Ten days ago I was standing on the Blouwberg beach front about to start the Grape Escape 3-day mountain biking stage race, then I went into the Tour de Boland 4-day road stage race from Tuesday to Friday and now finally the Argus Cycle Tour on Sunday to finish off my week of racing 8 out of 10 days. Needless to say its been a tough week, but there I was ready and amped to fight out my 19th consecutive Argus Cycle Tour amongst the South African pro teams all aiming to be the first across the line in Green Point a little while later.
The conditions were perfect, however, we had a very large first (Invitational) bunch of 217 riders that set off in the dark at 06h15 and headed out of the city center. Things were a little edgy as usual in the beginning as everyone remained together and jostled for positions within the large bunch of riders. I tried my best to stay within the front half of the bunch, not wanting to miss out on any of the action up front.
As soon as we hit Boys Drive the attacks really began and the pace lifted in a big way as no-one was letting anyone get ahead up the road. I managed to stay with all the surges and the group still remained relatively large as we went over Smitswinkel.
I knew it was all going to come down to Chappies and Suikebossie! As we approached Chappies I somehow found myself too far back in the bunch and I therefore had to work really hard up Chappies as the group strung out and I had to make up ground. I fortunately managed to get over the top hanging onto the back of the lead bunch of riders. Now the group was whittled down to much fewer riders as we approached Suikebossie.
Suikebossie we hard! Some of the none sprinters (eg. mountain bikers) went very hard up there to try get away and leave the faster finishers behind. A group of about 10 guys managed to get a small gap over the top and I was just behind. Of coarse as you start descending this gap increases very quickly and I found myself in the chasing group a few second behind. We quickly caught back on a few kilometers down Suikebossie before we reached Camps Bay. Now the race to the finish line was on!
The pace was so fast I could only just hang in the group which now only consisted of about 40 riders! I could only watch as the teams, particularly MTN Qhubeka who were driving the pace, organized themselves to position their key sprinters in the right position for the last few hundred meters dash for the line.
In the end it was Tyler Day of Team Bonitas that took the sprint and I came in a comfortable 28th position with the same winning time of 2hr32min (average speed: 43.1km/hr). I was very happy to finish up with the very front bunch that consisted of a little over 40 riders after starting with over 200 and therefore a great way to end my hard week of racing!
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