Their inaugural races started more than eight decades apart, but the Attakwas Extreme Mountain Bike Challenge and the Comrades Marathon have a lot in common. Here’s what’s similar and why you should get your entry in for the 2025 edition.
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The Comrades Marathon is the world’s largest and oldest Ultra-marathon running race. First run in 1921, it has become an annual highlight on the South African marathon running calendar. In 2007, 86 years later, the Momentum Medical Scheme Attakwas Extreme MTB Challenge, presented by Biogen was first held. In mountain biking, in almost two decades, it’s achieved a level of prestige not unlike the Comrades Marathon.
To complete both events and earn a finisher’s medal is considered a courageous and life-improving highlight for most. Some of the greatest ultra-marathoners in the world have contested and won the Comrade Marathon. Likewise, some of the greatest mountain bike racers in the world have contested and won the Attakwas Extreme. Here are some more similarities between the two iconic South African endurance sports events.
POINT-TO-POINT ROUTE
South Africans love a point-to-point endurance race. It could be an inherited desire from our Great Trek ancestors to seek new frontiers; or it could be the simple satisfaction of using our bodies to travel from one place to another over a distance that most people will only drive. Whatever it is, it’s popular, even if it means solving some challenging logistics before and/or after the race. The Comrades Marathon alternates its race direction between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Attakwas Extreme is more a wilderness experience, starting at Chandelier Game Reserve, near Oudtshoorn and finishing at Groot Brak, near Mossel Bay and covering an unforgiving yet unforgettable route!
AN ICONIC, CHALLENGING ROUTE
The Comrades Marathon route is almost unchanged from its first edition. As a result, every section of the route has both a name and a reputation. Only slight adjustments have been applied to the Attakwas Extreme since its inception and it too has a route that’s formidable in its entirety and character-filled through each segment. The race starts in the Karoo and heads into the Attakwaskloof Reserve where it descends the Attakwas Kloof Pass, a more than 300-year-old road through a Cape Nature Reserve that’s a National Monument. From there, rolling hills through forests take you to the finish on the coast – most often into a post-noon headwind!
NOT YOUR AVERAGE FINISHER MEDALS
Finishing the Comrades Marathon and Attakwas Extreme is a momentous achievement. Yes, finishing Attakwas Extreme is easier than finishing the Comrades Marathon, but it’s certainly not easy. Because of this, significant emphasis is placed on finishing times by both events with different medals to match. At Attakwas Extreme, the top 10 men and the top 5 women receive gold medals. Thereafter, anyone that finishes in less than six hours is awarded a silver medal, with the 6-11-hour finishers all being rewarded with a bronze medal. These medals are treasured more than most finisher medals in mountain biking because they represent a reward for immense personal achievement.
SMART PACING IS ESSENTIAL
You can’t start the Comrades Marathon too fast or you will pay for it later and end up struggling to finish. It’s the same with the Attakwas Extreme. You must set a clear pacing strategy to be able to firstly, reach the finish and secondly, finish to your personal potential. This isn’t something that can be taught, but learned and, just as many a Comrades Marathon runner takes a few editions to find his/her best pacing strategy, so the same applies to Attakwas Extreme. Experience counts and its one of the reasons so many mountain bikers return to the race year after year.
YOU HAVE TO PREPARE FOR IT
Unlike the Comrades Marathon, which takes place in winter’s cooler weather, Attakwas Extreme is held in mid-summer and extreme heat can be a weighty external factor to manage on race day. It’s something you need to be trained for, which comes from preparation. You can’t just arrive at the Comrades Marathon without having done months of preparation. It’s the same for Attakwas Extreme. Besides steadily building endurance with long rides in the months before, you need to become heat adapted to deal with the possibility of an excessively hot race day.
IT’S AS MENTAL AS IT IS PHYSICAL
When you are faced with a supreme physical challenge and are well prepared, the actual challenge itself usually requires a mental intervention to help you push through the moments when you feel you have physically had enough. Ambitious, motivated humans know this and develop a mental toughness that needs to be tapped into when the physical barriers are reached. Just as there are countless stories of mental influence in getting Comrades Marathon runners to the finish line, so too are there many tales of mountain bikers using their mental desire to push through moments of physical surrender to reach the finish line of the Attakwas Extreme.
Michiel Herholdt, an avid endurance enthusiast, but a more experienced runner than mountain biker, tackled both the Attakwas Extreme and the Comrades Marathon in 2024. Here’s a look at his Strava account which reflects his moving time for each iconic race. His average heart rate not much different for each and confirmation that the Attakwas Extreme is indeed a formidable challenge that’s continuing to build a legacy as a must-do event for all committed South African mountain bikers – and all endurance race junkies…
Of interest is that Herholdt at age 20, was the youngest finisher of the 2024 Comrades Marathon. The minimum age permitted for Attakwas Extreme is 18 as long as the rider turns 19 that year. For the Comrades Marathon (or any marathon) the minimum age is 20.
The 19th edition of the Momentum Medical Scheme Attakwas Extreme, presented by Biogen, takes place on Saturday 18 January 2025. To find out more and get your entry in, click here.
