Tour De Kranz 45km

Arrived to a relatively fair temperture, though the wind was pretty strong and chilly. After a good warm up I lined up at the start not getting a good start position. On the start it was quite a struggle to get around a few guys and had to sprint to chase the rest of the field, nearly bailing on the first left hand corner in the process.

My legs really weren't feeling great so I kept to myself finding a steady pace just behind the main front bunch. My legs just never wanted to warm up and it was really frustrating to have to hold back on the first 15/20km. But soon enough I started to feel great and pushed hard on first really tough climb,and the extremely windy piece of road where I was able to pick up 10 places. I was really getting into a good rthym when i made stupid error and missed judged a loose corner at the bottom of a decent and took a really bad bail. But got up and pushed through and caught back my position.

I manged to finish 5 junior and 41 overall ( not a good result). I really need to find out whats making my legs take so long to warm up. But this result should push me up into second place in the Roag series.

Cowan House 40km Mtb

Arrived at the race to find very cold and very windy conditions. The wind was the main chill factor as the wind was coming off the snow on the surrounding mountains. You could definitely see who all the Hilton and Maritzburg locals were as they all braved the cold with no warm gear. After a very quick warm up which pretty much had no warming effect, we all lined up on the start with a relatively small batch of riders.

There was supposedly a neutral zoned start but i don't think anyone really saw it that way. The pace was fast on the front and I tried to keep up with the group. After 1.5km my legs were not warming up at all and i was forced to drop back to the next group. While managing to keep up with them I wasn't really finding a rhythm, my quads were really cold and very sore. At 9km into the race I crashed into a small tree trunk stump thing, where I hit my knee badly causing a really sore throbbing pain in my knee cap. Unknowingly I also lost my water bottle and only realized at 11km. Fortunately at the next water point they gave me a bottle of powerade which turned out to be powerade concentrate, but it was better than nothing so i just had to sip on it slowly. Soon Ross van der Merwe caught me and we rode the next 8km together. My legs were finally warm and I decided to make a move up the king of the mountain climb where i couldn't seem to get him off my wheel. It wasn't until the next single-track piece where i decided to take some risks and created a very small gap on Ross. I slowly began to open up the gap on the next few downhill pieces. I had to keep a very good pace on the climbs because i knew Ross was stronger than me on them. Soon I couldn't see Ross anymore, but in the back of my mind knew I had to drive it home to stay ahead.

I managed to finish in 2hr11min and finish 4th Junior in the tough windy conditions.

Ellovo Eston 40km Mtb

Woke up with sore legs from the day before and I instantly knew my race was gonna be tough. Driving up knew that I had to pace myself and ride sensibly to finish in a good position.

On the first 3km climb I felt just how sore my legs really were, but i was managing to hang on to 5th junior just ahead on Travis Deacon and Ross van der Merwe. At around 20km I was caught by Travis and Ross but managed to hang on to them on the single track sections. Soon me and Ross and two other riders broke away from Travis who made a mistake in the single-track at 25km. Unfortunately at 30km I slashed my rear tire and had to stop to put in a tube only to find that my bomb was empty and I had to wait for 5/10min for someone to give me a bomb. By that time i knew i wouldn't be able to catch up the others so I decided to rather stay with Robin Ryan and help her catch her next opposition who was just up the track from her. Unfortunately we never caught her, and i finished in 2hrs and 7 Junior.

Was a good race just unfortunate about the puncture, can't wait until the next race.

KZN Schools XC #4 Epworth

Driving on the way up to Epworth, I was expecting a typical cold day up martizburg way, only to arrive in jeans and a jacket to 30 degree weather with a very hot berg wind. The course I arrived to was very short, about 2/2.5km laps and had some supposed bull runs that were very simple and straight forward. The race was going to be extremely fast and high tempo.

After relaxing for around two hours before the Junior's race i did a very short warm up as the heat was unbearable. I felt fairly confident coming into this race and I had a set plan to do well. We all line up on the start line and the weather thankfully began to cool down. The start was a straight sprint to the first sharp right hand corner and i managed to get into third behind Dylan Kirby and Keaton Korevaar.

The first lap was extremely fast and i wasnt sure whether I could hold the pace, but lucky Dylan dropped off the front and the pace slowed allowing me to regroup a bit. From then on it was me and Keaton Korevaar the entire way. My plan was to sit behind him and let him do the work in the wind, and i stuck to my plan for 5 of the 7 laps. We kept a very fast consistent pace pulling a big gap on the field. On the sixth lap i decided to see how strong he was and put a bit of a sprint up one of the "climbs", I could see he was quite shocked by the move and he quickly caught me again, taking his position back in front. On the last lap, on the last climb i decided to make a move, and tired to sprint past on the outside, this ended in a big tussle for the next corner where he made a smart block forcing me to unclip and regain control. By then it was to late and the gap was to big to close in the final 300 meters.

                                                         

                                                                The supposed "bull run".

Was a very good race and enjoyed it tremendously. It gave me some confidence knowing that i had some good form.

Blog Decisions...

Think the blog is gonna just become about cycling, mainly mtb, it's really been frustrating trying to customize lots of individual pages, so i'm going to stick with one page design to suit all pages. I'm still thinking of other pages to put in at the moment, but it's a working progress. Otherwise blog is pretty much done so i'm stoked.

On the Mtb front, i'm super keen for next two races coming up, Mongoose Schools X.C, and the Ellovo Eston 40km which is the day after. I should be in good form for both of them, but its getting tough coming up to matric trial exams trying to balance training and studying. But it should be fun.

Why I started a blog.

I've started blogging now, cause I've always wanted to be a blogger. I've also set up a few blogging sites for other people and felt that I might as well give it a go. So here we go.......

I'm not to sure what I want this blog to be about just yet. But i'm looking along the lines of it becoming a sports blog, mainly to do with cycling (my racing) and surfing (my hobby). It should have quite a few pages to it in the near future like a photography page, race diary, surf forecasts and news, video gallery, biography page and race calendar etc. What i really want is for it to be super interactive, very functional and interesting.

So i'll be working on getting this blog up and running within the next week or so. Lets see what the future holds.....maybe i'll become a popular blogger. :-)