Columbia Grape Escape 3-day mountain bike stage race

A new race on the calendar and certainly one not to be missed as another ever popular 3-day stage race comes onto the local scene. The inaugural Columbia Grape Escape was sure to pose an exciting three days of racing attracting many of the top mountain bikers.

Stage 1: Blauwberg beach - Nelsons Wine Estate, 85km

After a rather lengthy neutral zone of about 8km the heart rate was quick to rise as we left the tar and hit the dirt. The combination of thick sand patches and a red-zone pace lead to the front bunch forming quickly and consisted of about 10 riders. This didn't last long as we came across the first climb of the day and the group thinned out even more. Many riders unfortunately experienced flat tyres due to the large amount of thorns. I was just unable to hang on towards the top of the climb and therefore went over the top a few seconds behind the front group of 5 riders. Never fear I thought as I would try and catch back up on the decent. However, this proved not to be all that easy after almost coming terribly short on the rocky single tracks. I eased off the pace a bit in order to get down safely. After which I was about just over a minute behind the front guys.

I had to work incredibly hard and for a long way of about 15km by myself to try and catch up to the group. I didn't want to give up the chase as I couldn't see anyone for a long way behind me. Time trailing above threshold and trailing with a gap of about 30 seconds for a long time, I almost wasn't able to catch back on until there was a slight increase in gradient and I put in one more huge effort. This made it a now or never situation and fortunately for me I managed to latch on.

The guys were working well together rolling through and I had to do my bit to contribute to the high tempo. However, I never really got the chance to recover from my big effort I put in to catch up. After Burry Stunder was forced to stop to fix a puncture it left just 4 of us up front (Kevin Evans and David George of 360Life, Karl Platt from Bulls and myself).

I was able to keep it up until 60km when Kevin put in a bit of an effort up a small incline and I just didn't have an extra gear to go with. This left me out on my own with another 25km still to race to the finish! I kept my head down and pushed hard to the finish and ended up crossing the line 4min after the winner Karl Platt (Bulls) and about 4min ahead of 5th place. My partner from Team Blend Properties, Stuart Marais (Stu) came in a respectable 8th place.

Stage 2: Nelsons Wine Estate - Boschendal, 78km

I was rather nervous going into today’s stage after having a good day the day before and also not quite sure how my legs were going to respond after yesterday’s hard effort.

All seemed good as we started climbing after about 30km and again the same contenders as the previous day were setting a hard pace. I was able to follow for part of the way up until the gradient really kicked in and I was unable to hang onto the wheel in front of me.

This lead to a similar situation as the previous day as I was left alone just behind the front bunch of 5 riders, however, this time there was still about 40km to go to the finish!

Again I just rode hard and tried to keep my pace as high as possible. I could never see anyone in front or behind me. With 10km to go I was 5min behind and I lost about 3min in the last 10km to the leaders as my rear tyre was going very flat and almost rolling off the rim around every corner, however, I didn't want to stop at that stage of the race as I knew it was so close to the finish so I just kept pushing on. I managed to get to the finish about 8min after the winner and maintaining my 6th position on the day about 2min ahead of 7th place, who happened to be my team mate Stu after a fine performance.

Stage 3: Boschendal, 59km

On the start line of the final stage I was sitting in 5th position overall on the GC. All I needed was a solid consistent race and I should be able to maintain my top 5 placing at the end of the 3 days. However, this was not to be.

After the usual fast hustle and bustle of the first few kilometres when we hit the first proper climb of the stage, David George (360Life), Kevin Evans (360Life) and Karl Platt (Bulls) took off into the lead leaving Marc Bass (Garmin) and myself following a couple of seconds behind. Then disaster struck! As I changed gears my chain sucked up and got jammed between the front chain rings and the bike frame and in the process pulled my rear derailleur and snapped my hanger clean off. I couldn’t believe my luck. I thought my day and the past two days of hard work was all over. However, at least it was just the hanger that was broken and fortunately I always carry a spare one with me so I was able to fix it up and get to the finish.

It took me a very long time to fix it all up. I first had to get the chain free from between the chain rings and the frame then take off the bits of broken hanger from the frame and derailleur and put the new hanger on, then put together my chain. After 23min on the side of the course I managed to get going again, however, my rear derailleur was very skew, but other than jumping gears every now and then it worked.

I now had to weave in and out of all the masses of riders, which proved rather challenging and one time while trying to pass a slower rider on a section of single track I went flying over my handle bars! Fortunately I survived the encounter unharmed and bounced back on my bike within a few seconds to continue with my pursuit.

It was very unfortunate that that had to happen as I felt really good throughout the stage and then ended up finishing about 30min after the winner David George (360Life), which gave me a riding time of just 8min off the winning time. Stu had a very good stage finishing in 6th place.

Thanks very much to the organizers for a superb event as well as the sponsors, Columbia! It's always nice to have a mountain biking event that is so well marked leaving no uncertainties along the way. I look forward to the event next year again!

And then I would also like to say a special thanks to my beautiful wife Jayde, for all her outstanding support and help throughout the 3 days of racing and making life during the event that much easier!

(I am still awaiting the official final results of the 3 days, and will post them up as soon as I get them, but well done to Kevin Evans of 360Life for taking the overall title after a consistent 3 days!)

Now it’s time to recover as quickly as possible in one day before I start the Tour de Boland on Tuesday where I’m in for some hard road racing for 4 days!