Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster festival
The team travelled down to Knysna on Friday the 1st of July to
participate in the Knysna Oyster Festival.

The festival consists of various events which included a mountain bike
and road event on the Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Four bizhub girls (Nicci Grobler, Candice Neetling, Ischen Stopforth
and myself) lined up for the start of the 75km mountain bike event on
Saturday morning. We set off in
cold weather and drizzling rain which worsened as the kilometres
slowly ticked by.

Eszter Elderly (Team MTN/Qhubeka) took the leading position from the
beginning with Ischen Stopforth chasing in 2nd place, Candice Neetling
in 3rd place and myself in 4th place (all bizhub).
The 75km course consisted of long steady climbs followed by some short
steep climbs and slippery downhill single track all in the beautiful
Knysna forest.

The mud made the course extra challenging as it took longer to
complete the course and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who struggled
with chain suck which forced me to dismount several times and undo my chain.
The ladies race positions changed inside the last 15km as Candice managed

to pass Ischen to move into 2nd place and Hanlie Booyens (Team Jeep)
passed me to move into 4th place.
As Candice approached the finish line her tyre popped of her rim with
about 1km to go. She stopped to bomb it but realised that it wasn’t
possible as her tyre had a deep side wall cut. She then decided to
make a run for it.
Candice came across the finish line with her bike beside her instead
of being on it and still managed to finish in 2nd place.

The overall victory went to Ezter Elderlyi with Ischen Stopforth
rounding off the podium in 3rd.

The following day Team bizhub lined up for the
Knysna Oyster festival road race. Lindi Erasmus (bizhub) joined us for the

road race which meant that we had at least one pair of fresh legs for
the event.

Even though we all were very tired from the previous day’s effort we
weren’t going to give up easily and road as hard as our legs allowed
us to. Lindi managed to make the break going to the finish line and
finished in 5th position at the end.
This week the team is staying in Plettenbergbay to participate in the
Plett Challenge road and mountain bike events taking place this coming
weekend.