The week starts off and then flies by so quickly with all the things I need to get done that take priority over my blog. So it is already Thursday and finally here is some feedback of the last weekends racing. (Only in time to be packing up my bike and heading off to Joburg once again tomorrow for the last leg of the National marathon Mountain biking series on Saturday, the Crater Cruise)
The Lourensford Classic as the name implies is one of the oldest mountain bike races on the Western Cape's mountain biking calendar. Therefore it should be a well contested race with most of the top local riders on the start line. I heard that the course was going to be very technical and I suspected this after the last time I did a race there over a year ago and vowed never to do a race there again unless on a full suspension downhill mountain bike!
The race starts with some decent climbing up the steep farm roads through the vineyards. As we neared the top of the course I was feeling fine, riding with Domonic Calitz (Mr Price GT), about 30sec behind the leader, Renay Goustra (Mr Price GT). Then... I think the little farm roads we were riding on turned into something I can only describe as thick knee-high bushes and rocks that you couldn't see! It was at this point where I started to struggle and made many mistakes, which saw me coming very close to tumbling down the mountain.
I lost quite a few positions in the second half of the course and ended up finishing in 7th position. There is always something to learn from every race you do and this time I realized that I need to touch up a little on my technical riding, as I have been focusing more on the hardcore strength of late in preparation for the Cape Pioneer Trek in October.
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