The Karkloof Classic is a highlight on the mountain bike calendar as
it is the biggest mountain bike festival in SA with more than 3500
participants over the weekend.
The weekend’s racing kicked off with a night race held on the Friday
night, followed by Cross Country and Downhill racing on the Saturday
and then finished off with the main 60km marathon on the Sunday. What
makes the event so unique is that the Karkloof trails are purposely
built by expert crews and maintained all year round which makes them
incredible fun to ride.
On Saturday I took part in the Cross Country event. It was definitely
the most technical (and exciting) course I’ve ridden thus far. One of
the technical sections was named ‘the super tube’ as it was dropping
and climbing just like a super tube. Every time I went down the ‘huge’
drop leading into the super tube, I got butterflies in my
stomach....it was scary and awesome all at the same time!
The XC wasn’t my priority event on the weekend and therefore I decided
to ride it as best as I could to still get a good result without
tiring myself too much before the main event the following day.
On my first lap I decided to ride behind some of the girls in order to
get more familiar with the course. On lap 2 I found myself alongside
local rider, Amy Jane Mundy (Team Jeep)in 2nd / 3rd position behind a
flying Eszter Elderlyi (Team MTN/ Qhubeka).
I didn’t know the course that well and ‘practised’ riding some of the
technical sections during my first few laps. By the end of the 3rd
lap, with a few properties to my name, I managed to figure out what
was rideable and what not.
On lap 4 of 5, I managed to ride away from Amy to finish in 2nd place
behind Eszter Elderlyi with Amy Jane Mundy finishing in 3rd place. It
was a great XC course and I am still amazed at all the effort that
goes into building the Karkloof trails.
On Sunday I lined up for the main 60km Marathon event.
It was my first time competing at this event and therefore I didn’t
know what to expect. As our group was set off, my legs felt pretty
good and I managed to go hard from the beginning and found myself in
the lead within the first 10km.
With her strong cross country background, Eszter Elderlyi managed to
ride back up to me during the first technical single track section
(around 16km). From there the route took us straight onto the 2nd long
climb. Eszter and I started the climb together but halfway up I
noticed that she was slowly dropping back from my wheel. I continued
pushing hard on the climb and on reaching the top (around 35km) I
couldn’t see Eszter anymore. I realized that this was my opportunity,
I had to put my head down and go flat out because ‘once out of sight,
then out of mind’.
We still had one long climb left along with its technical downhill
single track. I knew that Eszter might be able to get back to me on
the single track, but fortunately I rode the Cross Country race the
day before which helped me to get a familiar feel for the technical
sections.
I felt really good throughout the race and managed to ride the single
track and climbs fast enough to maintain my lead until the very end.
It was very rewarding to take the VICTORY at the Karkloof Classic!
I feel very fortunate to be the winner of such a great event and
shared the podium with Heletjie van Staden (Team Mr Price/GT) who
finished in 2nd place and my team mate Caitlin de Wet (Team Bizhub) in
3rd place
