Cascades Provincial Cup #2

I woke up today feeling confident because i feel that i am fit and strong at the moment. I decided to ride down to the track because its close to my house. I was hoping for rain today which would have made the track a lot more technical but the weather held out. I got a very good start and when i got to the first part of the singletrack i had already pulled a gap from the others. Once i had gone through the feed zone for the first time i could just go out there and race my own race. The Elite started when i came through for my third lap and i decided to work my way up through their field. I was very pleased that i managed to pass quite a few riders who got podium finishes. The course has a lot of steep uphills which are challenging, the singletrack was slippery in places but in all i really enjoyed my race. Well done to Sbu, my team-mate, who had a very good ride and he had a podium finish.

The next Cup Race is in Uvongo on the 8th of March.

SA MTB #2 Mankele, Nelspruit

On Wednesday evening the team had to stay over at Johann's house because the plan was to depart in the early hours of Thursday morning. Woke up all packed and ready to go camping, we left at 4am. The trip was very long. We got there around 12pm. We unpacked, put up our tents and went off to check out the track. The track had been altered from what it was last year. It had more easy flowing singletrack and an awesome desending rock garden. The track was also a bit muddy because it had been raining for the past week.
Race day arrived with us all filled with pre-race nerves. I knew that the track was going to be hard so i never went out fast. On my first lap going through the rock garden i took the wrong line resulting in me hitting a rock and i got a puncture. I then had to run to the tech zone where i got a spare front wheel from Kim Phillips. By this time i had dropped to 24th overall. I had to push hard and I did in fact have such a great time riding out there. In the end i managed to finish 9th overall. My team mate James reid had such an amazing race as he finish with a fantastic 1st overall. Congrats.
The next national is coming up and we will be travelling down to George where i'm hoping to have a podium finish this time.

Stainbank Provincial #1

Sunday the 1st of Feb the day of the 1st provincial. The weather was looking up and i was feeling good about the race. The track was a bit muddy and it had some awesome singletrack. The race started on an uphill which meant that the start was not going to be very fast. My team mate, James Reid, and i broke away from the word "go". We were setting a steady pace and then on the 2nd lap james went through a rock garden where he unfortunately got a puncture and had to run to the tech zone, where he managed to have it fixed quickly so he was able to get back into the race. Without my team-mate it was not as challenging and i had a very lonely race but in the end i had finished in 1st place and James reid in 3rd.