The Rhino Run is an arduous 2712-kilometre self-supported bike race, from Plett to Windhoek via Stellenbosch. Read on to find out what it took for Kevin Benkenstein to set a new course record.
There are challenges you tackle to complete. To say you’ve done them… Tick them off the proverbial ‘list.’ Then there are other challenges. Things that hold deeper meaning, even if that meaning is difficult to explain to someone else. If your ultra endurance palmares reads as deeply as Kevin ‘Benky’ Benkenstein’s does, then that other challenge looks slightly different. While from the outside it might seem like he is from some other universe when it comes to tackling these things, Benky, in his brutal inward-facing honesty, always goes a long way to remind us how tough these challenges are and what ‘success’ looks like. These are his words:
What motivated you to go back? Surely once is enough for most mere mortals?
I guess, in short, I really wanted to have a different experience, a new experience, and of course to push my body.
The longer story behind the ‘why’ is a bit more complex: For those who might not know, I took part in 2022 and came second in 2022 by less than 20 minutes. So, in truth I didn’t think I’d want to do it again – I thought that that was it. I didn’t think I’d have anything more to give the race or the route and sort of felt like I could only really fail. Like there was nothing to achieve on it because like, if I didn’t win or break the record or whatever, then it wasn’t going to be seen as a ‘success.’
So initially my plan was just to do the section to Stellenbosch. But while I was training for that it dawned on me that I really love the challenges that the course gives, the distance, the terrain… So that was a big motivation. But of course, the rest took over – I thought, let’s see if I can go faster. I also realised that I would kind of be the only ‘racer’ there (unlike 2022) and I figured that I could almost curate the race in a certain way, mostly by just, you know, sleeping a bit more. In these races, you sometimes sleep only an hour or two a night. So I committed to sleeping well each night (three to four hours) and not rushing my resupplies, and just taking a moment to talk to people, especially at the sort of owner-managed places. That was the other side of the ‘different experience.’
Beyond that though, there must be something deep down that drives you to push your limits in events like this.
I love it. I mean, I’m a racer at the end of the day: I love to see how fast I can go. I love seeing how far I can go. I love pushing my body to the limit. It’s something that I, for better or worse, thrive under. But further than that honestly, I don’t know. I think that it’s just something that’s always, like, almost since I started riding when I was 14 or 15 that I’ve always just really enjoyed. Maybe it’s the challenge of finding limits.
For context: When I was a youngster I was more of a road rider. I loved time trials because those were just ‘you’ against everyone else. So I think it’s just something innate in me. I’m a little bit of a type of extremist — I’ve always really thrived off of just pushing the boundaries a little bit and, and seeing what’s sort of what’s possible and what I’m capable of.
You’ve done some pretty crazy things over the years, what makes the Rhino Run special compared to other events and challenges that you’ve undertaken?
I think the main thing that separates Rhino Run from other events or stage races or challenges is that it’s self-supported, you know. So as the rules go, you can use only commercially available options that are available to all riders.
So you can use hotels, guest houses and any shops, but you can’t have family, friends or anything private (by way of support) along the way. So from that perspective, it requires a lot of planning, logistics, and I guess experience. Just ‘knowing’ when shops are going to be open, what shops exist in a town, you know, you can’t just leave with no idea of what’s ahead of you.
Fortunately, I enjoy the planning part of things like this. And then on the go, it’s always a joke that it’s like a running spreadsheet in your head of where you are, where you’re going, when you’re going to get there… What’s lying three towns ahead? And, and what the ramifications are, if you don’t get there on schedule. You have to be really on it to make sure that you don’t miss a resupply or get stuck somewhere for 12 hours waiting for a shop to open.
Tell us more about the rig and gear you used.
So, I rode a Curve Big Kev, which is most definitely not named after me! In old terms, it would have been called a Monster Cross, but it’s known as a Gravel Plus these days. So, it’s a drop bar gravel bike that fits up to a 2.35 tyre. I rode it with 2.2s. I rode it with a yeah, that was, 1×12 electronic groupset, which was the right thing for the course. The 2.2s were great as the route took in a lot of pavement, a lot of tar and also some really, really destroyed gravel roads.
When it comes to other gear, the trick is to find the right mix of sacrifices. I had a frame bag, a rear bag, two feed bags and a top tube bag. Um, I don’t think those specifically impacted my race strategy, but obviously what you carry impacts things. So I didn’t carry a sleep system other than a bivvy bag, which is an emergency blanket bag of sorts.
So my plan was not to sleep out very much. In the end, I only slept out on two nights. The thinking was that finding accommodation would mean far better recovery – I always think that sleeping in a bed for three hours is going to do you a hell of a lot better than any sort of outside sleeping, even eight hours outside.
And the Curve Big Kev was kind of the foundation and it was comfortable, it’s titanium so super smooth, and really absorbs all the road noise. I had no suspension but I don’t consider that necessary for this route, there are probably a couple of sections where suspension would be nice but over the whole route not necessary. It’s just a really good rig for these long-distance, races and I hope that I’ll get to race it soon, perhaps overseas against some big international competition at some stage.
Surely it didn’t all go smoothly though?
I think the biggest challenge was water management because at times you’re going – what’s the longest I went? 200kms without any option for resupply – So in terms of water at times you’ve got, so I had three litres on my bike and I would carry up to seven litres on my back. Plus a couple of cokes. So, carrying a backpack with 7 litres of water in it is incredibly uncomfortable on my back but only on the last day actually did my back get quite sore from that.
Leading on from that, this year specifically was just insanely, insanely hot. The last two days both reached over 50 degrees for extended periods. And that was a big challenge to deal with that. I don’t quite know how to deal with that yet, I still haven’t worked it out. You just have to ride as slowly as you can ride, because at 50 degrees, any effort, like any meaningful effort, just ends you, so sort of rode it at low effort levels.
Then, to be fair, the other challenge was just being alone for nearly eight days. That was tough and I really struggled with that. It was very lonely at times and your mind starts playing tricks on you and telling you that you were with other people…
I could only deal with that by listening to podcasts because at least for the podcast I could hear people talking and that felt a little bit more human. I don’t highly recommend that for a week. I’d rather race around people.
The mental prep then must’ve been as important as the physical?
I’ve been doing ultras for seven-odd years now. So it’s a little bit, I guess, less stressful for me. To be honest, I don’t want to pretend that I prepared mentally for it. I think it’s just something that’s in me and that I look forward to. However focus and motivation during the race was hard, so I had to be very goal-oriented. So I would break it into sections, be that town to town, or kilometre to kilometre.
Talk to us then a bit about race strategy?
Like I said earlier, the motivation was to go faster than I did last year. I had a massive advantage of knowing what I did last year. It’s not like I had that written down but I have this memory of bike rides so I know, knew exactly how long it took me on each section land I would just try to ride a little bit faster than that.
So I was very aware of, says, if I’m doing this section, I need to do 22kms an hour. If I’m doing that section, I need to average 24 etc etc. Also, motivation-wise, you know, the quicker you ride, the quicker you get to stop suffering and the quicker you get to have a proper shower and a good bed and good food and all of that.
I think that you can probably go into something like this ‘too rested’ and then you have no legs and you don’t get fitter through the race, you just get slower. So, tried to race fairly hard in the first sort of quarter of the race. And then just settled into a rhythm that I could keep.
Your training was obviously very specific?
I trained with an actual focus on this race for about six weeks. I’m in the form of my life, to be honest, so am very lucky in that respect. I’ve got a great coach in John Wakefield and he did a lot of work with me. We’ve been working together for 18 months or something now and he’s been really good.
How did you balance the need for rest with the pressure to cover long distances each day?
I planned to ride fast and sleep a lot. And that’s what I stuck with. Other than one night when I didn’t sleep, I slept every night – a minimum of three hours and a maximum of five hours. I alluded to it earlier but I believe that’s a better strategy for me. Some guys can go without sleep, but it seems to affect me pretty badly. I wasn’t worried about whether I could cover the distance. I was worried about whether I would destroy myself so badly. So I was very cognizant of always getting good sleep and looking after my body and just making sure that I gave myself, um, what I needed to ride fast and then sort of gambled on the fact that fast would be fast enough, um, and it turned out that it was, so yeah, a good strategy for me.
What is next for Kevin Benkenstein?
Um, that’s a tough one. Honestly, I don’t know. And it’s dependent on quite a few things. Not to be a downer, but obviously, this is not a cheap or easy exercise. We’ve been very lucky this year to be, to be supported by some nice brands from Alpal packaging, with some financial support as well as Garmin and CIOVITA also with some financial and product support. And then for this race specifically Hodari Africa.
But I think the brutal reality of it is if I’m going to keep doing this, and especially on an international scale, it would need a bigger industry or corporate sponsor, so that’s, that’s what I’m working on now. I hope that I can connect with one of those brands and I think there’s scope in that respect and move it forward from there.
So I hope that I will get to race on an international level against the best ultra-endurance riders in the world. That’s my goal and what I believe I’m capable of, but I need to do some work and earn myself some sponsorship before I can say that that’s a reality.
