This year the Crater Cruise formed part of the MTN Marathon Series. As it was the final stop in the series, it added more excitement to the race as the top contenders tried to gain extra points to boost their seeding.
We started at the Ride Arena in Parys and from there the beautiful mountain bike route took as through the Vredefort Dome world Heritage site.
The A and B batches were set off together forming quite a large group to leave the start line at 7.30am. The first 8km was on tarmac and then we went onto a corrugated dirt road.
On the dirt road everyone was fighting for position to be among the first to dip into the single track which came after 10km of gravel district roads. The single track section was complete chaos. Once we got back onto the main dirt road the once big group had splintered into a few smaller groups. I found myself just behind the group containing the leading ladies, Yolande de Villiers (Cycle lab) and Karien Van Jaarsveld (Team USN).
Instead of trying to bridge across to the leaders I decided to rather stick with the group I was in, conserving my energy for later on in the race. At the 37km mark we turned onto the tracks of Espach’s game farm. Here the racing truly began as there was no bunch riding left.
On Espach we encountered the toughest climb in the race. What made the 2km climb very hard was firstly its gradient and secondly the loose rocks scattered across it, which required a fair amount off skill.
On the climb I made contact with Karien again and also managed to pass her to reach the top in 2nd place behind De Villiers. On the following descent I tried to gain as much time as possible on Karien and to my surprise on reaching the bottom I spotted Yolande De Villiers in the distance. I caught up to her just before reaching the half-way mark at Shoemansdrift.
We stayed together for about 5km and on a grass sections running next to the Vaal River I looked around and didn’t see Yolande behind me anymore. I realised that I was now in the leading position and that there was still 45km left to the finish, which was still a very long way….
I decided to focus on the race itself and not the riders and give my best all the way to the finish.
After being on a course so demanding as the Crater Cruise route for 4h12m26sec, I can’t describe how happy I was to cross the line.
Only once I got my breath back I started to realize that I won the race! I am really happy to be able to win the last leg in the MTN Series!
Results
1st Yolandi du Toit 4:12:26
2nd Yolande De Villiers 4:18:04
3rd Karien van Jaarsveld 4:23:09
4th Carla Rowley 4:28:18
5th Julia Skea 4:31:44
6th Caitlin de Wet 4:42:54
7th Samantha Oosthuysen 4:48:02
Next for me will be the Isuzu 3 Towers stage race where I will be partnering up with Caitlin de Wet from Team MR Price/Specialized.
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