Another MTN national marathon

This time we visited the diamond mining town of Cullinan just outside Pretoria. This event was number 5 in the series and number 4 for me. After deciding that this year I would give it a go at these national races as I wanted to compete against the best mountain bike riders in the country I had a fairly decent start to the year with a 14th position at the first race of the series, the Attakwas. The next two races where races much to be forgotten about due to extreme mechanical and bodily failures. However, this time I was able to get in a decent race and result with 12th place.

Most of the top contenders were on the start line, one of who was Kevin Evans (MTN Energade) fresh from competing in the world marathon mountain biking champs in Europe, needing one more victory to take the overall title in the series with two races still to come. As usual in this part of the world it was going to be hot! And I've come here from my every faithful Cape Town winter weather, so I was expecting a little shock to the system later in the day. The racing was fast in the beginning as there was no real climbing so the bunch was trying to tail off the lesser mortals with a rapid pace. This indeed turned out to be successful as we encountered very soft sand that exposed one of the key skills of mountain biking among the riders.

After the flatter sandy areas, the rough, rocky savanna terrain that highveld mountain biking races are renowned for and, which resulted in the complete destruction of my body in the previous race in Clarens, began. I tackled this section of the route feeling strong and riding most of the time with my team mate from Blend Properties, Charles. We managed to drop a few other riders along the way and were within 6min of the leaders at the 65 kilometer feed zone.

Soon after this point we turned to continue with the half marathon route (the ultra marathon consisted of 105km of which 70km was the marathon route and the other 35km was the half marathon route). It was here that I started struggling to hold the pace of Charles, as my back was beginning to hurt from the constant jarring of the rough terrain and I was unable to get the power out of my legs that was needed to drive the peddles. I was then left to fight with my body for the last 30 kilometers, to keep me going to the finish. Fortunately we had built up a solid gap on the other riders behind us and no one passed me during this time. At the finish I crossed the line in 4hr30min and ended up loosing 10min to Charles over those last 30 kilometers where he went on to finish 10th. I was happy with the race, it just would have been nice to have finished strong and in the top 10.

Next time...

Transbaviaans - 230km!!!

230km is a very very long way. That is what the Transbaviaans mountain biking race (from the little karoo dorpie called Willomore through the beautiful but painful Baviaanskloof all the way to the surfing mecca of Jeffrey's Bay) consists of.

Team Blend Properties consisting of Charles, Stuart and myself were all first timers at this race. It was a little daunting knowing that you will be venturing your body into unknown territory as we would be out on the bike for about 9-hours (if all goes to plan)!

The night before consisted of detailed planning. There was a lot to think about for this race unlike most races where you just hop on your bike in the morning and go flat out from the gun. We needed to make sure we had all the supplies necessary from nutrition to tools and spares for each feed zone/check point along the way! Then strategically place these items either on our bikes, in our pockets or the crates supplied by the race organisers that would be taken to each point through the kloof. After everything was sorted, well we hoped, we were able to get to sleep in our small, spooky karoo cottage surrounded only by little karoo bossies in the middle of nowhere!

Race day came. We placed our crates in the truck to be taken into the kloof and after being nice and relaxed before the start we unfortunately had to line up right towards the back of the field. This was obviously not ideal as there was no way of trying to make our way closer towards the front until the gun went off. The madness begins! We had to frantically weave our way through about 600 odd riders before we got to the narrow jeep track about 3km from the start. Hence this was near impossible and we had to do some rough riding through the jeep track to try make up ground. After about 15min of hard effort and risking punctures we had made it into the front bunch and were able to settle down nicely.

With a front bunch consisting of about 10 teams and fast flowing gravel roads the pace was generally high and higher at times similar to a road race for the first 100km with an average speed of about 33km/hr. Just after 100km we entered the first check point and feed zone. Without any form of back up we quickly found our crate and took what we needed. I thought we had done this quickly and efficiently and we were back on our bikes within 2min. This, however, wasn't quick enough compared to the two teams (Supercars and Marsilio Projects) already over a minute up the road who had support vehicles. We chased hard for the next 10km from 105km to 115km when we hit the first big climb. As we started climbing we saw the two leading teams together about 200 meters in front of us. At that moment Stuart started to feel the effects of the hard effort and began to cramp. This made the going through the kloof rather tough as Charles and I took turns in pulling Stuart as we didn't want to stop. We just needed to get through the kloof so that we could recover on the long decent on the other side.

Although we lost ground to the leading team Supercars, we did manage to catch up to Marsilio Projects at the top of Bergplaas. However, the big climb to the top of Bergplaas really killed me as the tough going through the kloof took its toll. It was a long struggle up to the top! When I got to the check point and feed zone at the top I was blown! I was hurting and couldn't think straight as I had to take what I needed from our crate to get me to our next feed zone as well as put my light on my bike. During this time Marsilio Projects whom we had caught up to had another quick stop and were able to get ahead of us again.

At least we knew there was a long downhill to recover until our next check point.

The next check point came at about 176km. This was the first time we saw our back-up driver! A similar scenario occurred here as the previous check point where we had just caught back up to Marsilio Projects and after a quick 2 minute stop they managed to get back on their bikes a little quicker than us. We chased them down and shortly after the check point when we started climbing the last major climb of the race we passed them with ease. They were unable to respond and follow us as we got a gap on them.

At this stage of the race, although I had recovered and was not feeling blown I started to suffer with some cramp as we made our way up the climb. Once over the top I was able to recover. We didn't have to stop for long at the final check point and were on our bikes tracing through the farm lands behind Jeffrey's Bay. I could smell we were getting close to the finish, however, we were unable to see Jeffrey's Bay.

The time of day was just before 6pm (almost 8 hours of racing) and the sun had set over the horizon. It was finally time to put our lights on to see us through to the finish. Knowing this I was feeling good and able to push it as hard as possible. Charles was doing a great job of reading the directions to get us to the finish! And after a slight hiccup of taking one turn too early and having to back track a little we crossed the finish line in second place 8hr31min later, what an amazing feeling!

Will I do it again next year? ...For sure!!!

Results:
1st - Supercars 8hr15min
2nd - Blend Properties 8hr31min
3rd - Marsilio Projects 8hr38min

Blend team training camp: George

After a long six and a half hour trip from Cape Town to George, the 5 team players of the Blend Property Group Cycling Team (Shan; Charles; Stuart; Rafeeq; and myself) arrived at our luxury accommodation in Fancourte Golf Estate.

Here we would spend the next 3 days either on our bikes or chilling out watching the World Cup Soccer in style. However, there was a bit of wine tasting and festival atmosphere thrown in as well.

The first ride on Friday morning was an immediate introduction to a mountain biking training camp with a solid 10km of climbing in the first 15km of riding up the Montagu Pass. It was rather freezing on the way down the other side and through the valleys! Stuart had decided to wear short finger gloves and lets just say I haven't seen him wear short finger gloves since then... On the other side we made our way to the ostrich populated town of Oudtshoorn. I always enjoy climbing high altitudes and riding along the winding roads over these big mountain ranges. Having studied honours in Atmospheric Science at university it makes it even more interesting when you cross from one climatic region to another. In this case we went from the greener coastal plain to the more arid Klein Karoo. Altogether we covered some good distance and pushed some hard climbing on the way back.

Then it was time to refuel with some good food, sit back with our legs up and recover until the next morning.

The next day was going to be a ride out along the seven passes route in the direction of Knysna. This took us to a Berg Plaas Plantation above Wilderness. Here there is some good proper mountain biking, which was most enjoyable! The highlight of this ride was the support crew that provided us with an unbelievable refuelling station! It came at a time where we had been riding for almost 4 hours and we were all starting to get rather hungry and wondering when we were going to stop at a shop to refuel. To our amazement our riding partners for the training camp, Ischen Stopforth and Marcel Deacon had arranged for their friends to meet us up in the mountain somewhere behind the Wilderness to provide us with anything we possibly wanted!

We had had perfect weather conditions for Friday and Saturday. However, this was all to change for Sunday, our final day and session. We woke up to the rain, wind and cold. Fortunately for us the rain didn't stick around and we were able to start and also do most of our ride without much rain. Sunday's session was one of climbing and cross-country. We didn't cover much distance, however we climbed up two big climbs in the mountains behind George, Tier Kop and Groen Kop. We also threw in a lap of the Saarsveld national cross-country circuit.

All together this made for a very good, solid and memorable training camp with a great team! Thanks guys, and a special thanks to Martin our team owner from Blend Property Group and his wife Paula for accommodating us and putting up with our strange cyclists behaviour!

WP XC mtb league race #2 - Durbanville

The second race of the WP cross-country mountain biking series took place in the Durbanville hills area. It turned out to be a really nice course with just over 200 meters of climbing for each 5.8km lap. The laps consisted of some decent long up hill stretches, some short very steep up hill sections and some nice fast flowing single tracks with switchbacks both up and down.

The race started out extremely fast as usual. It took the first two laps for me to get more familiar with the course. Then I was able to get into a decent rhythm and was really enjoying myself. I was lying in 3rd position in the elite category for the first 4 laps until the two riders in front of me, Renay Goustra and Erik Kleinhans (Mr Price GT) pulled out. I therefore ended up coming 1st out of the elites. I was however, 5th over all as there were 4 U23 riders in front of me. Those U23's really seem to know how to race these cross-country races! I am fairly new to this kind of racing as this is only my third one ever and I think I'm beginning to enjoy them more each time.

There was only one problem with this race. The cross-country races are normally aimed at an optimal total time of 2hrs +/- 10min from the winners to the back of the field. Like the previous XC race I didn't have anyone to keep anything for me in the feed zone, so I had to take everything I was going to need from energy stuff to fluid along with me. I don't find this too much of a problem as I know the race should only last about 2hrs, which isn't very long and I know exactly what I would need to eat and drink during that time. I also don't want to take extra and have to carry anything unnecessary along with me.

So, I'm not sure what the reason was but the organises made the race 8 laps. As it turned out this was one or two laps too many. I ended up bonking half way through the 7th lap (after about 2hrs10min of racing) and still had one and half laps still to go. They ended up being a very long and difficult one and a half laps as I was rather dizzy and had a slower reaction time that resulted in me over shooting quite a few corners, making quite a lot of mistakes and riding off the single track a few times. At least I didn't end up being over taken by anyone else during this time and is something to consider more in the future.

100 miles on a mountain bike

The AMArider 100 miler mountain bike race was a race that I had been thinking about for quite a long time. Unlike a local PPA race it is one of those races that only happens once a year and thus one that I would like to do well in!

So much can happen in a race this long and you can never really plan out the entire race. You can have a strategy, however, due to the long day ahead and depending on how the race unfolds this strategy is very likely to change. I thought that for a start I would watch Erik Kleinhans (Mr Price GT) as he is the defending champion of this race therefore I was sure he would have some experience and a good strategy. Secondly, I would eat a lot! Otherwise just sit tight, stay with the rest of my team Blend, communicate with them to see how everyone is doing and what we could do as a team until about 130km. Then see how I'm feeling and try push it as hard as possible from there.

The race started with a few climbs in the beginning. The pace didn't seem to be all that fast, as I made sure that I wasn't pushing myself too hard as there was a long way to go! After one of the climbs I glanced around to see only about 12 riders in the front bunch. Not long after this Jacques Roussouw (Cannondale) put in a hard effort, which got everyone in the group scrambling to catch onto a back wheel and then when another small climb started Jacque and David George (SA findit) rode off the front. Not wanting to push myself too hard I just kept a steady pace. Afterwards Jacque dropped back from David George into our group, which by this time consisted of about 10 riders after a few dropped back after the slight changes in pace earlier on.

We rode through the first water point as it was only about 30 odd kilometers into the race and there was no real need to refuel already. The breakfast stop at about 50km there was once again no real need to stop and refuel, as I had made sure I had enough to get me to the second water point at 80km. Soon after the breakfast stop we headed up a decent climb. This created some gaps among our group of riders. I was feeling strong up this climb and didn't really push myself too hard. On the other side of the climb we rode an easy pace and a few of the riders that got dropped up the climb were able to catch back up again. From here we just kept things steady until the refuelling stop at water point two.

After the second water point the race changed slightly as no one was wanting to do any work up front or push the pace. And some tried a few attacks but none were successful in getting away. At this point in the race I was not going to let anyone else get away. David George was still quite a long way up the road (he had a 4min lead at the second water point).

The race took a dramatic change and it all began at about the 115km mark. A few of the other riders that hung back right near the beginning caught up to our group. Among these riders was Erik Kleinhans (Mr Price GT). As they caught up and without us even realising Erik had gone passed at a rapid pace and was already a couple hundred meters up ahead! A few of the other riders and myself put in some big efforts to see if we could close the gap. After a while the other riders gave up the chase and I had to then decide whether to continue chasing Erik. It was a little earlier in the race than I would have liked to have to be pushing hard and trying to make a break, however, it was also that time in the race that I had to make that decision. I was feeling alright and continued to chase Erik and managed to catch up to him. Once catching him I looked back and saw that the rest of the group were quite a long way back.

We worked quite hard together and in no time had caught up to David George. David George didn't seem to be strong as he wasn't able to take turns on the front as Erik and I continued to push the pace. It wasn't long until David George had dropped off and as we were going up a climb Erik attacked at about the 130km mark. I was unable to respond and then got the feeling that I had gone to hard to soon and was blown. I kept a steady pace and ate a Gu while Erik was up the road, however, remaining in sight.

We soon approached the third and final water point at about 135km. At this point Erik had a minute and a half lead on me. I was not feeling that broken as I was able to just swap my bottles and grab a banana while still on the go.

Then the real climbing began! Although the climbing wasn't steep it was long and with tied legs it sure did feel steep! I kept a steady pace and noticed that I was catching back up to Erik. Much to my delight I realised that he must be tied and have tried to break away too soon. I caught him up on one of the many rolling hills after the big climb with about 15 to 20km still to go. He was not able to keep up with me and I continued to keep a solid pace.

I looked at my watch and saw that there was about 10km to go and looked behind to see no one in sight. It then hit me that I was out in front of the race, the race that I had been thinking about for a long time and dreaming of winning. I kept pushing towards the finish line but on the flat gravel roads I was really taking strain! Although taking strain with about 5km to go I looked behind and still couldn't see anyone. I thought that I could do it but I could hardly sit on the saddle and I couldn't stand up as my legs were hurting so much! I looked behind again and was horrified to see someone fast approaching! I thought that it was probably Erik catching back up to me but in no time with only 2km to go the the finish line, Jacque Roussouw came flying passed me!

I couldn't go with him, I couldn't pick up my pace any more and I just had to keep on going to the finish and try not get passed by anyone else! At least I managed that and finished a long, gruelling and very exciting race in second place!

Thanks very much to our team Blend support crew in which my number one supporter Jayde was there to have everything I needed within an instant, taking photos and giving the timing splits! Amazing job, well done my girl!

Difference between first place and the rest

I got to race the Computer Mania Willow Creek Nuy 60km mountain bike race on Saturday. Although it was an ordinary PPA race, it had Computer Mania as a title sponsor and therefore some very decent prizes, which is unusual for a PPA race.

As usual with these local PPA races you never know who is going to pitch up at the start line. However, you know that there will always be at least 4 or 5 decent riders ready to battle it out at the front of the race especially this one as the prize for first place was a nice new HP laptop!

I really need a new laptop! I have been wanting to buy one for quite a few months now but always have other things that I need to spend my hard earned money on, especially things to keep me going in the sport of mountain biking.

It was a fast race as there was not a lot of climbing. The terrain was quite rough with lots of dry fynbos-scratching skinny shiny legs. A small group of about 6 riders were out in front until the first little climb at 20km. The group was then narrowed down to just 3 of us (myself, Greg Knox of UCT and a House of Paint rider who I unfortunately don't have a name for as it didn't show up on the end results). After the decent from this climb one of the others that was dropped on the way up was able to catch back up to us again.

From then on the front of the race consisted of the 4 of us. There were no major hills to break up the 4 of us until the final climb at 45km. This climb was more of a hike-a-bike climb as it was very steep and rocky. All of us had to resort to getting off our bikes to make it to the top. This provided little opportunity to make use of on the bike climbing strengths and everyone summited the hill together. Therefore it all came down to the decent into the finish and the guy that was able to catch back up to us down the first climb earlier on in the race was able to put in the best decent out of us and take the win with Greg Knox in second, myself in third and the House of Paint rider in forth.

Although still a decent result and keeping it consistent up in the top three for the last two weeks now, there was no new laptop for third place. Instead I won a very fancy laptop stand with an integrated keyboard. So thanks to Computer Mania for the fantastic prizes!