Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Karoo to Coast
This would be my second year at the Karoo to Coast mountain bike race. After doing the race last year for the first time it is truly a highlight on the mountain biking calendar.
The race takes you 95km from the Karoo town of Uniondale down one of Thomas Bain's many master pieces in South Africa, the Prince Alfred Pass to Knysna. It is said to be a downhill race due to the fact that you start at a higher altitude (730 meters above sea level) than where you finish (sea level), however, there is 1700 meters of climbing thrown in, which is a decent amount of climbing for a 95km mountain bike race!
The race starts with the hardest climb of the day, "Ou Wapad". This is a 4km climb that is rather steep with a very loose, rocky surface. The pace is always very hard up this climb as the field gets strung out. I took a bit of strain getting going up this climb but managed to limit the damage quite well and remain in the top few positions not far off the leader Kevin Evans (MTN) who rode unaccompanied up the climb as no-one could match the pace he set. On the other side of the climb I started to find my legs and was able to catch up to my team mate from Blend, Charles. Erik Kleinhans (Mr Price, GT) was not far behind us and rejoined us on the decent of Prince Alfred Pass.
The descent of the Prince Alfred Pass is a 14km descent, which we went from the top to the bottom of the valley in a time of 17 minutes (ave spd of 50km/hr) with reaching speeds of over 80km/hr at some points. On a steep winding gravel road on the edge of the mountain this makes for some exiting riding and is definitely one of my highlights of the race!
The three of us rode at a solid pace with a gap of about 2 to 3 minutes behind the two leaders Kevin and Matthys Beukes (Scott). Erik eventually dropped off Charles and I as we rode hard up the long drag to Buffelsnek. At this point Charles and I really picked up the pace and were riding hard! At the 70km mark we were about 1 minute behind Matthys and 3 minutes behind Kevin. We kept pushing the pace as we crested the penultimate climb before descending into the Gouna River valley. All that was left was one more 3km climb out of the valley to Simola Estate before reaching Knysna.
During this descent into the Gouna River valley only 12km from the finish line, the spooks of the Karoo caught up to Charles and I. For some unknown reason the most unlikely scenario that I don’t think has ever taken place before occurred. At the exact same time my team mate Charles and I each broke our chains! As I slowed down to stop and turned to tell Charles that I had broken my chain he asked me if I had a quick-link (piece used to rejoin the chain) for him. I couldn’t understand why he was asking me for a quick-link when I had broken my chain, only to realize that he had also broken his chain. This was a bit devastating as we were so close to the finish and were going at such a good pace!
Erik came flying down the hill past us as we were on the side each fixing our chains. I was able to get mine fixed but Charles was struggling to get his quick-link connected as it was rusted. I had to leave him behind as he waited for the next rider to get another quick-link from them.
Once getting back on my bike my legs felt dead after going hard and coming to an abrupt stop for a few minutes. Fortunately I was able to make it to Knysna without anyone else catching up to me and therefore only lost one position due to my chain mishap. Unfortunately for me this happened to be the last podium position! Charles was however less fortunate than me by having to wait for the next rider to fix his chain. This turned out to be a long wait of over 5 minutes as we had built up such a decent gap.
Otherwise I was happy to finish in 4th position as it could have ended a lot worse than that. It was a good race with an average speed over 1km/hr quicker than last year.
The race takes you 95km from the Karoo town of Uniondale down one of Thomas Bain's many master pieces in South Africa, the Prince Alfred Pass to Knysna. It is said to be a downhill race due to the fact that you start at a higher altitude (730 meters above sea level) than where you finish (sea level), however, there is 1700 meters of climbing thrown in, which is a decent amount of climbing for a 95km mountain bike race!
The race starts with the hardest climb of the day, "Ou Wapad". This is a 4km climb that is rather steep with a very loose, rocky surface. The pace is always very hard up this climb as the field gets strung out. I took a bit of strain getting going up this climb but managed to limit the damage quite well and remain in the top few positions not far off the leader Kevin Evans (MTN) who rode unaccompanied up the climb as no-one could match the pace he set. On the other side of the climb I started to find my legs and was able to catch up to my team mate from Blend, Charles. Erik Kleinhans (Mr Price, GT) was not far behind us and rejoined us on the decent of Prince Alfred Pass.
The descent of the Prince Alfred Pass is a 14km descent, which we went from the top to the bottom of the valley in a time of 17 minutes (ave spd of 50km/hr) with reaching speeds of over 80km/hr at some points. On a steep winding gravel road on the edge of the mountain this makes for some exiting riding and is definitely one of my highlights of the race!
The three of us rode at a solid pace with a gap of about 2 to 3 minutes behind the two leaders Kevin and Matthys Beukes (Scott). Erik eventually dropped off Charles and I as we rode hard up the long drag to Buffelsnek. At this point Charles and I really picked up the pace and were riding hard! At the 70km mark we were about 1 minute behind Matthys and 3 minutes behind Kevin. We kept pushing the pace as we crested the penultimate climb before descending into the Gouna River valley. All that was left was one more 3km climb out of the valley to Simola Estate before reaching Knysna.
During this descent into the Gouna River valley only 12km from the finish line, the spooks of the Karoo caught up to Charles and I. For some unknown reason the most unlikely scenario that I don’t think has ever taken place before occurred. At the exact same time my team mate Charles and I each broke our chains! As I slowed down to stop and turned to tell Charles that I had broken my chain he asked me if I had a quick-link (piece used to rejoin the chain) for him. I couldn’t understand why he was asking me for a quick-link when I had broken my chain, only to realize that he had also broken his chain. This was a bit devastating as we were so close to the finish and were going at such a good pace!
Erik came flying down the hill past us as we were on the side each fixing our chains. I was able to get mine fixed but Charles was struggling to get his quick-link connected as it was rusted. I had to leave him behind as he waited for the next rider to get another quick-link from them.
Once getting back on my bike my legs felt dead after going hard and coming to an abrupt stop for a few minutes. Fortunately I was able to make it to Knysna without anyone else catching up to me and therefore only lost one position due to my chain mishap. Unfortunately for me this happened to be the last podium position! Charles was however less fortunate than me by having to wait for the next rider to fix his chain. This turned out to be a long wait of over 5 minutes as we had built up such a decent gap.
Otherwise I was happy to finish in 4th position as it could have ended a lot worse than that. It was a good race with an average speed over 1km/hr quicker than last year.
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