Then came the u16 Red Sprint Shoot out on Saturday afternoon. The course was set over a very short grass track on the polo fields, and was littered with different obstacles. The qualifying went off pretty well, and I was tied for first after a decent run. Then came the final. The start was really hot from the word go with Jac-Johan Steyn leading it up front, but unfortunately, nearing the end of lap #1 0f 6, Jac made a crucial mistake and bought a big piece of some Karkloof Property.
I jumped on the anchors really hard to avoid the accident and this gave Arno du Toit a really good opportunity to pass on the right and take the early lead. He Managed to open a couple of bike lengths on me, and I was forced to chase him down. Eventually after two laps of brutal sprinting I latched onto him, and managed to catch him off guard going into one corner on lap 4. On lap 5 I decided to really push, and managed to open a very slight gap. I came onto the last bridge really hard and made a bad mistake, jumping to the bottom and nearly crashing in the process, this really scrubbed off all my speed and I was even more surprised to find out that they had made the race 5 laps and it was now a print to the finish. I got my speed up as quick as possible, and Arno and I crossed the line together, a photo finish with the chief commasaire deciding the final result as it was such a close call. The win went to Arno and I was placed second. With that result in the bag, we headed for home , to return the next morning for the 40km race.
We arrived real early at the polo fields on Sunday morning for the main events of the weekend, the Karkloof Classic 75km and 45km. The temp was only 4 degrees and I really felt sorry for the marathon riders leaving at 8:00am!
At around 8:45 we were eventually let onto our start after what seemed like a really long wait. The start this year seemed way slower than the years before, with all the top junior and youth riders being there, as we were just waiting to see who'd brake the ice. As soon as we hit the district road, Adriaan Louw (DCM Chrome) attacked and the bunch split up really quickly, with about eight of us in total giving chase.
The bunch reduced to about seven of us as we climbed the first climb on Renee Stubbs' farm and to tell the truth my legs were feeling the hurt after the sprint shoot out the previous afternoon. But I hung in and at the top of the long, sluggishly slow climb I came to the front and pushed hard in an effort to try split the teams that were with us. The pace was heating up all the time and the attacks showed no signs of stopping.
Luke Roberts (maverick) and I needed to separate the teams before they really began to work with each other to drop the us. Luke rode the climbs really hard but the guys kept clawing their way onto the back of him.
On the really rough technical stuff, I would manage to brake up the line of riders but the teams would work together and catch back up on the open sections again and the pace remained relentless the entire time.
Unfortunately Luke dropped off just after Half way, and I was left to fend for myself against the two teams of DCM Chrome and Mr Price Scott, each consisting of 2 very capable riders. I countered every surge and attack that came, but as I would catch one rider, the others would attack from behind. As we hit the King of the Mountain (KOM) I dropped off from the bunch. I rode comfortably at a pretty fast pace, just to try find my legs and hopefully claw my way back into the bunch again at a later stage. Luckily there was a really long single track after the KOM and I slowly closed the guys down. With 5km to go I was totally border line outta control through the single track. This section rade so well and I let it all hang out but 2km or so to go,I was caught behind back markers from the 20km going through a mud puddle. Adriaan(DCM) and Arno(Mr Price Scott) opened up a gap of about 40sec gap on me at this stage.
When I got the chance I got passed the slower riders and I pushed myself to the absolute braking point and managed to finish in 5th place just under 20 seconds behind Arno. Travis Walker (DCM Chrome)claimed the honours on the day ahead of James Reid (Mr Price Scott) with Adriaan, Arno and I rounding up the top 5.
The race was absolutely brutal from start to finish, and the pace was blistering. The racing was also really tight, and the high quality of racing was certainly seen by all.
Congrats to Andrew Nicholson and his team for putting such an awesome event together and a special thanks to Rene Stubbs,Bruce Mackenzie, Blake Makenzie, Guy Solomon and Sappi for allowing us to ride on there farms.
No comments:
Post a Comment