For 21 years, cyclists have embarked upon the 401-kilometre trek across the world’s oldest desert. Starting in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia, and finishing in Swakopmund, the route crosses the Namib Desert, making the Nedbank Desert Dash a truly unique and iconic event. In 2025, the race will take place on the 5th and 6th of December, and the participants have 24 hours to complete the ultramarathon course. The favourites for this year’s race include local heroes – Drikus Coetzee, Marc Bassingswaithe, and Martin Freyer – and a powerful field of international challengers – including Andreas Seewald, Dan Loubser, Kevin Benkeinstein, and Dusty Day. In the women’s race, 2022 champion, Yolande de Villiers, returns to take on Namibia’s double defending champion, Belinda van Rhyn, and her countrywoman, Anri Greeff, as well as Nina Holtrup of Germany.
Starting at The Grove Mall of Namibia, on the southern edge of Windhoek, the route then heads west towards the Atlantic Ocean and Swakopmund, where the Platz Am Meer Waterfront awaits to welcome riders across the finish line. Though the course tends downhill from 1 650 metres to sea level, it still takes in an energy-sapping 3 200 metres of accumulated elevation gain. Divided into five segments, it crosses from the bush and shrubland that surrounds the capital city into grassland and then on to rocky moonscapes and the Namib Desert. The changes in the landscape are best appreciated from the bike, as they shift gradually, then dramatically, displaying a diversity to the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, which needs to be experienced to be appreciated.
De Villiers, who hails from Oudtshoorn in the arid Klein Karoo region of South Africa, has finished one of the three editions of the Nedbank Desert Dash she has started. “It’s so long, and so many things can go wrong that it’s impossible to approach the race with too much confidence,” the 2022 winner advised. “The combination of extreme distance, the harsh Namib desert conditions like the swings from blistering heat to extreme cold, and the combination of crosswinds to headwinds all play their part in making it an exceptionally challenging event.”
Like many riders taking on ultra-distance events, De Villiers has toyed with racing a mountain or gravel bike at the 2025 Nedbank Desert Dash. In 2024, Konny Looser won his eighth title on a full suspension mountain bike, modified with drop handlebars to provide a more aerodynamic position. De Villiers, however, will be racing a conventional mountain bike, favouring comfort over aerodynamics as the best way to ensure efficiency over the roughly 18-hour effort historically required to win the women’s race.
“I believe Belinda [van Rhyn], Anri [Greeff], and Nina [Holtrup] will be the women to watch,” De Villiers predicted. Van Rhyn won the Nedbank Desert Dash in 2023 and 2024, and Holtrup was runner-up in 2023. Greeff has enjoyed a stellar 2025 thus far, finishing third in the African Continental Championships in the Mountain Bike Marathon discipline. The women’s race is likely to be fiercely contested, especially over the first half of the course before the route begins to take its toll.
“Normally, the first 30 kilometres, up to waterpoint one, split the good from the rest. It is on Kupferberg that the strongest 4-6 riders find each other and continue together at least for another 30 kilometres,” Leander Borg, of the Nedbank Desert Dash, explained. “Flat roads and strong headwinds tend to keep the top riders together and working to distance themselves from the pack.”
“From the second waterpoint, at the 69-kilometre mark, riders ascend the Us Pass, which is essentially a long drag, and then it’s pretty much downhill and undulating over the 12 Apostles, which are a series of little nasty climbs to the first checkpoint at 100 kilometres. If there is a split between the contenders by then, it is normally insignificant. Then they start stage two, which is full of proper climbs, and often headwind for at least the first 30 kilometres,” Borg predicted. “
“At the CRVW Chartered Accountants and Auditors waterpoint, 130 kilometres in, the first dice is often being rolled. Some favourites will ride together from there; others will be dropped and slip from contention for victory. From there onwards, alliances form. If somebody has managed to establish a solo lead, as I assume Drikus [Coetzee] or Andreas [Seewald] may try to do, then the guys behind would have to work together to have any chance of reeling them back in.”
“From the halfway point, near where the route turns off the D1982, the race tends to unfold in a leader and pursuers format,” Borg noted. “Often enough, we have had actual sprint finishes, but never of a group of more than two riders. Which is remarkable after 401 kilometres of racing!”
As Borg had alluded, Coetzee, the 2022 champion, and Seewald, the 2021 Marathon World Champion and reigning European Marathon Champion, are the favourites ahead of the 2025 race. They will face stiff competition from Coetzee’s fellow Namibians, Bassingswaithe and Freyer, as well as the South African who now resides in Namibia, Christiaan Janse van Rensburg. Loubser, who shattered Coetzee’s 36ONE MTB Challenge record in May, headlines the South African assault on the Nedbank Desert Dash. The rider from Cape Town will be joined on the start line by highly experienced ultra-distance racer Kevin Benkeinstein and Dusty Day, who returns after finishing second in 2023. Jaco van Dyk and Kai Pritzen are also among the riders to watch and could challenge for the podium places.
For the full entry list for the 2025 Nedbank Desert Dash, click here. Conditions on race day are expected to be favourable for fast times with a high of 26 degrees, drizzle, and a light breeze from the north predicted for Windhoek on Friday, 5 December. The breeze is expected to drop during the night, and the temperatures should remain mild overnight once the sun dips below the horizon at 19:30. In the early hours of the morning, a westerly breeze will rise again, blowing cool air into the riders’ faces as they approach Swakopmund. A high of 24 is predicted for the final hours of the race on the afternoon of Saturday, 6 December.
To follow the action as it unfolds, tune in on Instagram, @nedbankdesertdash, and like the Nedbank Desert Dash Facebook page. For more information, including details of the route, visit www.desertdashnamibia.com.
