HOME TOWN CAT1

Firstly, a shout out to Cycling South Africa. Not many understand the importance of having Cat1 events in our home country. Usually teams have to spend thousands getting us to these events around the world. South African XCO athletes are going to benefit tremendously from this. THANK YOU!

After spending much of the week on the indoor trainer, I finally managed to get in a lap on the Cascades track, and what a track Nick has put together. I think some people are going to be surprised come the first world cup :-)

I had the perfect start and got the hole-shot. I set a hard pace on lap one, I wanted to split the group as quickly as possible. After the first lap Phil, Brendon and myself had a 25second lead. All credit to them they threw everything at me on lap two and made me pay for my first lap efforts.

By the end of lap two, the three of us had split. Phil up front Brendon in second and myself in third. I could see them through out the lap. I didn't have the firepower to close them down and I was really slow on the descents. My hand and shoulder seemed to be holding up, with the thought of commonwealth selection in mind. Not much would stop me.

I managed to get a good rhythm on laps four and five. Consistency gets results. Even when you have guys breathing down your neck its important to keep consistent and stick to your game plan. I fought hard and ended the day in third.

It was a great day for the team with three Kargo athletes on the podium.

Not a lot has gone my way over the past couple weeks. To fight through some pain, did well for my confidence. The season is still so young and with the support of my team, support staff, manager and sponsors a lot is still possible.

Thanks to the guys from Momsen for getting me some awesome new bits before this weekend. The Stans VALORS turned some heads. Also thanks to Warren and Shaun for making sure the weekend ran smoothly.

REALITY CHECK.

Taking health and fitness for granted is one of the greatest sins. There is nothing worse then wanting to race your bike and not being able to ride due to injury. Never get complacent, always follow the steps you took to get you where you are today.

We arrived in mother City on Thursday afternoon and headed to the Argus EXPO. 

It was awesome being able to spend some time at the Momsen stand discussing some of the 2015 gear. Lets just say we have a lot to look forward to :-). After collecting some fresh rubber and bits from Nike we headed to our accommodation just out side Grabouw. Thanks to Paul Rodenbosch and his Parents for having us at there lovely hotel (Houw Hoek). 

I finished building my bike. 

And headed out for a short spin which turned out to be a terrible idea. Im not entirely sure what happened but the out come wasn’t great. I stumbled in to the accommodation a little worse for wear.

Shaun managed to put me back together that evening. The next morning we went to the pharmacy to get some more aid. Trav and Paul headed out for a few practice laps whilst I went out on the road. The track was the same as Conti champs, so it wasn’t a train smash that I didn’t do a few laps.

I had a false sense of hope that my hand would be ok ,come race day. I was going to give it my best no matter how sore. Race day came,we strapped up my hand pretty well.

I couldn’t t stand and sprint, so my start wasn't t great but I made the front group. The first half of the track was pretty much uphill and my hand wasn’t much of a problem. Going down was another story, its not often I feel out of control on my bike. For the first time it felt like I could really hurt myself, I couldn’t hold the bar. It didn’t matter how much of a death grip I gave the bar, the muscle was too torn and bruised to hold on.

Its never nice having to throw in the towel. Its times like this where your support staff become ever more important. It is easy to fall in a hole and feel sorry for yourself instead of doing everything in your power to fix the problem. 

Congrats to Trav and Paul for putting together some great results for the team.