Jonkershoek National XC Cup 2009

start of the youth men

This was the first big race for 2009, the first S.A. XC Cup and I felt extremely prepared for this event. My mind was right and I was ready to race.

Thursday:

Craig Paul and myself flew into Cape Town Airport at 13:00 on Thursday. Luckily I didn't have to worry about boxing my bike as my dad drove down the night before with it. We arrived in the picture perfect town of Stellenbosch and began to get ready to go check out the new XC course at Jonkershoek.

We pulled into the venue at around 16:30 and managed to get in two decent laps of the brand new course.

Friday:

On Friday I met up with Rourke Croeser and we went to get a proper look at the different lines on course. Rourke, being very experienced gave me some really good lines to work with and I knew they would come into play on race day. half way through our 2nd lap it rained really hard and we had to rethink some of the lines, but fortunately the rain did not change them drastically.

Saturday (race day):

This was it, the big day. I was mentally prepared for the race and i knew my body was in good form. My race, being the last one of the day, I was able to sleep in. I rolled up to the start very relaxed but extremely focussed.
Off the start Myself and Arno du Toit attacked and manged to get a slight gap into the first single track. We continued to ride really hard over the next two laps and we managed to get a 5minute gap over the nearest competitors. Going into the 3rd lap I unfortunately suffered from a puncture on the entrance to the one single track. I lost a couple of minute but i was still in 2nd. However on the 4th lap I had pushed to hard to catch up and began making costly mistakes in the single track. Luckily with the biggap we had built up,I managed to keepmy 2nd position. I wasreally stoked with my performance, mainly because it has taken me three years to get a podium at this venue.
one of the lines over the rocks

The final results were as follows:

Youth Men:

1-Arno du Toit (Mr Price/Scott)1h40min24s
2-Brendon Davids (Team Jeep SA)1h44min15s
3-Michael Hughes (Maverick/Kona)1h48min19s

KZN High Performance MTB Camp

'the wheelie comp. the 2nd night of the camp'

Hey guys, well the HP camp was really fun but at the same time very interesting. Johann Wykerd, who organised the entire event, managed to get many people to come in and talk to us. Max Cluer, from Max Cluer sports marketing came and gave a speech on how to present yourself properly at an event. Dr. Stuart Rose came to give us a talk on the different test done at the lab down in Durban. These are to name but a few of the many people who gave us interesting talks.

I was also able to get in some training on the new world cup course at Cascades, with my team mate Craig Paul and friend James Reid (www.james-reid.blogspot.com) of the Life in Motion team.

All in all the entire event was absolutely fantastic. The talks were inspiring, the food wasgood and the riding was awesome.

I'm going down to the first National of the season, down at Jonkershoek-Stellenbosch and will be racing on Saturday the 10th of January. I'll keep you guys up to date... until then

ciao

Down at the Neethlings

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been updating my blog, i've completely lost track of the time.

Just a quick update, I've just comeout of base training and have started my intense work. Hopefully I'll have some form for the first national at Jonkershoek, in Stellenbosch from the 10-11 Jan.

I got back yesterday from visiting with the Neethlings, and spending new year with them. I did one really hard ride while down there, but i unfortunately didn't get to hit any of the awesome single track down there by the Oribi Gorge/Lake Eland area. The weather was also pretty bum while I was there so going to the beach was out of the question, and the one day we did manage to go, the sea was absolutely terrible!

I'm off to the first ever KZN High Performance camp, I'm pretty stoked I was accepted, I'll keep you guys posted and will let you know how things go. My next week is goingto be pretty packed as the HP Camp ends on Wednesday, and I fly out to Cape Town on Thursday for Nationals, so I'll try my best to keep you updated with whats happening.

Ciao.

HP Urban Rage- Presented by Jeep Apparel

On Sunday, 7th of December, we all climbed in our cars and made the trek down to uShaka Marine World, for the first ever HP Urban Rage in South Africa. We pulled into the gates of uShaka around 9:00am.

The amount of organization that had gone into the event was immense and I take my hat off to everyone who was involved in the making of such a memorable event.

Racing for me, started with the Cool Cats (teams of 2), with Darren Goddard and myself in a team. Unfortunately the race did not go very well as I suffered mechanicals with my bike, and took one MEGA bail. In the end we ended up just having a really fun ride.

My second event was the Alley Cats (Individual Race), and I was really super amped to try make it into the Final (Super Cats). I gave it my absolute all and raced as hard as I could. I chased down Candice Neethling, who had started at a one minute interval before me. I managed to catch her in the last 300m and pushed her as hard as we she could go. I unfortunately just missed out on the final, which was a real bummer.

The obstacles were really fun and got more difficult the harder you pushed yourself. The combination of drop offs, see-saws, floating bridges, wooden ramps and berms made this event one of the best, and one of the most well organized events I have ever been to.

Well Done to Phillip Buys and Candice Neethling on their wins.

This event must have taken a huge amount of work and perseverance and I was extremely impressed with how the entire event planned out. Congratulations to all the people who made the event such a fun and exciting one.

Team Jeep Weekend 14-16 November

Cumberland Nature Reserve were the hosts for the 2008 Team Jeep Weekend. The weekend began with the arrival of most of the team athletes on Friday, 14th November. We chilled and just had a good time on Friday night, catching up with some of the athletes who were rarely seen in KZN.

On Saturday morning most of us went for an early ride before breakfast and the team building exercises. We got back to the accommodation after the chilled ride and went to chill by the pool.

We were guided down to the team building area by the instructors. We were Split into 3 groups, and we were to tackle the the obstacle courses in the fastest time. The exercises consisted of 2 obstacle courses and 2 different exercise to build our trust in other team member-"trust fall"
Saturday night saw the commencement of the potjie competition between the 3 teams. Our team honestly had no clue as to what to do, we even had I.T. God - Dave Miller- looking up some recipes and in the end we just threw all the ingredients into the pot and let it cook, and to our surprise it turned out pretty well... but we lost to the "Baboons."

Sunday morning was ours to do as we wanted. We tucked into a good breakfast and after some team discussions with team management, Craig Paul and I left and rode back to Hilton.

The weekend was really cool and it was awesome to meet up with team members that we do not see very often. A big thanks to Max, Clint and Kita for a great weekend away.