some of the bigger guys.

“But certainly, next year, there will be a few who I will force to ride with us.” DM