Silverstar Casino MTB Classic,


The 3rd edition of this event took place on Saturday at the Silverstar Casino to the West of Johannesburg.

It was my first time competing at this race, and I tried to research as much as possible regarding the 40km course to familiarize myself with what lay ahead.

This helped me on the day as I knew a good warm up wouldn’t go to waste with the event’s traditional start winding up the 2.5km tar climb called Hillsnacks.
The Elite men set a furious pace on the climb, which quickly spread the field.

On top of Hillsnacks, just before turning onto Mogale Parks technical single track, I found myself in 3rd position chasing Carla Rowly and Samantha Oosthuisen (Elsa Kaarsten’s cycles)

I managed to pass Carla within the following kilometre and could see Samantha only a few metres in front of me. I chased hard after Samantha, but she was having a great day and kept me just off her tail.

After the technical single track section (13km) to route became much faster as it continued on to some undulating, twisting single track.

The chase continued until the final 5km were I finally managed to make contact with her. This moment was short lived as Samantha put in a couple of surges which left me behind with 3km to go to the finish line.

Samantha Oosthuisen took the victory while I finished in 2nd place and Carla Rowly rounded off the podium.

Last weekend I experienced a very bad day on the bike, which made me a tad nervous for this event. I was scared of having another bad day, but luckily I felt much better and was happy with my ride.

Results:

Overall Ladies

1st Samantha Oosthuisen (Else Kaarsten’s Cycles)
2nd Yolandi du Toit (Team Bizhub)
3rd Carla Rowley