MTN SA marathon mtb Champs: Sabie

Sabie is the land of endless up hills! I don't recall riding more than 500m on a flat stretch during the 110km race. It is mountain biking after all and the route was all that with just over 2600m of climbing.

Hard consistent rain throughout the evening before left the course very muddy. I was not too concerned about this as my tyres that I managed to get hold of just before I left Cape Town handled the wet muddy track brilliantly! The race started with a 13km climb that took us from an altitude of 1000m up to 1900m! This resulted in the field getting strung out right from the beginning! I managed a good solid pace up this never ending climb and reached the summit placed relatively well in the top 20 just a few minutes back from the leading duo of Kevin Evans and Burry Stunder. Being SA Champs, the start line was packed with all the big names of mountain biking in South Africa! This is always exciting for me as I can see how I shape up against the others and gage my improvement as I grow in my relatively new found sport of mountain biking.

Unfortunately it wasn't going to be one of those races. As it turned out after only 30km into the race while I was still riding amongst a handful of riders placed in the top 20 of the field I experienced my first flat tyre. This occurred while descending the other side of the mountain after the long first climb. My back tyre must have lost a bit of air and I hit a rock at speed causing the side wall of the tyre to pinch. So after a while of trying to bomb my tyre back up only to realise the whole in the side wall was too big for the Stans to seal it, it was in with a tube and off I went making my way back through the field of riders.

25km later, after catching up and passing plenty of other riders while going down another rocky hill at pace I got that dreaded feeling again! Looking down I saw my back tyre was flat AGAIN! This time it was a pinched tube, one of the reasons tubes no longer have a place in mountain biking as far as I'm concerned. So now I had to first try and locate the whole on the tube and then patch it up! I can't believe I was actually making use of my little patch kit along the way!

After fixing my second flat, it was at a stage in the course where we had joined onto the route of the 40km event. Unfortunately I had to then try weave my way through the masses of fun riders. This was a difficult task in itself on the narrow gravel roads and jeep tracks, let alone the single tracks! There it was impossible to ride as there was a line of riders in front slowly making their way through the muddy single tracks.

Reaching the 70km mark I was way back in the field and highly frustrated! I have to admit that after my second puncture and getting stuck behind the 40km fun riders I thought my race was going to be over at the 70km mark where we pass the start/finish area and I wasn't going to carry on with the last 40km loop to complete the 110km. However, at this point I found my two most loyal supporters there to give me so much needed encouragement. And after a quick touch of lube to my chain and some Coke, I was heading off on the last 40km of the race.

I simply cannot bring myself to pulling out of a race. There is something inside of me that when I start something I have to complete it no matter what the outcome is going to be. In this case I ended up finishing quite far back in the field and had a finishing time that made me have to rush back to my B&B afterwards so that I didn't have to pay a late check out fee!

In the end I was happy to have just finished as it was good training and as always there was experience gained!

And Sabie didn't get the better of me!