KZN XCO Cup #2

Hey guys, sorry for such a late post on the past weekends race! I've been running around trying to finalize everything before heading over to the States.

On Sunday was the 2nd round of the KZN XCO series and was heald at the Roy Hesketh race track. The track was relatively short and fast, around an eleven minute lap, but super fun!

The new batch format meant that both Youth, Juniors and Elites could all race together, making racing a lot more intense, a lot more tricky and much, much more interesting. "A" batch lined up at around 8:00 and to my surprise, was rather large. A couple of the usual favourites were there, James Reid, Travis Walker, Paddy Belton, racing would be tough.

The whistle went, with a lightning fast start from Travis the racing soon took flight. James and I managed to snake our way through the bunch from around 4th and 5th. James and I sat at the front of the lead bunch for the first lap and then managed to put a hard surge in creating a gap on the rest of the riders.

From lap 2 James and I rode at a really high tempo, just hard enough to maintain the 1minute gap that had opened up between us and 3rd. The laps flew by and before we knew it we were racing into lap 5. We began to race a little harder, pushing it to try and find fault or weakness in each other. This went on until lap 9, the final lap. We tried our luck at dropping one another, but to no avail. A sprint finish it would be. With us entering the last few hundred meters James tried to create a gap once again. Luckily I managed to cover the attack and sat on hit wheel as we entered the last piece of single track. As we dropped off the single track onto the short piece of tar towards the finish, the sprint opened up. James and I kicked at the exact same time, I managed to pick up some speed, but ran out of runway. James pipped me to the line in a very hard fought sprint! Top notch riding by him!

Thanks to Nick Floros for putting together such an awesome race!

Now my final prep for the USA is underway, I'm busy running around trying to organize my visa and flights before the planned departure date of the 29th.

Until next time
B