An extremely cold and early morning saw us to the first ever Juicy Luicy Classic. Situated in Mid Illovo surrounded by HILLS and sugar cane. The organization looked very well-done, and the conditions were looking to be set for an awesome days racing. Surprisingly some of the top racers were there, Dave Lieman, Andrew Warr, Jedson Tooms and Carl Calvarly.
Racing was off at 9:00am. A neutral zone for the first couple of hundred meters, had the field get really anxious to race. As the lead bike pulled off the racing began. Jedson was the first to put down the hammer followed by David Lieman and Andrew Warr. Carl and myself caught up and soon were in a pack with Bruce Hughes, Jedson, Carl and myself, with Dave and Andrew ahead. A couple of kilometers down the road I put in a big attack, in an attempt to catch Dave as I was keen to try and race with him and also try to learn from him at the same time..
I slowly began to close the gap and was soon in third place with Dave only metres ahead of m, but I ended up taking the wrong route through the river and lost all the time I had gained. The chasing pack then caught me on the other side of the river and I decided to settled down and try a break a little later once I had been able to assess the other riders after some distance.
Carl, Jedson and I now were in a pack taking up third , fourth and fifth place respectively and were really working well together. We were really pushing the pace, and we received news from the camera crew that we were closing on Dave Lieman again, which really got the motivation going again
But just after that tragedy struck, whilst descending before the water point really fast, in an effort to close down Jedson and Karl who were about 20 meters in front after a small break away, I hit a huge rock and flattened my tire completely. I stopped and bombed it and was going again soon after, but my stop had allowed them to break away and I decided to really give it everything again in an attempt to try and catch them, but in doing so I blew and just had to maintain my pace and ride to finish in fifth place overall and 1st youth rider. I would just like to give a major thanks to Carl and Jedson for the fantastic ride and Johann Wykerd for his assistance with my bike before the start of the race
The course was Extremely tough, very nasty hills, but very well organized, great first impression guys… well done!
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