RESULT: 1st OVERALL
Sunday welcomed the mountain bikers with spectacular weather for a winters morning. By the start of the race it was already very warm and everyone was looking forward to a hot days racing.
The 50km classic started off with a short neutral zone along the tar roads of the Zini estate and we were quickly unleashed onto the dirt roads around the estate. It started off with only myself and Nick Porteous willing to do any work on the front, so I knew with this being a fairly flat and fast course I had to try and split things up early. On the first climb of the day I put in a small attack to try whittle down the size of the group. We were now down to a group of 5 riders.
Unfortunately it was still only Nick who was willing to help on the front so up the next steep muddy climb I tried another attack and this time I got away on my own, so I set about maintaining a hard pace to try break up the chase group. After some time I could see there was a lone cyclist chasing me and it was Dave Leiman who also races for THULE South Africa as a mountain biker. I figured it would be smarter to work with Dave rather than attempt to stay out front alone, so I sat up and we then set about working together to get out of sight from the chasers.
It was a very enjoyable ride from then and we worked well together to maintain the gap. Coming into the last 6km we entered some fantastic ‘mangrove’ single track and I used this as my opportunity to make a break from Dave. I pushed extremely hard through the tight twisting single track and arrived at the finish with the win and a gap of 4mins over Dave, Nick Porteous came in for 3rd, a good effort after being on his own most of the way.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the event and look forward to the rest of the BIG 5 MTB series.
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