Friday was a fairly chilled day. After arriving at around 10am, I met up with my coach and mentor, Burry Stander, for a couple laps around the high speed track. Its always super awesome to ride with Burry, theres always good advice or something new you can learn or pick up when riding with one of the worlds top mountain bike racers. Line choice, tyre choice, suspension pressures... the list can go on and on, its a major honor to be able to ride with someone so knowledgeable about the training, racing and recovery aspect of the sport!
Saturday morning dawned, with the Pro's and U23 field setting off at 12pm, I was able to have a super lazy morning. Eventually I rolled into the event along with my dad, got set up in the feed zone, hit a warm up and then... Race time. The start shoot was extremely loose gravel, which meant I had to get out front to try and avoid any trouble if there was shuffling for positions.
The count down started... My arms twitched as the former U23 World Champion Shifted on his bike as the time ticked ever closer to the gun... The gun cracked, and soon after, I found myself pinning it at the front as we charged towards the first corner. We made it around the sketchy first corner and hit a small climb up towards the first single track. I lead the group over the short spike and into the first single track. A group of 4 of us had managed to get clear already and we were now charging down the fast paced single track that brought us back towards the spectators. Unfortunately around the halfway mark of the first lap I dropped my chain and lost touch of the lead group. Ate getting it back on I was able to time trial myself back onto the tail of the group which was now being driven by James Reid (u23 rider-Team 360-Life), only to have it drop off yet again. This time it was a little bit more serious, the chain was wedged between the bottom-bracket and small chain ring. I stopped to fix it but lost valuable time and was now passed by Andrew Warr and Louis Knipe, leaving me in 6th place, around 30 seconds off the back of 4th and 5th place. And so began my game of "yo-yo," I was able to close the gap to Louis pretty fast, but then began chasing after Andrew Warr who was now in 3rd. In the midst of racing and chasing back, I hadn't even noticed that James Reid had had a puncture and was now back in 6th. After chasing back for a lap and a half I, I managed to ride myself back into 3rd Overall. But, yup, you guessed it, I dropped my chain... AGAIN... Louis caught back up to me, which meant I had to fix the chain and chase back to him. Over the final 3 laps, this is what would happen - Catch Louis, attack, get a gap, drop my chain, stop and fix it and then I would then chase down the 20-35second gap again... this went on and on, but I didn't let it bother me, I made the best of the opportunity and just got on with the task at hand. The last lap came around, fortunately this time I had managed to catch Louis before heading through onto the next lap. I immediately launched an attack and could see he was tiring, but Louis, being the power house that he is, would grind out a massive gear down a long flat piece of single track at the back and reel me in. I made two more attacks before getting a small gap, when again, my chain dropped... Louis came blazing past me as I stopped to fix the problem, but having lost 20seconds to him with less than a quarter of the lap to go it was going to be tough to get him back. I charged as hard as I could over the final sections of the track, but simply ran out of time. I crossed the line in 4th Overall and 1st U23, just over 3minutes behind Burry and Philip, and around 10seconds off Louis. Andrew Warr came in 5th with James Reid coming in strong at 6th!
So, a SUPER hard fought battle, but one that I am extremely ecstatic about! Im extremely happy with where my form is, going into next weekends big event, Round #1 of the SA XCO National MTB Series. Its my last race in Sunny South Africa before heading back State Side where I'll be racing the Mellow Johnny's Pro XCT #1! EXCITING TIMES!
A huge thanks once again to Burry Stander for all his help and input, Charles Stander for his advice and my dad for taking me all over the country side!
Until next time
Cheers
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