start of the youth men
This was the first big race for 2009, the first S.A. XC Cup and I felt extremely prepared for this event. My mind was right and I was ready to race.
Thursday:
Craig Paul and myself flew into Cape Town Airport at 13:00 on Thursday. Luckily I didn't have to worry about boxing my bike as my dad drove down the night before with it. We arrived in the picture perfect town of Stellenbosch and began to get ready to go check out the new XC course at Jonkershoek.
We pulled into the venue at around 16:30 and managed to get in two decent laps of the brand new course.
Friday:
On Friday I met up with Rourke Croeser and we went to get a proper look at the different lines on course. Rourke, being very experienced gave me some really good lines to work with and I knew they would come into play on race day. half way through our 2nd lap it rained really hard and we had to rethink some of the lines, but fortunately the rain did not change them drastically.
Saturday (race day):
This was it, the big day. I was mentally prepared for the race and i knew my body was in good form. My race, being the last one of the day, I was able to sleep in. I rolled up to the start very relaxed but extremely focussed.
Off the start Myself and Arno du Toit attacked and manged to get a slight gap into the first single track. We continued to ride really hard over the next two laps and we managed to get a 5minute gap over the nearest competitors. Going into the 3rd lap I unfortunately suffered from a puncture on the entrance to the one single track. I lost a couple of minute but i was still in 2nd. However on the 4th lap I had pushed to hard to catch up and began making costly mistakes in the single track. Luckily with the biggap we had built up,I managed to keepmy 2nd position. I wasreally stoked with my performance, mainly because it has taken me three years to get a podium at this venue.
one of the lines over the rocks
The final results were as follows:
Youth Men:
1-Arno du Toit (Mr Price/Scott)1h40min24s
2-Brendon Davids (Team Jeep SA)1h44min15s
3-Michael Hughes (Maverick/Kona)1h48min19s
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