2010 MTN National Ultra-Marathon Series Round-Up

This was the year I told myself that I would pursue my love for racing my mountain bike and try compete at the top level in South Africa. In order to do this I wanted to participate in the high profile mountain biking events, which attracted the best riders in the country. This would therefore be the MTN National Ultra-Marathon Series.

The series consists of 7 races around the country. However, “around the country” means more “up country” as only two of the races exist south of Lesotho! Therefore, a large amount of traveling would be involved along with its accompanied expenses and logistics regarding work etc.

I am very fortunate to have an unbelievably supportive fiancé, Jayde that accompanied me to all these races. This makes a big difference not only for the much needed backup support during the races but also for the moral support throughout the trips! Also her family for accommodating us in Joburg and happily providing their car for our transport to and from the races making my participation in this series achievable!

Attakwas: 135km, 2600m climbing, 6hr23min, ave spd 21km/hr, 14th position
The first race being the Attakwas was the most local one for me as it was in the Western Cape, however, still a 4 to 5 hour drive away but at least no flying involved. This is dubbed as the hardest one-day race in the country, which I believe it definitely lives up to! I had a decent race with a fairly decent result.

Barberton: did not race
Barberton was one of the races I would have really liked to have done but it is a very long way to travel and the timing of it was very close to the next race at Sabie, which is very close to Barberton and also happens to be the SA Champs race. I therefore chose to skip Barberton and rather do the SA Champs race at Sabie.

Sabie, SA Champs: 110km, 3000m climbing, 6hr03min, ave spd 18.1km/hr, 41st position
Sabie was a long way to go, but it was SA Marathon Champs and what looked to be an awesome course with lots of climbing and therefore definitely worth it. It would be my first race on my new carbon Shimano XT Felt! I unfortunately had a horrendous experience with fixing punctures and therefore didn’t have the race I was hoping for. With a total stoppage time of 45 minutes!!! Therefore this meant that I had an average moving speed of 20.5km/hr. I at least finished and got some points for my efforts towards the series rankings.

Clarens: 98km, 2100m climbing, 5hr41min, ave spd 17.2km/hr, 24th position
This had to have been one of the worst races of my life! I completely blew and came the closest I’ve ever come to pulling out of a race! My body really took a serious beating, but I soldiered on to the finish.

Cullinan: 104km, 1400m climbing, 4hr30min, ave spd 23.2km/hr, 12th position
This race came after a few months break in the series calendar and my moral was a little on the low side due to my past two races! However, I believe that these past two races help me gain valuable experience on how to tackle these ultra-marathon races and I was feeling quite a bit stronger at this stage of the season as my training had been going well. I had my team mate Charles to race with, which we did quite well for most of the way until I blew a bit in the last 30km. However, I was happy to get a decent result.

50 Miler KZN: did not race
This was another one that I would have really liked to have done! It would have been a nice change from the hot, dry and rough Highveld terrain with some decent climbing and therefore would have suited me. However, I had commitments back in Cape Town over the weekend.

Crater Cruise: 104km, 1100m climbing, 3hr51min, ave spd 27km/hr, 11th position
I wasn’t planning on doing this one until I saw that Parys wasn’t that far from Joburg. So it was nice to be able to race the last round of the series against a highly competitive field and come out with my best performance on top of that on a course that doesn’t really suite me.

The series rankings works by adding the points of your best 5 results out of the 7 races thoughout the year. Therefore the more races you do the better advantage you have. In the end I competed in five of the seven races and out of those five I had two very bad races and three decent races. This placed me 13th in the country for 2010. I am pleased with this result as there is a very solid top twenty competitors in the country and a highly competitive top ten! It is definitely a foundation, which I can take into 2011 and improve on especially after improving thoughout the year.

Ride Crater Cruise

The Ride Crater Cruise as I have come to realize is a big event on the mountain biking calendar, however, mainly for the Gautengers and the top pro's of the country. It attracts a large field of competitors due to the nature of the course being suitable for roadies. On the other hand the pro's are attracted to this event for the prize money, as it holds the biggest payout on the racing calendar. This was to be yet another first time event for me this year and the also last round of the 2010 MTN national ultra-marathon series.

Going into this race, I was sitting in 17th position in the series rankings. This is after doing 4 out of the 6 races in the 2010 series thus far and having two dismal performances at two of the races (I will put the link to my next post on 2010 MTN National Ultra-Marathon Series Round-Up here once they have updated the log standings to include the last race).

So now I can say I’ve been to Parys as it was the host town for this race. I’ve never heard of Parys until a few months before when planning to do this race. As normal up on the Highveld I was anticipating a hot and dry day and true to me knowledge temperatures were in the mid-thirties! This places me a bit out of my comfort zone coming from a nice Cape Town winter, but it was definitely good preparation for the following weeks DCM Cape Pioneer Trek.

This race starts off much like a road race, literally as the first 15 kilometers are on tar and very flat. This resulted in a few riders trying to get off the front of the sizable peloton before we encountered the first technical section. I had studied the route map before and saw this particular point of the course marked as the “bunch breaker” and therefore positioned myself right towards the front of the bunch. Going through this section I was well positioned around firth and had to concentrate hard in order to closely follow the wheel in front of me.

After getting back onto the gravel roads the bunch had thinned out a little but it was still quite large for a mountain bike race. It only really split up when we got to the first of only two climbs of the race. I managed to keep up with the relatively hard tempo set up the first climb and the concrete strips. Then the race blew into pieces as we ascended a very steep rough technical climb! I lost a few of the wheels in front of me as everyone scrambled on and off their bikes as we made our way up the climb. After negotiating the technical descent I found myself with two other guys chasing the front group of 8 riders.

We weren’t successful in catching back up to the leaders. However, we rode a solid pace through the searing heat and stayed clear of any other riders behind us.

This performance gave me my best result this year in the MTN national ultra-marathon series with 11th place and 13 minutes behind the winner Kevin Evans of team MTN Energade. This was a nice way to end off the year of racing the MTN national ultra-marathon series, knocking on the door of the top ten. I can now only wait until next year to see how I can shape up and hopefully have improved after gaining valuable experience this year.

Until then, the big one of the season, the DCM Cape Pioneer Trek awaits. But first, the “spooky” Ladysmith Cheese Seweweekspoort mountain bike challenge.

Race Report: Sunday 3 October: De Grendal 45km

Race number two of the weekend started at De Grendal Wine Estate on the Table View side of the Durbanville Hills area. With a fairly fast start on mostly flat and downhill roads of the estate we soon encountered a thick patch of sand, which immediately split the field into pieces. From there we went straight into the climbing that would eventually take us up to the masts and over the other side into the Magic Forest trails.

The climbs were very steep with very loose rocky surfaces and one section that was impossible to ride. It was only Renay Goustra (Mr Price GT), Domonic Calitz (Mr Price GT) and myself that got away early on up the climbs. I dropped my chain at one point and had to work quite hard to quickly catch back on. Renay managed to gain a small gap on Domonic and I towards the top of the climb before entering the long single tracks of Magic Forest.

I lost contact with Domonic through this long stretch of single tracks. After leaving the single tracks I could see him ahead for a while and kept a close eye on the gap. I was able to close it slightly as we climbed back over onto the De Grendal side again. We then rejoined with the shorter distance routes where I lost sight of him and was unable to close the gap any further.

I was happy with how I felt during the race and finished in 3rd place. It was good to be on the podium!

Race Report: Saturday 2 October: Lourensford Classic 55km

The week starts off and then flies by so quickly with all the things I need to get done that take priority over my blog. So it is already Thursday and finally here is some feedback of the last weekends racing. (Only in time to be packing up my bike and heading off to Joburg once again tomorrow for the last leg of the National marathon Mountain biking series on Saturday, the Crater Cruise)

The Lourensford Classic as the name implies is one of the oldest mountain bike races on the Western Cape's mountain biking calendar. Therefore it should be a well contested race with most of the top local riders on the start line. I heard that the course was going to be very technical and I suspected this after the last time I did a race there over a year ago and vowed never to do a race there again unless on a full suspension downhill mountain bike!

The race starts with some decent climbing up the steep farm roads through the vineyards. As we neared the top of the course I was feeling fine, riding with Domonic Calitz (Mr Price GT), about 30sec behind the leader, Renay Goustra (Mr Price GT). Then... I think the little farm roads we were riding on turned into something I can only describe as thick knee-high bushes and rocks that you couldn't see! It was at this point where I started to struggle and made many mistakes, which saw me coming very close to tumbling down the mountain.

I lost quite a few positions in the second half of the course and ended up finishing in 7th position. There is always something to learn from every race you do and this time I realized that I need to touch up a little on my technical riding, as I have been focusing more on the hardcore strength of late in preparation for the Cape Pioneer Trek in October.

Karoo2Coast by davemore at Garmin Connect - Details

Karoo2Coast by davemore at Garmin Connect - Details

Karoo to Coast

This would be my second year at the Karoo to Coast mountain bike race. After doing the race last year for the first time it is truly a highlight on the mountain biking calendar.

The race takes you 95km from the Karoo town of Uniondale down one of Thomas Bain's many master pieces in South Africa, the Prince Alfred Pass to Knysna. It is said to be a downhill race due to the fact that you start at a higher altitude (730 meters above sea level) than where you finish (sea level), however, there is 1700 meters of climbing thrown in, which is a decent amount of climbing for a 95km mountain bike race!

The race starts with the hardest climb of the day, "Ou Wapad". This is a 4km climb that is rather steep with a very loose, rocky surface. The pace is always very hard up this climb as the field gets strung out. I took a bit of strain getting going up this climb but managed to limit the damage quite well and remain in the top few positions not far off the leader Kevin Evans (MTN) who rode unaccompanied up the climb as no-one could match the pace he set. On the other side of the climb I started to find my legs and was able to catch up to my team mate from Blend, Charles. Erik Kleinhans (Mr Price, GT) was not far behind us and rejoined us on the decent of Prince Alfred Pass.

The descent of the Prince Alfred Pass is a 14km descent, which we went from the top to the bottom of the valley in a time of 17 minutes (ave spd of 50km/hr) with reaching speeds of over 80km/hr at some points. On a steep winding gravel road on the edge of the mountain this makes for some exiting riding and is definitely one of my highlights of the race!

The three of us rode at a solid pace with a gap of about 2 to 3 minutes behind the two leaders Kevin and Matthys Beukes (Scott). Erik eventually dropped off Charles and I as we rode hard up the long drag to Buffelsnek. At this point Charles and I really picked up the pace and were riding hard! At the 70km mark we were about 1 minute behind Matthys and 3 minutes behind Kevin. We kept pushing the pace as we crested the penultimate climb before descending into the Gouna River valley. All that was left was one more 3km climb out of the valley to Simola Estate before reaching Knysna.

During this descent into the Gouna River valley only 12km from the finish line, the spooks of the Karoo caught up to Charles and I. For some unknown reason the most unlikely scenario that I don’t think has ever taken place before occurred. At the exact same time my team mate Charles and I each broke our chains! As I slowed down to stop and turned to tell Charles that I had broken my chain he asked me if I had a quick-link (piece used to rejoin the chain) for him. I couldn’t understand why he was asking me for a quick-link when I had broken my chain, only to realize that he had also broken his chain. This was a bit devastating as we were so close to the finish and were going at such a good pace!

Erik came flying down the hill past us as we were on the side each fixing our chains. I was able to get mine fixed but Charles was struggling to get his quick-link connected as it was rusted. I had to leave him behind as he waited for the next rider to get another quick-link from them.

Once getting back on my bike my legs felt dead after going hard and coming to an abrupt stop for a few minutes. Fortunately I was able to make it to Knysna without anyone else catching up to me and therefore only lost one position due to my chain mishap. Unfortunately for me this happened to be the last podium position! Charles was however less fortunate than me by having to wait for the next rider to fix his chain. This turned out to be a long wait of over 5 minutes as we had built up such a decent gap.

Otherwise I was happy to finish in 4th position as it could have ended a lot worse than that. It was a good race with an average speed over 1km/hr quicker than last year.