The second year running of the joBerg2c 9-day mountain biking stage race saw some fierce competition on the start line in Heidelberg on Friday 29th April 2011. This was due to the large prize money up for grabs for the team crossing the finish line 9 days later on the beach in Scottburgh with the fastest accumulated time.
Stu and I were ready for the challenge after feeling good and having an easy 114km none-racing day 1 (due to the dragon boat crossing of the Vaal dam).
The first race day arrived on day 2 and for some reason I had a bad day and felt very flat! Stu was feeling good and had to drag me through the stage, which turned out to be one of the worst days ever for me on the bike! We managed to finish the stage in 4th position a few minutes behind the leading 3 teams. I managed to regain my legs a bit the next day and race the majority of the long 124km stage to Sterkfontein Dam with the leading bunch of 4 teams (RE:CM, Fed Group Berg and Bush, MTN Do It Now, and team Blend Property). I, however, wasn't completely recovered from the previous day. Once again we finished 4th a few minutes behind the first 3 teams.
The next day was another big day and I seemed be feeling better each day especially seeing that the real climbing was about to begin. Unfortunately for us after the first climb early in the stage Stu broke his chain. This ended up costing us a lot of time to fix and further lost time and frustration from being stuck behind hundreds of riders on single tracks in trying to catch up again. We rode a good consistent stage from then on and ended up finishing in 6th place only about 3min behind 4th and 5th place, therefore doing a great job in limiting our losses.
The next day (day 5), we overcame a huge physical and mental barrier to finish the stage in 3th place! This would be our first podium of the race. From this day onwards we gained momentum as we were both riding strong and enjoying ourselves as we mixed it up with the other 3 leading teams and continued to increase our lead over the 5th placed team on the overall standings.
Our consistency prevailed as our podium on day 5 ended up being our first of 5 podiums for the remaining 5 stages of the race! This came even after having another day of mechanicals on the second last day (day 8) where Stu punctured and we had to stop a number of times to pump up his rear tire.
The final day was a real show down for an exciting finish on the beach in Scottburgh. Stu and I were feeling good and racing strong up front. The stage came down to the last two kilometers where there was a tussle to enter the last bit of single track and onto the beach first for a sprint finish. Stu and I managed to claim our 5th consecutive podium of 3rd place. Although we had caught up quite a lot of the lost time from the first few days over the last 5 days, it wasn't enough for us to overtake the 3rd place team of MTN Do It Now in the overall standing and therefore we finished up the 9 days in 4th place.
In the end we were pleased to come in the top 5 and even more happy about our 5 consecutive podiums in the last 5 days. The riding was magnificent and the organization of the event was flawless. Stu and I gained some valuable experience and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! A big thank you goes out to Venetia our support crew and most importantly to Martin from Blend Property for making it all happen!
