After arriving on Thursday morning we decided to go check out the course.
The national was to be held at the newly established Mankele Bike Park, just outside Nelspruit and very close to the Sudwala caves. We pulled in at the gates, and from what we could see the area looked VERY hilly. But the venue looked really awesome and I was super keen to hit the track. I took to the course and had not even completed a lap before I managed to puncture my back tyre.
On Friday we were again at the track, checking out lines and making last minute checks on the bike. While riding I kept checking out my back tyre and soon realized I needed a new one as my tyre kept going flat. Fortunately my dad had phoned friends in Pretoria and a tyre and a bottle of Stan’s was on the way. After practice I cleaned my bike and then we decided to visit the Sudwala caves. It was really cool and thereafter we all headed out to Graskop for some seriously good pancakes.
On Saturday I was able to lie in as my race was only at 13:30, the last race of the day. During the course of the day I took it really easy. Taking in a lot of fluid and staying chilled. We decided to leave the house a bit earlier to go and support some of the races before mine. The day seemed to take forever and eventually my race came.
I was seeded 8th after having a DNF in Pretoria. I still managed to sneak into the front row, next to Travis Walker. The start was really fast, and went into a really tight first corner. I was the second rider to the corner but having the outside line, I had to scrub off a ton off speed to make the corner, and I lost a couple of places, but then jumped into a good position in the pack.
On the first lap I managed to work my way up the pack into the top three, but then disaster struck. I came into a really rough section way too fast, and managed to crack or strip the bolts in my head set. This caused my bars to swing down, and I flung over the handle bars. I recovered from the fall and raced as hard as I could to the feed zone where Johann Wykerd and my dad assisted by re fastening the bars. It was during this time that I l slipped further down the standings and by the time I got going again, I had dropped to 6th position.
I then went as hard as I could to close the gap and managed to catch Luke Roberts (5th). But soon after catching him my bars came loose again and I slowed right down to retighten them. This caused me to lose a huge amount of time. For my final two laps I got over it and went balls to the wall only stopping to tighten my bars when I absolutely had to. I took huge chances in the very technical single tracks, but could only slightly close the gap, despite all the stopping. I still managed to secure a 6th position.
I was very disappointed with my result as I really wanted to do well and I felt really strong, right to the finish, but you can’t always have a good race I guess:-)
That evening we all had a braai at the venue, watched the 4 cross racing and finished off the evening with a live performance by Prime Circle playing the concert, it was AWESOME!!!
In all the course was really awesome, I loved it, it was really technical and had some good climbing. I rate the course as one of the best the XC circuit has to offer.
Well-done to the guys who put in such a huge effort. Look forward to the next race up that side- Hazyview!!!
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