Telkom Satellite challenge
The event was held at the Hartebeeshoek Satellite Station, just outside Johannesburg. It’s a popular event amongst cyclist with a vast number of participants.
Even as the woman’s group started the 107km race, a string of cars were still waiting on the road to get into the parking area. Come to think of it, getting up so early to start amongst the first groups is actually not that bad….
The woman’s field was very strong, with all the major teams coming out to do this event. Also with the continental games coming up in 2 weeks time, we even had international riders in our group, a Mauritian, Namibian and a Zimbabwean.
The race was made hard from the start with all the teams consistently launching attacks in an attempt to get their riders down the road.
As the bunch came up to the hot spot sprint, Roben de Groot (Nashua) and Ashleigh Moolman (Cycle lab) were the two girls challenging each other to the line. As they crossed the hot spot line they managed to open a small gap on the rest of the field. On realizing this, they put their heads down in an effort to extend their time gap. Marissa van der Merwe (MTN) quickly responded and bridged across to the break.
This break, that at first appeared to be a hot spot sprint, now suddenly turned out to be very dangerous to the rest of us who didn’t have a team mate present in the break.
Only 4 girls (Jenny Stennerhag, Lise Olivier, Arien Torsius and I) worked hard up front trying to bring the break back.
As we closed the gap on the 3 girls that were in front, Cashandra Slingerland (Team MTN) launched a counter attack. I immediately follower her with Arien Torsius (Dilila), Lizanne Naude (Cycle lab) and An-Li Pretorius (Nashua) behind me.
This formed the final break of the day as we headed towards the most challenging part of the day- Hekpoort climb.
The road leading towards Hekpoort is quite hilly and a headwind made it extra hard.
At the bottom of Hekpoort it was only Lizanne Naude (Cycle lab) and myself (Konica Minolta) left of the break away group, with the main bunch breathing down our necks.
On the climb I focussed on a good rhythm and tempo as I made my way to the top of Hekpoort. As we crested the hill, Anriette Schoeman (Nashua) and Ashleigh Moolman (Cycle lab) rode clear from the main bunch, and crossed to Lizanne and me.
With 10 km left to the finish, the 4 of us worked together as best as riders from different teams could!!!
Ashleigh and Lizanne (both Cycle Lab) tried to tire Anriette and myself by taking turns to attack us. This lead to Lizanne getting dropped in the penultimate climb to the finish. Now everything was to be decided through that final 90 degree turn before the finish.
It was Ashleigh who dived into the corner first, taking the victory with me and Anriette finishing in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.
It is a nice event, one I’ve always enjoyed with the challenging Hekpoort climb thrown in right at end to make this event truly demanding…..
Results
1st Ashleigh Moolman (Cycle Lab)
2nd Yolandi du Toit (Konica Minolta)
3rd Anriette Schoeman (Nashua)
4th Lizanne Naude (Cycle Lab)
5th Lynette Burger (Cycle Lab)
Monday, October 26, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Amashova weekend
Asishova Mountain bike event:
This past weekend I travelled down to Natal for the Amashova Mountain bike and road event on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
The weather forecast predicted heavy rain on the weekend and I thought my preparations were adequate... I had my mud tyres on, packed my rain jacket but still it wasn’t nearly enough for what I was about to experience at the MTB race on Saturday!
The event started in misty rain and very cold conditions. As we left the start I was positioned behind a few riders, concentrating hard on following their wheels. Then suddenly we went onto an open stretch of field without any tracks to ride on. There were only confused riders heading in all directions - we had gone the wrong way!
The leading quad bike that was missing at the start came to our rescue and took us back to the race route. In the meantime the rest of the 70km participants were already out on the ‘correct’ course which left us to ride back up and past them.
Samantha Oosthuisen (Karsten Cycles) took the lead during the first part of the event with me lying in 2nd position.
Unfortunately around 20km into the event, I had to stop to fix my flat rear tyre.
Once my tyre was fixed I got back on my bike and started my chase back to the girls in the front.
With all the rain some of the route markings got lost and I ended up passing some riders a few times. It felt very unfair and demoralising to chase very hard, only to catch up to the same guys over and over again.
My last 10km turned into a nightmare! As I got onto the last section of singletrack, the trail was like a mud bath! The mud just stuck to my bike and tyres, which eventually even caused my wheels to stop turning.
I had to stop every few meters and try to remove some of the mud, just to get my wheels turning again. Carrying my bike was also not an option because it got too heavy to pick up.
If I was told this might happen to my bike on muddy trails I wouldn’t have believed it. It was crazy and frustrating with the end being so close but not knowing how in the world I was going the get there….
They made the route very challenging, climbing mostly on dirt routes and then descending on technical twisting singletrack. You never really got an opportunity to rest or stop pedalling. With the downhill sections on singletrack it also took longer than usual and this made the event even more gruelling. I managed to finish in 5th place with a time of 5:27min.
Amashova Road event:
This year more than 300 girls stood on the start line of the 107 km Amashova Classic.
As we left the start in Pietermaritzburg, heading towards Durban, we encountered the first challenges of the event. The route rolled over 3 consecutive climbs which caused the field to split and only around 30 ladies were left in the front.
The big teams (MTN, Nashua, Cycle lab) kept the racing interesting throughout the entire event as they consistently tried to launch attacks off the front of the bunch.
The second challenge of the event came around 40km from the finish when we had to go over another series of hills. This reduced the leading bunch to a small group of around 15 girls and I was happy to still be up in front after the previous day’s outing.
As we got onto the highway with 10km left to the finish I just couldn’t keep up with the pace anymore. The previous day’s effort finally caught up with me.
On one of the drags Cashandra Slingerland (MTN), Lizanne Naude (Cycle lab), Carla van den Merwe (Nashua) and I (Konica Minolta) got left behind and we were forced to chase. Unfortunately we couldn’t get back in the final few kilometres and we finished a few seconds behind the first bunch.
Jenny Stenerhagdt (Alpha Pharm) won the sprint for 1st place in an exciting finale.
Asishova Mountain bike event:
This past weekend I travelled down to Natal for the Amashova Mountain bike and road event on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
The weather forecast predicted heavy rain on the weekend and I thought my preparations were adequate... I had my mud tyres on, packed my rain jacket but still it wasn’t nearly enough for what I was about to experience at the MTB race on Saturday!
The event started in misty rain and very cold conditions. As we left the start I was positioned behind a few riders, concentrating hard on following their wheels. Then suddenly we went onto an open stretch of field without any tracks to ride on. There were only confused riders heading in all directions - we had gone the wrong way!
The leading quad bike that was missing at the start came to our rescue and took us back to the race route. In the meantime the rest of the 70km participants were already out on the ‘correct’ course which left us to ride back up and past them.
Samantha Oosthuisen (Karsten Cycles) took the lead during the first part of the event with me lying in 2nd position.
Unfortunately around 20km into the event, I had to stop to fix my flat rear tyre.
Once my tyre was fixed I got back on my bike and started my chase back to the girls in the front.
With all the rain some of the route markings got lost and I ended up passing some riders a few times. It felt very unfair and demoralising to chase very hard, only to catch up to the same guys over and over again.
My last 10km turned into a nightmare! As I got onto the last section of singletrack, the trail was like a mud bath! The mud just stuck to my bike and tyres, which eventually even caused my wheels to stop turning.
I had to stop every few meters and try to remove some of the mud, just to get my wheels turning again. Carrying my bike was also not an option because it got too heavy to pick up.
If I was told this might happen to my bike on muddy trails I wouldn’t have believed it. It was crazy and frustrating with the end being so close but not knowing how in the world I was going the get there….
They made the route very challenging, climbing mostly on dirt routes and then descending on technical twisting singletrack. You never really got an opportunity to rest or stop pedalling. With the downhill sections on singletrack it also took longer than usual and this made the event even more gruelling. I managed to finish in 5th place with a time of 5:27min.
Amashova Road event:
This year more than 300 girls stood on the start line of the 107 km Amashova Classic.
As we left the start in Pietermaritzburg, heading towards Durban, we encountered the first challenges of the event. The route rolled over 3 consecutive climbs which caused the field to split and only around 30 ladies were left in the front.
The big teams (MTN, Nashua, Cycle lab) kept the racing interesting throughout the entire event as they consistently tried to launch attacks off the front of the bunch.
The second challenge of the event came around 40km from the finish when we had to go over another series of hills. This reduced the leading bunch to a small group of around 15 girls and I was happy to still be up in front after the previous day’s outing.
As we got onto the highway with 10km left to the finish I just couldn’t keep up with the pace anymore. The previous day’s effort finally caught up with me.
On one of the drags Cashandra Slingerland (MTN), Lizanne Naude (Cycle lab), Carla van den Merwe (Nashua) and I (Konica Minolta) got left behind and we were forced to chase. Unfortunately we couldn’t get back in the final few kilometres and we finished a few seconds behind the first bunch.
Jenny Stenerhagdt (Alpha Pharm) won the sprint for 1st place in an exciting finale.
Monday, October 12, 2009
101km Crater Cruise
The event started in Carl Preller Avenue opposite the horse riding Arena in Parys.
It is very popular with both on and off road cyclist and the increasing number of riders from the road participating was astonishing. Mountain biking is becoming a very popular sport.
The group rolled out on relatively flat tarmac and after 8km we went onto a rather rocky dirt road.
With 2500 participants one can only imagine the chaos in the front group. Every rider was fighting for a front seat rolling onto the dirt road.
I tried to position myself as good as possible in the group, before heading into the first of 2 stretches of singletrack. These sections lead to the bunch being spread out and formed smaller groups once back on the main dirt road around 22km.
This is when I first realized that I might be in front of my competitors. During mountain bike events it’s difficult to identify in what position you are out in the field as a lady. Throughout the event I was never thinking “I want to win this”. My focus was mostly on finding the best lines, avoiding badly corrugated sections, eating and drinking and getting to the finish line in one piece.
We ended the main dirt road with a long drag (Suikerbossie). Then from the main road we were lead through a few game farms on mostly jeep and singletrack which also included the toughest rocky climb of the day.
After we left the main dirt road (33km) it became an individual TT for me. I knew the route before hand and it helped me a lot being mentally prepared.
Coming out of the game farms the route continued on more corrugated dirt roads before we turned onto a farm with more technical singletrack, including some rock gardens, sandy spots and short steep climbs over rocky sections. I found this section hard because if you don’t ride smoothly through it you end up like me braking before each corner then sprinting to the next.
After this section I had around 20km remaining on more corrugated roads and rutted singletrack laid out on farm roads. My final 20km felt like a never ending nightmare. Everything was hurting, even my feet couldn’t bear the bumpy surface any longer.
The finish line was my rescuer on Saturday and crossing it in first place made it definitely worth doing all over again! I am very happy with my result. It’s my biggest MTB victory. One that I couldn’t and didn’t achieve on my own!!!
Race Results
1st Yolandi du Toit (Konica Minolta)
2nd Samantha Oosthuisen
3rd Carla Rowley.
The event started in Carl Preller Avenue opposite the horse riding Arena in Parys.
It is very popular with both on and off road cyclist and the increasing number of riders from the road participating was astonishing. Mountain biking is becoming a very popular sport.
The group rolled out on relatively flat tarmac and after 8km we went onto a rather rocky dirt road.
With 2500 participants one can only imagine the chaos in the front group. Every rider was fighting for a front seat rolling onto the dirt road.
I tried to position myself as good as possible in the group, before heading into the first of 2 stretches of singletrack. These sections lead to the bunch being spread out and formed smaller groups once back on the main dirt road around 22km.
This is when I first realized that I might be in front of my competitors. During mountain bike events it’s difficult to identify in what position you are out in the field as a lady. Throughout the event I was never thinking “I want to win this”. My focus was mostly on finding the best lines, avoiding badly corrugated sections, eating and drinking and getting to the finish line in one piece.
We ended the main dirt road with a long drag (Suikerbossie). Then from the main road we were lead through a few game farms on mostly jeep and singletrack which also included the toughest rocky climb of the day.
After we left the main dirt road (33km) it became an individual TT for me. I knew the route before hand and it helped me a lot being mentally prepared.
Coming out of the game farms the route continued on more corrugated dirt roads before we turned onto a farm with more technical singletrack, including some rock gardens, sandy spots and short steep climbs over rocky sections. I found this section hard because if you don’t ride smoothly through it you end up like me braking before each corner then sprinting to the next.
After this section I had around 20km remaining on more corrugated roads and rutted singletrack laid out on farm roads. My final 20km felt like a never ending nightmare. Everything was hurting, even my feet couldn’t bear the bumpy surface any longer.
The finish line was my rescuer on Saturday and crossing it in first place made it definitely worth doing all over again! I am very happy with my result. It’s my biggest MTB victory. One that I couldn’t and didn’t achieve on my own!!!
Race Results
1st Yolandi du Toit (Konica Minolta)
2nd Samantha Oosthuisen
3rd Carla Rowley.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Clarens MTN Series
The event was held in Clarens, a little village situated in the foothills of the Maluti-Mountains in close proximity to the Golden Gate National Park.
The woman in the Marathon event (80km) started alongside the Elite men in the Ultra-Marathon (109 km). The group left the village square with a neutralised start on the gravel roads. We headed on the tar road towards Bethelem and cycled for about 3km before we turned onto some rugged singletrack. As we turned the guys started to lift the pace, which lead to the group being spread out all along the trail.
Yolandi de Villiers (Cycle lab), Ischen Stopforth and Samantha Oosthuizen were in front of me going onto the singletrack. I sat only a few meters behind them preferring to have a better view of what was coming.
I struggled to get into a rhythm on the bumpy trail and couldn’t get myself to sit comfortably on my bike. It felt like my bike was directing me where to go and that was everywhere except on the track.
After 15km of singletrack we reached a district road. Upfront I could see the 3 ladies working together and tried hard to get across to them before the next section of farm roads. I didn’t manage to get across but kept on pacing myself as best as I could.
I felt very demoralised for not being able to make contact again and struggled to keep up my morale. My aching knee also didn’t help the situation.
Despite everything I wasn’t going to give up. Around halfway I passed Yolandi de Villiers while she was fixing a flat tyre. Moving up into 3rd position was just what I needed to get my motivation back. Now I had to maintain my podium position.
After passing Yolandi the race took us on a hiking trail into the mountains. We were actually riding on the narrow sandstone trails. I didn’t want to look at the view because if I accidentally rode where I was looking, they might not find me again. It was a long way down! The hiking trail was scary, exciting and very hard all at the same time.
After the hiking trail we returned back onto the route finishing the last 20km on the same section of singletrack back to Clarens.
I managed to hold onto 3rd position, behind Ischen Stopforth and Samantha Oosthuisen who took 1st and 2nd place respectively.
I enjoyed the circuit even though it was extremely hard and technical. Being forced to ride trails I would normally walk was a huge boost to my confidence. The beautiful scenery of the surrounding area made the race a truly unique experience.
Results
1st Ichen Stopforth
2nd Yolandi de Villiers
3rd Yolandi du Toit
The event was held in Clarens, a little village situated in the foothills of the Maluti-Mountains in close proximity to the Golden Gate National Park.
The woman in the Marathon event (80km) started alongside the Elite men in the Ultra-Marathon (109 km). The group left the village square with a neutralised start on the gravel roads. We headed on the tar road towards Bethelem and cycled for about 3km before we turned onto some rugged singletrack. As we turned the guys started to lift the pace, which lead to the group being spread out all along the trail.
Yolandi de Villiers (Cycle lab), Ischen Stopforth and Samantha Oosthuizen were in front of me going onto the singletrack. I sat only a few meters behind them preferring to have a better view of what was coming.
I struggled to get into a rhythm on the bumpy trail and couldn’t get myself to sit comfortably on my bike. It felt like my bike was directing me where to go and that was everywhere except on the track.
After 15km of singletrack we reached a district road. Upfront I could see the 3 ladies working together and tried hard to get across to them before the next section of farm roads. I didn’t manage to get across but kept on pacing myself as best as I could.
I felt very demoralised for not being able to make contact again and struggled to keep up my morale. My aching knee also didn’t help the situation.
Despite everything I wasn’t going to give up. Around halfway I passed Yolandi de Villiers while she was fixing a flat tyre. Moving up into 3rd position was just what I needed to get my motivation back. Now I had to maintain my podium position.
After passing Yolandi the race took us on a hiking trail into the mountains. We were actually riding on the narrow sandstone trails. I didn’t want to look at the view because if I accidentally rode where I was looking, they might not find me again. It was a long way down! The hiking trail was scary, exciting and very hard all at the same time.
After the hiking trail we returned back onto the route finishing the last 20km on the same section of singletrack back to Clarens.
I managed to hold onto 3rd position, behind Ischen Stopforth and Samantha Oosthuisen who took 1st and 2nd place respectively.
I enjoyed the circuit even though it was extremely hard and technical. Being forced to ride trails I would normally walk was a huge boost to my confidence. The beautiful scenery of the surrounding area made the race a truly unique experience.
Results
1st Ichen Stopforth
2nd Yolandi de Villiers
3rd Yolandi du Toit
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