KZN Champs.

This weekend saw the team racing KZN champs at Cascades and what a track KZN mtb had put together. Unfortunately I didn't have time to pre ride the course. I have ridden most of the trails in the area and Trav gave me a run down on the layout, so I had a good idea.

The start was nice and fast and Brendon and I slipped off the front early on.

I took the first few laps easy to get a good idea of the track, Brendon set a good pace and we opened a sizeable lead by the end of the lap.

I sat in for the next two laps waiting for the right time to make my move. I could see I was faster on the climbs and half way through lap three of seven I made my move, on one of the harder climbs on course. I opened a gap which gap grew lap by lap. By the end I had opened a 1min 30 lead.

I am really happy with my ride, my mind is fresh and I'm ready for another big block of training.

AFRISKI C1 LESOTHO.

You may think the team gets to spend a lot of time together, in fact its the opposite. Most of us are racing in different parts of the country on the same weekend. When we do, we make the most of it. Spending 7hrs in a van with a bunch of guys is always entertaining. We arrived late friday afternoon to lessen the effects of altitude. 

The vibe in the little ski village was awesome and the buffet dinner went down well.

For those of you who didn't know the race was held at 3273m above sea level. Yes, breathing was difficult and to think of racing up there was crazy.

After last weekends disappointing ride it was crucial to get a good result, not only for myself but for my commonwealth hopes. Its not easy coming back from such a poor performance, many unnecessary questions go unanswered. Losing is the easy part, bouncing back is really tough part.

The 7 lap race wasn't technical, altitude would take care everything. I didn't have the greatest of starts and got caught up behind a small crash. James got away early on lap two, leaving Philip and myself chasing hard. Phil dropped off at the end of lap three which left me in second. The race was far from over. A big chase group formed and all the riders chasing were capable of riding back. Racing at altitude is a massive psychological game, who ever can suffer most will win.

I am not in the best form of my life, I had to dig deep to hold off the chasers. David Fletcher (OMProteam) caught me with two laps to go. He wouldn’t work with me knowing it was important for me to come second South African. On the final climb he made his move. I tried to go with him but didn’t have it in the tank.

After having time to analyse the event, I am happy with my performance. 

You learn a lot when you overcome difficult times. I have worked hard to have the support structure I do and the people I have around me are really good at doing their part. Thank you all.

WORLD CUP #1

It’s difficult enough writing a race report of any worth, it gets even more tricky writing one without sounding like you making excuses.

I have had some time to reflect on the weekends race, and it has put things into perspective.

The race didn’t go according to plan. Its mind blowing how you can put months of hard work, hundreds of hours in on the bike and thousands of Rands into preparation and simply, you have a bad day. Most cyclists know from the very first pedal stroke what kind of day they having. So I won’t bore you with reasons as to why and blame it on some illness I didn’t have. I had a bad day, simple.

There were some great things to come out of this event. To see the first ever African team set up in the pits of a World Cup arena was awesome and what a privilege to be a part of it. The sponsors our team owner Shaun Peschl has put together are unbelievable.

Im sure you guys have seen the new bike Victor brought out especially for the WC and what a beautiful bike she is, it was really cool having Victor hang around the arena and give us some insight into his world. I’m sure he would agree, all of us learnt a lot. It was also a great privilege to have Stephen from QUICKROCK round for the weekend. To Warren and Shaun thanks for making sure everything was perfect and to all of you that support and follow me, I’ll be back.

Sugar Rush.....

This weekend saw the second running of the Sugar Rush classic. It's not often you get to roll out of bed an hour and half before go time, have breakfast and ride 15min to the start of a race.

It had been a CRAZY hard week of training , with the World Cup just a week away the focus was on high intensity training. I was using this event as my last quality session. I was given the go ahead by my coach to ride on how I feel. And that I did, I couldn’t believe how good I felt on the day, it was one of those days you wish you could bottle up and keep for the big day. 

It was awesome having Travis come down for the race, he added to a quality field and hats off to a few of the junior riders. There is some great talent coming though the ranks.

Trav got off the line and headed straight to the front, he didn’t let anyone come though for a solid 30min. Under instructions to give 200%, not a fun day out for others. It set things nicely up for me, I got to test my legs where it counted. On the major climb of the day I went to the front and set a hard tempo, with the goal to make my move on the final climb of the day, with less then 10km to go. 

It's not often things work out the way you plan but it sure is sweet when it does. On the final climb I opened the taps and put my head down not looking back until I hit the finish line. I must say this was one of the better tracks I have ridden on the North coast, well done to the Sugar Rush team.

Another great weekend for the KargoProMTB with 5 podiums, Paul Rodenbach in the Cape, Our youngster Marko in PE. Travis, James and myself on the North Coast. Again thank you to everyone who makes this happen.