Contego Wines2Whales 3-day mtb stage race report

The much anticipated Contego Wines2Whales 3-day mountain bike stage race powered by Maserati (nice!) is a great opportunity to race on "home" soil in the most spectacular environment made for mountain biking! This unique event organized by Stillwater Sports has a fantastic concept and it usually comes as the last race of the year before a little break from the hard training and racing regime that one's body is put through for months prior and therefore it is a race to give everything you have in the system to make it count. This year I partnered up with a fellow Stellenbosch rider, Christiaan Kriek to form Team Blend. With the usual strong local contingent of riders mainly the cross-country mountain biking specialists participating, we thought a podium position would be a respectable outcome with a win being the ultimate goal.

Day 1 didn't get off to an ideal start for us. This was due to us arriving at the start in Lourensford after a good warm-up ride (much needed to get the blood flowing to the legs) just a couple of minutes before take-off, only to find the start chute already packed with riders and therefore having to start right at the very back of the bunch! This meant we had to work really hard to try make our way through all the other riders to get up to the front on the bunch. After some really hard efforts of ducking and diving and weaving our way through we were nearing the front when the guys started lifting the pace and the race began to split into pieces. We were then situated in 3rd place with the two leading teams about 1min/1m30s ahead (thanks to my wife, Jayde, my number one supporter for the important on-route info!). We began to settle into our pace nicely and eventually caught up to the 2nd place team of Contego Giant. We passed them and continued our pursuit of the the leading team of Matthys Beukes and Dominic Calitz of MTBdestinationcom. We were never able to catch up to them, however, we crossed the finished line in Grabouw 1min44sec behind them and 3min48sec ahead of the 3rd place team after a solid days performance.

Day 2 saw us arriving at the start and being on the front line! We were feeling good as we got under way and the main GC contending teams all pushed the pace early on. The stage consists of about 60-70% single track trails around the magnificent area of Grabouw, Oak Valley, Paul Cluver, Thandi and Lebanon. Although this makes for fantastic mountain biking, it also makes for a very cross-country-like mountain bike race and as I am not a cross-country mountain biking specialist like the other top GC contenders we were racing against, I knew personally that it wasn't going to be an easy day. We were flying through the single tracks faster than I have ever gone before and I was constantly pushing the boundaries! I had to play catch-up quite a bit of the time and the high level of concentration need for this kind of riding eventually began to take its toll on me and I started making a few mistakes nearer the end. One of them left me on the ground with some nice "roasties". I managed to bounce back quickly onto my bike and catch back up to the front bunch again, however, the last 5-10km proved a little too much as all the efforts and mishaps lead us to loose some time to the leaders. Christiaan help to get me through the final kilometers and limited the damage by finishing in 4th place and still holding on to our 2nd place on the general classification after the 2 days.

Day 3 personally was a much anticipated day from what I remember of last year as it is far more suited to my riding style being a bit longer than the previous too stages and with some more climbing involved along the way as the route goes from Grabouw to finish on the beach in Onrus. However, mother nature denied us the opportunity to contest the stage as the skies opened up with extreme rainfall and covered the mountains around Grabouw with snow! The race officials deemed the conditions too dangerous to send the riders out on-route and were therefore made to cancel the stage. This is obviously very unfortunate for many reasons, however, I can't imagine what is must be like to be in that situation of having to make that kind of decision and thus deserves the respect. Personally I would always go out in any conditions to finish off a race and I was waiting anxiously in my kit for the start! I had my number one supporter there in full spirits, which would have also made for some added incentive along the way and the best reward to in having her at the finish on the beach after a hard few days of stage racing!


However, there is nothing one can do in this situation other than look forward next years race... The race therefore ended with the positions as of the second day, which meant that Christiaan and I of Team Blend finished in 2nd place ahead of Team Contego Giant taking 3rd and first place going to Team MTBdestinationcom. Thanks to my sponsor Blend Property for making this all possible and thanks Christiaan for a great ride!