Test Your Limits: Munga
Updated: Oct 2
The Munga is not a normal bike race.
It is an annual ultra-distance, single-stage mountain-bike race across the Karoo in the middle of summer. The distance is just over 1,100 km, the time limit is 120 hours, and riders are largely responsible for themselves between the race villages and water points.
It can be brutally hot during the day and very cold at night. The roads are mostly flat to rolling dirt roads, but after many hours on a bicycle, even relatively uncomplicated terrain can become difficult.
I've ridden the Munga several times, including a seventh-place finish in 2016. I've also had attempts that didn't go according to plan.
Those experiences have changed how I think about preparing for a race like this. The Munga isn't simply a test of how fit you are. It tests how well you can manage everything that happens when you spend several days on a bicycle.
What makes the Munga difficult?
The obvious answer is the distance. But 1,100 km is only part of the challenge.
You have to deal with long hours in the saddle, heat, cold nights, wind, fatigue, nutrition, hydration, equipment, sleep and the mental demands of continuing when things aren't going particularly well.
The route itself isn't especially technical. But technical difficulty isn't the only thing that makes a ride hard.
After enough hours, a small problem can become a big one. A saddle that is slightly uncomfortable, a sore foot, a hand that has been under pressure for too long, a light that isn't reliable, or a GPS battery that doesn't last as long as expected can all become significant problems.
Something that would be insignificant on a four-hour ride can become a serious problem over several days.
For me, that is one of the defining characteristics of the Munga: small problems have time to become big problems.
The race in brief
The Munga starts at midday on the last Wednesday of November.
The exact details can change, so check the current race information before planning your attempt, but the typical format is:
Distance: approximately 1,100 km.
Time limit: 120 hours.
Format: single-stage, semi-supported.
Terrain: mostly hard-packed dirt roads, with some tar and rolling terrain.
Support: water points and race villages rather than personal support along the route.
Accommodation: anywhere from sleeping outdoors to using the race villages.
Riding: expect significant amounts of riding in darkness.
There is also an important navigation rule: if you go off route, you must return to the point where you left the route before continuing.
That sounds simple. At three in the morning, after you've been riding for hours and your concentration isn't what it was at the start, it can be a very different proposition.
Start with the demands, not the distance
I wouldn't approach Munga preparation by asking, "How do I train to ride 1,100 km?" That's too big a question.
I'd break the event down into the demands it places on the rider. You need enough fitness to ride for long periods, durability to continue producing useful work as fatigue accumulates, and enough experience riding long enough to understand how your body responds.
You need to be comfortable eating and drinking while riding, know your equipment, have some experience riding at night, and be able to make sensible decisions when you're tired.
Those are the things I'd prepare for.
The aim isn't to reproduce the Munga in training. It's to prepare for the things that make the Munga difficult.
Build your endurance gradually
I'd give yourself plenty of time to prepare.
The Munga doesn't require you to suddenly become capable of riding enormous distances. It requires you to gradually develop the fitness and durability to spend long periods on the bike without creating unnecessary fatigue along the way.
For my own preparation, weekdays included indoor interval training while weekends were used for longer rides. I started with regular five- to six-hour rides and gradually built towards longer days.
Later, I introduced back-to-back long rides. The second day was usually a little shorter but could be faster or harder.
The purpose wasn't simply to accumulate more kilometres. It was to experience what happens when you start a ride carrying fatigue from the previous day.
That's an important part of ultra-distance preparation.
Being able to ride for ten hours when fresh is different from being able to ride well for another ten hours when you're already tired.
Don't neglect the night
If you're preparing for the Munga, I'd include some night riding.
You don't need every long ride to become an overnight epic. A few purposeful sessions can teach you a lot.
Night riding gives you an opportunity to:
become comfortable riding in darkness;
test your lights;
test charging and battery management;
experience riding when you're already tired;
practise eating and drinking when your normal routine has been disrupted;
find out how your equipment behaves when you are fatigued.
It also reduces the psychological novelty of riding through the night. The first time you ride at 2 am can feel very different from the tenth time.
Familiarity matters when you're preparing for something outside your normal experience.
Test the equipment before the race
I would rather use equipment that is reliable and familiar than chase every possible weight saving.
Your GPS, lights, bike, bags, clothing and contact points should all be tested well before race week. Not just for whether they work, but after several hours of riding.
A small irritation that doesn't bother you after two hours may become unbearable after ten.
Anything that can break, get lost or run out of power deserves consideration. Your GPS is particularly important. A long battery life and the ability to charge while riding can make life considerably easier.
Your phone is another essential piece of equipment. It is your connection to the outside world when something goes wrong.
And lights need to be reliable. If you're riding through the night, this isn't an area where I would want to discover a weakness during the race.
Carry what you need, but don't carry everything on your back
The Munga is long enough that you'll need to carry a reasonable amount of food, clothing, spares and equipment between support points.
I wouldn't automatically put all of that on your back. For a ride of this duration, I'd rather distribute the load on the bike using appropriate bikepacking bags and keep the essentials accessible.
Your bag will probably always be full, regardless of its size. That's one of the strange things about long-distance riding: the more space you have, the more things you find to put in it.
So instead of simply buying a bigger bag, I'd first ask what you actually need.
Aero bars are about more than aerodynamics
I wouldn't primarily think of aero bars as a way to go faster. I'd think of them as another position on the bike.
On an extremely long ride, being able to change your hand and upper-body position can help distribute pressure and give your body a break from holding the same position for hour after hour.
That can become valuable when fatigue develops.
The same principle applies to your other contact points. Shoes, saddle, handlebars and grips may seem like minor details early in the ride, but they become much less minor after several hundred kilometres.
Over a long enough distance, comfort becomes part of performance.
Nutrition: keep it familiar
I've always preferred to keep my own nutrition relatively simple.
I would start with a good breakfast and use water and carbohydrate drink in my bottles, with ordinary foods carried in my pockets. Things such as bananas, apples, dates, dried figs, nuts, raisins and peanut-butter-and-jam or cheese sandwiches have all been part of my training.
The important point isn't that these are the "right" foods. They are simply foods that I know and have used successfully.
That's the approach I'd recommend generally.
Use training to find out what works for you. Don't use race day as an experiment.
You want to know what you can eat, what you enjoy eating, what your stomach tolerates and how your nutrition fits into your riding before you start the Munga.
Heat needs preparation
The Munga takes place in the Karoo summer, so heat is not something I'd leave to chance.
I happen to prefer riding in hot weather. My body copes reasonably well with heat, while I find cold much more difficult.
But being comfortable in heat doesn't mean you shouldn't prepare for it. Heat acclimation can help the body adapt to exercising in hot conditions.
I'd rather have some deliberate exposure to the heat before race day than rely on the assumption that I will cope because I generally enjoy riding in it.
The same applies to cold. The Munga can give you both extremes within the same day.
Prepare for the conditions you're likely to experience, not just the fitness you want to develop.
Don't confuse tiredness with a lack of fitness
This is something worth understanding before attempting an ultra-distance event.
You can be fit and still feel terrible. You can also have a bad day without being unfit.
Long-distance riding creates fatigue that isn't always reflected in a single power number or heart-rate value.
That is why I wouldn't try to chase fitness right up to race day. There is a point where more training stops helping and starts taking away from your ability to recover.
The goal is to arrive at the start with enough fitness and enough freshness to use it.
Sleep is part of the preparation
Sleep is probably one of the easiest things to sacrifice during a big training block.
I wouldn't.
I've had experience of starting the Munga carrying sleep debt, and it's something I would approach differently now.
In the final few weeks, I'd put real emphasis on sleep. Use easier days properly, sleep longer when training demands are lower, and don't automatically turn every available hour into another training session.
The biggest improvement in your preparation may not come from another long ride. It may come from recovering properly from the rides you've already done.
You don't need to arrive at the start having proved that you can suffer. You need to arrive ready to ride.
Prepare for the things that can go wrong
When I think about preparing for the Munga, I don't only ask, "What will make me fitter?"
I also ask, "What could cause this to go wrong?"
That changes the preparation.
Navigation, sleep, equipment, contact points, nutrition, heat, fatigue and night riding are all potential failure points.
You don't need to eliminate every possible problem. You can't.
What you can do is identify the problems you're likely to encounter and get some experience dealing with them before race day.
That gives you options when something inevitably doesn't go according to plan.
The Munga isn't a normal race
The Munga is a race, but it is also an adventure. That's part of what makes it so appealing.
There will be riders chasing a fast finish and riders simply trying to reach the end. Both are legitimate reasons to be there.
I've experienced the Munga from both perspectives. My fastest and highest-placed ride wasn't necessarily the attempt I enjoyed most.
That has influenced how I think about preparing for events like this.
Performance matters. But it isn't the only thing that matters.
Before you start building your training plan, it is worth asking yourself what you actually want from the event.
Do you want to race it? Finish it? See what you're capable of? Have an adventure?
The answer can influence how you should prepare.
What I'd focus on
If I were preparing someone for the Munga, I wouldn't start with a huge number of kilometres or a complicated training plan.
I'd start by understanding the rider and the demands of the event.
Then I'd build the fitness gradually, develop durability through appropriate long and back-to-back rides, include some night riding, test the bike and equipment thoroughly, practise nutrition, prepare for the heat, protect recovery and sleep, and try to remove as many avoidable problems as possible before race day.
Because you can't control everything that happens during 1,100 km.
You can control how well you've prepared for it.
And ultimately, that's what good preparation is about.
Not trying to make the race easy. Making yourself better prepared for whatever the race gives you.
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