“Your mind is way stronger than your body.” – Ian Gilley reflects on learnings from The Munga

Earlier this month we caught up with Ian Gilley from Jozi who recently completed The Munga, to ask about his preparation, bike setup and lessons learned from this insanely long race.


Where are you from and where do you live?
Ian: Johannesburg South Africa, living in Fourways.
What do you do for a living?
Ian: Project Management, Residential Home Renovations
When and how did you get into riding?
Ian: Been riding from when I was doing athletics in high school.
Across any sporting disciplines, which athlete inspires you the most, and why?
Ian: Michael Schumacher, Valentino Rossi, Lance Armstrong and Tadej Pogačar. They were fiercely determined to be the greatest of their time and they managed to be the role models for their respective teams. The team members would bury themselves to ensure the success of their leader.

Tell us the history of your bike riding and racing experience?
Ian: From 2000, when I started to get back into road riding, I did races like the 94.7 (with a best time of 2:19), the Cape Town Cycle Tour, CANSA Lost City and The Fast One. My Dad also got involved with cycling and we would ride weekends together. He also competed and was highly successful in his own right. In 2006 I did my first mountain bike race, using a friends bike, down at the Oyster Festival. Then, in 2008, I completed my first Cape Epic. I’ve done many stage races, all with my Dad as our Team Manager and I am eternally grateful for his support and dedication. I’ve done five Joberg2C’s.
In 2012 I was asked to fill in and help Carlyle with his Cape Epic and I broke both wrists six weeks before the start. I had surgery (with pins in each wrist) and still got my partner through his first Epic. In 2014, I was asked to help another entrant complete their first Cape Epic and Alex and I made it through. This was followed by the Rainbow Challenge, SA Marathon Champs and the Masters World Champs – all with some more broken bones and fractures.
In 2015, I took a break from racing and helped a great friend Jan Withaar with his racing in the UCI XCO World Cup Series. We were in Meribel France, Nova Mesta Poland and Albstadt Germany and I was on the ‘other side of the fence’ supporting him. Doing all the background work like shopping, cooking, attending the managers meetings, caring for the rider during daily schedules, assisting in the rider tech zone during the races, I quickly gained a lot of respect for the professional athletes and their support teams.
My Dad and I continued to ride socially for a few years to keep active and fit. Then, after Covid, my health deteriorated, and I saw a cardiologist who diagnosed that I had very high cholesterol. After a long medication regime, my health normalized and I got more involved with riding again. Initially on the mountain bike but then again on the road. As my fitness returned I decided to start doing a proper training program for the Ride Joberg event. The training program brought structure to my riding and eating and I started to see improvements. After Ride Joberg, I was drawn into the Old Mutual Double Century.
How did you land up on the start line of the Munga?
Ian: On the 8th of October, kind of out of the blue, the crew at Trek asked if I wanted to ride it. Assuming they meant the 2025 edition, I asked when the event was. Vicky replied “It’s this year, in five weeks time! It starts on the 27th of November.” Needless to say I needed time to think about this. The original idea was to finish the year, with Ride Joberg – a simple 100km race. Adding the 200km DC a week later was already a stretch. The thought of a 1128km race, starting just four days after DC was crazy. But of course I said yes.
The Munga was going to be a ride of battling demons, slaying dragons, sorting unanswered questions, dealing with personal issues and generally going into a very dark place. My first Epic had a similar dark experience which benefited me later in life. So I was in!
Crazy! So, how was your race? Did you have any specific time strategies or did you just roll with how you felt?
Ian: I finished! My goal was to complete The Munga and have as much fun as possible. I wanted to be able to ride each day feeling good and relatively strong — and get decent rest on each day. The plan was good on paper, but it changes depending on the weather and how you are feeling.
At the evening stop on the first day after finishing the 110km stage between water points I felt off. So I ate, drank a coffee, put on my arm warmers and my under shirt, and then started shaking as though I was freezing. I decided to take a lie down on a foam mattress in the farmers shed and chucked a light blanket over my legs. I ended up only sleeping for an hour but I woke up feeling great! The shaking had stopped. So I got on the bike and rode the next 50km section as a time trial, feeling like a million bucks — and thinking to myself that short rest likely prevented me from getting really sick. With hindsight, that was my best decision I ever made in cycling.
From having done many multi stage, multi day races the single most important thing is to stay healthy for the whole event! Keeping clean and having good hygiene is crucial. You have to do everything to avoid getting a stomach bug or flu. I guess you could say my strategy was to stay healthy.

For you, what was the most challenging part of The Munga?
Ian: The relentless wind! Also the endless corrugations on the roads with loose sand. Another challenge was looking after my backside which had blisters, since day two.
Talk to your choice of equipment, what bike did you ride, what special adjustments did you make to the bike for this race and what part of your equipment (if any) would you change, if doing it all again?
Ian: I am a dedicated Trek fan. I had a Supercaliber which was the basis of the build. Fortunately, Hannes Pretorius from Trek had done The Munga last year (very successfully!) and he had a lot of advice on equipment and bike setup. Together with Trek at the Design Quarter, that’s Hannes, Ehren and Hosiah, I set about building the ‘MungaCal’ which effectively was a drop bar Supercaliber. On top of this they fitted TT arm pads and bar extensions. They set the MungaCal up to match the fit of my road bike. I only had time for two road rides of around 40km each to get comfortable on the bike.
Hannes is a legend. I borrowed his light which was incredible! Going down Ouberg, around midnight, it’s so powerful and punches out a bright white light some 100m into the distance which was even brighter than full daylight. Lastly, we added a handlebar bag, top tube bag as well as a saddle bag to be able to carry the items required for the race.

Talk to your nutrition strategy; what did you eat when on the bike and when off the bike and did your plan work?
Ian: I have always been with USN, like since 2008. I’m one of their ambassadors. I use the USN Epic Pro as well as the Vooma bars. Generally, I carried a bottle with USN Epic Pro, a bottle with water and my hydration pack was filled with NAMED Hydration – supplied by the event. I’d eat three bars a day, solid foods at the water points – so that’s boiled eggs, dry wors, vetkoek, mince or whatever they had. It really didn’t matter exactly what was eaten — we just needed to get food in as we were burning and using vast quantities of energy in the wind and heat.
So, maybe just recap for us how much riding had you done, in the months leading into The Munga?
Ian: Generally I ride five days a week. Last year I rode 13500km and climbed over 100 000m. So I did have significant mileage in the system.
What would you re-look or change if you are going to do another monstrous bike race, like The Munga?
Ian: Well, the legs had no issues and I had enough base miles for this event. My butt was able to ride eight hours on a road bike, with no issues. But I had only ridden about 20 hours on my mountain bike this year and my butt was not used to the bumps of the dirt and corrugations.
The TT bar position was awesome on The Munga and I loved riding like that for the first two days. I was comfortable and could turn in a good pace. A problem was two days into the event my upper body, shoulders and neck were stiff and sore. For the next two days I rode on the hoods and in the drops – which isn’t ideal for aerodynamics. Next time, I’d do exercises to strengthen my neck.
I also probably carried too many things on the bike. I actually had some items I never needed. The biggest thing is to stay healthy during the event and to have huge mental toughness and belief in yourself and the end goal. Your mind is way stronger than your body and your body is a slave to what the mind tells it to do. This event will change the rest of your life and what you will be able to achieve – both on and off the bike.


It’s a massive bike ride and there’s a lot of time to think when you are out there. Can I ask both what your motivation was to ride it and also did you learn anything new – about yourself – from the experience.
Ian: Yes, you have a lot of time to think, to talk to loved ones that are no longer with us, to review your life and decisions made (both good and bad), maybe you are dealing with some personal issues in your life that you can work through or you can complain, moan and be negative and hate what you are doing.
At some point you come to realize that it doesn’t help to fight with the Man above about the wind, the badly corrugated roads and sand. Also, the roads were not built by the organizer’s; they are the main routes from point to point and once you come to terms with these things and accept them, you get to be more positive and the miles start to roll past faster.
I used headphones so I could listen to music and I had 400 odd songs downloaded which was about 1200min or 20 hours. In the end, I listened to the entire playlist multiple times to complete the event. Music does help, a lot!
I wanted to accept the challenge and prove to myself and others that I could do it. I had several people that said I was mad and wouldn’t be able to do it with such little preparation as they knew people that had trained specifically for months for The Munga. However, those that do know the real me, believed in me and knew that I would get this done – Hence my “I GOT THIS” slogan.
I would like to thank John and Paola who played a key role in getting me back into cycling, my DC crew, Trek SA, my friends and supporters. Also a special thanks to QB and Q2B who encouraged, followed and supported me. I’m eternally grateful. Also, there’s no ways I could have finished without good supplementation, from USN.


Might be too soon but would you look at doing it again?
Ian: Yea. Now that my butt is healing, I am thinking about how I would improve and do things differently, to be more competitive. I analyzed my ride time (61 hours) vs rest / stationery time and I could definitely be more efficient when stopped.
What advice do you have for other riders interested in doing the Munga?
Ian: It is a Journey. It is tough. Be mentally strong and well prepared. You must have the miles in the legs and time in the saddle. Having the right bike and advice from someone who has done it before is invaluable. You also need to do a lot of riding at strange hours and alone. I probably rode more than 800km alone, which, if you are not used to can really mess with your mind. But remember; the impossible can also be read as I’m-possible.

