Hey Guys, today was the 2011 South African National XCM (marathon and half-marathon) championships, held at Inanda Dam just outside of Hillcrest. With a name like "The Valley of a Thousand Hills," racing was never going to be easy, especially with a title up for grabs in the Junior/Half Marathon Category.
Having ridden the 90 odd kilometer loop with Burry on Thursday, I felt pretty familiar with the area and felt ready for anything and everything that could possibly be thrown at me. After a pretty brisk warm up, the juniors took to the start line to attack the roads that lead skyward in every direction.
We rolled off the line and onto the long winding road that lead out of the Inanda dam resort at 8am sharp. As we made our turn onto the gravel road around 1km from the start, it was clear that the boys were going to go all out! We hit the first climb and Luke Roberts made his presence known, as he split the bunch into one long line, which slowly broke into a small elite group of 4 or 5 riders up front. We approached one of the steeper climbs of the day - my opportunity presented itself... I put in a hard pull up front and managed to break the group up a little more. Only one rider (Raymond Oosterlaak) was willing to respond and so began our break away. We worked well as we approached the summit, and had managed to open a good gap over the group of chasers. I managed to push myself little harder over the top of the climb, leaving my compatriot behind. From there on I managed to hit the route hard, slightly increasing my lead to round 1minute. Unfortunately I made a stupid mistake by trying to go around a river crossing,which ended up costing me my lead and allowing Luke Roberts to catch back up to me.
Now together,the tactical racing began. Luke would surge to try break the gap, then I would surge to try and counter, a tactical game of cat and mouse. Eventually we found ourselves entering a super fast section a single track where disaster struck. A very dangerous section popped out of nowhere, and to put things into simple perspective, I utterly destroyed my front tyre. A huge hole, the size of my finger had been sliced into my side wall which inevitably forced me to stop, leaving Luke to open a gap. I had to shove two rubber plugs into my side wall to simply try an fix the problem. It was a shocking attempt at a fix, as the air was slowly leaking, but I felt it was enough to last to the finish. Now by this time I had lost my 2nd position and was about to lose my 3rd, By keeping calm and staying unphased I mounted my bike and began my attempt to try reclaim the lead which was now around 2minutes ahead of me.
I soon found myself back on the wheel of Dylan Hattingh (now 2nd) and almost instantly set my sights on clawing my way back to the lead. At the 15km to go mark I got news that I was only 1minute down and could now see Luke ahead of me. With around 5 or 6km to go he was only 35seconds up on me, but now I was also fighting a tyre that was furociously wanting to roll off the rim. With 3km to go the traffic between the 20km back markers became mayhem. I tried to ride around an overenthusiastic back marker, who completely misunderstood my plead for "TRACK, COMMING on your right!" which lead to me rolling my tyre completely off my rim and I subsequently hit the deck,hard. I stumbled to my feet to see a very sad and miserable looking race machine lying in a heap. I straddled the bike once more and went as fast as humanly possible, bearing in mind that riding with a tyre that continuosly rolls both on and off the rim, is like riding on an ice rink, with a few million marbles chucked on for good measure. With only 200-300 meters to go, Dylan Hattingh came blaring passed me leaving me to cross the line in 3rd, 2minutes down on Luke.
A very disappointing day in the office. A much better performance from the previous week, at least I now have my geometery dialled. Time to start preparring for the World Cup in PMB... get down to Pietermaritzburg for this world class event to watch the besthat both South Africa and the World have to offer!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment