Seweweekspoort mtb race

This years edition of the Seweweekspoort mountain bike race attracted some big names to the start line as it occurs just 2-days before and serves as a good warm up race to the Cape Pioneer Trek 6-day mountain bike stage race taking place in close proximity (which is exactly what we did last year).

They made a slight change in the route this year and added in an extra 2km loop of jeep track to make the total distance 82km of great mountain biking in the Klein Karoo region of Ladismith. There was quite a wind on the morning of the race, which didn't make the going any easier.

It was one of those days for me where I maybe wasn't feeling quite as good as I would have liked (simply by comparing to how I've felt in a few past races in recent weekends) and I suffered throughout the entire race! The attacks happened from the start and the race split up into pieces! In mountain biking (and road racing), if you snooze for one single second you can be caught out and miss a split in the race and end up way out of contention! As the race got a little more established and we exited the first section of jeep track and were then heading along the gravel road through the poort, 4 guys including my team mate from Blend, Stu and I found ourselves making up the chase pack behind the two leaders of David George and Kevin Evans from team 360Life. We all rode hard and almost caught up to them as we exited the poort on the other side.

The loop on the other side of the poort proved to be rather challenging due in part to a section of the track that was submerged by a very full dam alongside. This saw us trying to ride through Karoo bossies and I managed a slow motion flip over my handlebars to land on my feat. The race once again spread out here and on our return through the poort Stu, Ruan Du Toit and I chased hard and caught up to the leaders.

We then remained as a lead group of six until David George put in an effort and surged away from the group. I was really suffering and was only just hanging onto the group. As David increased his lead on the 5 of us I knew the last big climb at 73km would be the race decider. Unfortunately I just didn't have the legs and as we hit the climb our group split up completely and remained that way until the end.

David George managed to take the win 30 seconds ahead of his 360Life team mate Kevin Evans and Ruan Du Toit making up the podium. Ben-Melt Swanepoel crossed the line in 4th 2min after the winning time followed by Stu a few seconds behind in 5th and then myself another 39sec afterwards in 6th place.

My hardcore wife, Jayde, continued her excellent mountain bike racing exploits after her successful Karoo to Coast and completed not the short route option of the Seweweekspoort, not the medium 45km route but the full 82km marathon distance! Shortly after finishing it was time for us to head straight back to Cape Town to sleep a couple of hours only to wake up at 4am to get out to Wellington to race the One Tonner 152km road race with my Double Century team!

MTN Marathon mtb National - Crater Cruise

Never failing as probably the most competitive mountain bike race in the country for numerous reasons, my second year back in Parys for the Crater Cruise was different from the previous year in that it was even more competitive than ever before! It really does live up to the expectations of a final event of an annual national series fantastically organized by Advendurance.

I remembered the route very well from last year as well as how the race usually pans out. Thus my game plan was to just sick in the bunch with a decent position for the first few tight sections and then make it over the main technical climb just before the half way point with a strong group. This I managed and as the race began to split into pieces up the climb I was well positioned with a few other top guys. Unfortunately for me I had to stop at the top before descending the other side of the climb to pump up my back tire as it had lost a fair amount of air and I wouldn't have been able to descend down the rough track with it that way. At the bottom of I saw a small group of about 3 guys 1 minute ahead of me and I was isolated as I couldn't see anyone behind me.

So with 60km still to go I pushed on at a solid pace and still never saw anyone catch up to me from behind and the gap to the guys in front of me remained around the 1 minute mark as I got the time splits from my amazing number one supporter (my wife).

I was able to catch up to and pass two guys along the way and finish exactly 11min after the winner Kevin Evans (who won the race for the 3rd time in a row!). I was happy with my performance and felt I had a solid race. Unfortunately I was not happy with my position as I didn't improve on the previous year and finished 17th. However, when looking over the results from the day I am a little more satisfied due to the large amount of competition and small time gaps separating the top 20 positions! I can honestly say that I have never done a mountain bike race in South Africa with such a strong field before! This is great for the sport in the country!

A big thanks has to be mentioned for Jayde, my wife and my number one supporter who did a fantastic job in seconding me and being there with me, it always makes a huge difference!