MTN SERIES #2
In previous years the Barberton Classic was the first event on the MTN Calendar, but for 2010 Attakwas got the 1st spot making this event 2nd in the MTN SERIES.
I’ve always enjoyed Barberton, it’s a very hilly route with beautiful scenery. This year the route retained the section that wound through a lush green nature reserve.
What made the race even more enjoyable was the fact that it was not the ‘first race of the season’. This made me feel a ‘little!’ bit more at ease standing on the start line.
Since the Ultra Marathon (125km) was introduced last year, the MTN SERIES race organisers had set a principle for the woman competing in the Marathon event (75km) to start alongside the men competing in the Ultra Marathon (125km). This strategy has proved to work exceptionally good as it provides the ladies with an opportunity to race without any intrusion from other start batches. Given that the ultra-marathon contenders are too strong for us to keep up with their pace and the men in the Marathon event only start 5 minutes behind us, we usually race each other one on one.
One would think the Ultra-Marathon would set off at a decent pace bearing in mind that there is still a long 125km ahead, but as soon as our cleats were in the pedals we were sprinting for..., jeez, I still don’t know what…
The fast start caused the bunch to split up on the 3km section of tar road preceding the turn off on to dirt.
I struggled to get my legs going and on reaching the bottom of the first 15km climb I found myself in 5th position behind Yolande Speedy (Team MTN), Karien van Jaarsveld (Natro Transport), Kaitlin de Wet (MR Price) and Heletje van Staden (SCHWINN). During the week leading up to the event my team (BIZHUB) had a training camp in Clarens and I could feel my legs weren’t fully recovered after the proper training rides in the mountains.
As the race progressed I started to feel better and managed to pass Heletjie and Kaitlin around half way up the climb. I kept on pacing myself and caught up to Karien, reaching her as we got to the top of the climb. From there the two of us continued on together keeping the pace high as a result of constantly trying to slip away from one another.
The second half of the event was mostly descending towards the finish and it was great to be able to keep up on the descents with my Specialized Era.
The bike just rolled over the Rocky River crossing, grass patches etc giving me a lot more confidence than before.
In the final 15km the route took us down two short, steep downhill sections and on the last one a cyclist in front of me decided to dismount halfway down. His reaction caught me off guard and I ended up lying on the ground next to him. I quickly got back on my bike but never saw Karien again. She put in a good effort al the way to the finish line crossing it in 2nd place.
Yolande Speedy was in a class of her own leading the event from beginning to end winning this year’s Barberton Classic, Karien van Jaarsveld in 2nd place and me in 3rd.
Race Results:
1st Yolande Speedy (Team MTN)
2nd Karien van Jaarsveld (Natro Transport)
3rd Yolandi du Toit (BIZHUB)
4th Caitlin de Wet (MR Price)
5th Heletje van Staden (SCHWINN)
This weekend the team will be travelling down to PE to participate in the EP Herald Cycle Challenge on Sunday.
