We were up at sparrows fart to get to the typical early morning start of all road races. We arrived and went straight to register and get my bike rolled in (to have the gearing checked-Juniors race with lighter gear ratios than that of elites and older). Then came the warm up... with the cold morning conditions it was pretty hard to try and get warmed up, so I made the best of what I had and rode around in a big circle. Then came race time, at least it was delayed by around 20 or so minutes, which meant the start was at around 07:30, still a tad earlier than most mountain bike races.
The juniors started with the elites and under 23 riders, which meant only one thing... the racing was going to be hard and fast. With names like Chris Jennings, Dave Leiman,Andrew Warr and Myles van Musschenbroek things were not going to be easy. As we left the dam the pace stayed pretty moderate, with no one getting away from the bunch. By the time we got to the main climb of the race, the bunch was still very much intact. A few of the top riders came to the front and blew the bunch to pieces. At the steepest part of the climb I saw a chance to try and make a break, so I took the leap and made my move... I managed to get a good gap and felt like I was super humanly strong, until I sat down to get into a rhythm... that when the wheels fell off. The remainder of the bunch caught and blew me out the back, along with another rider. Fortunately I recovered really quickly and managed to time trial my way onto the bunch again.
The lead bunch was now around 15 strong, and we were now on the long gradual climb which winds its way all the way to Nottingham Road (25-30km long). The bunch continued to whittled down and only a few of the top riders were left with the ever increasing pace, riders were being dropped off the back all the time. Myles, a fellow junior rider, put in a really big effort at Michaelhouse and managed to get a gap of around 10 seconds on the bunch. Dave Leiman bridged the gap, which definitely made the bunch react with a chase. The gap slowly began to come down, and eventually the junction was made, almost instantly a counter attack went off the side with Dave Leiman. Chris Jennings, Mike Aidey and I went with. In the pandemonium I heard the most diabolical sound come from behind me... I looked back and saw a rider hit the deck hard. Unfortunately it was Myles who'd made a small mistake which lead him to practice some high speed bush diving.
The bunch was now down to 7, with me being the only junior present, so things were definitely looking very good.
Then to my amazement, with about 47km to go, my rear shifter snapped clean off which meant I only had one gear to push to the finish. I tried to dig deep, but I couldn't hold onto the disgustingly hard pace that Chris was now setting on the rough road just outside Notties heading towards the N3 and I was spat out the back of the bunch now only 4 riders strong.
And so began my 47 odd kilometer time trial back to the Midmar dam.
Luckily I managed to catch one of the other riders who had lost contact of the lead group as well. We began to really work well together, with me pushing on the flats and downhills, and him helping me on the up's. Eventually we arrived back at Midmar, with cramp nipping at my heels. I'd managed to make up a place crossing the line in 6th place from the elite starting batch and was the 1st junior home about four and a half minutes ahead of the next junior, a result I was really stoked with.
Now comes Amashova and then I will be back on the bike to start my base training in preparation for the 2011 season !!!
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