Columbia Grape Escape
After the Rocky Mountain Garden Route 300, I had three days of easy riding before standing on the start line for the 2nd edition of the Columbia Grape Escape.
Nicci Grobler and I teamed up for the 3 day event which was held in the Boland region of the Western Cape.
The first stage started at Durbanville race course in Durbanville and finished 74km later at the Boland Agriculture High School in Wellington.
The first section of the race went up a 10km long climb and with Nicci and I just coming out of a three day stage race, we decided to focus first on loosening our legs properly before racing too hard too soon.
On the climb Nicci and I found ourselves in 3rd position behind the pairing of Jennie Stennerhag & Nicola Walker in 2nd place and Hanlie Booyens & Jane Seggie in 1st place.
We steadily worked our way to the top of the climb and continued to gradually pick up the pace as the kilometres ticked by. I couldn’t believe it but my legs were actually feeling good despite having a few days racing in them.
Nicci and I managed to ride up to Jennie Stennerhag & Nicola Walker around half way and rid ourselves of them on a drag within 3km. We finished the stage feeling much better than we started and was happy to cross the line in 2nd place.
Stage 2 started where we finished the previous day and took us all the way to the end at Diemersfontein Wine Estate 69km later.
The first 45km of the event was fairly flat with the 1580m of climbing all happening in the last 25km. From the start we were lead onto a jeep track section and as we were quite a big group, everyone was fighting for position to go onto this section first. Here everything splintered into smaller groups and we found ourselves in a group which also contained Jennie & Nicola.
Hanlie and Jane managed to get themselves into the group just in front of us. Nicci and I tried to ride across but we were wasting too much energy in relation to the distance we were closing and therefore decided to rather stick with the pack until we reached the climbs.
As we reached the bottom of the first hill Nicci and I decided to lift the pace a bit and managed to rid ourselves from Nicola & Jennie. Once we saw that we were riding away from them we settled into a steady pace in an attempt to gain more time on our rivals.
What we didn’t realize was that we were starting to close the gap Hanlie & Jane had on us. Unfortunately the finish line came too soon and we ended 1min 20sec behind them in 2nd place.
The last 67km stage also started where we ended the previous stage and finished at Boschendal Wine Estate just outside Stellenbosch.
The event organisers definitely left the best for last as we were spoiled with loads of single track and breathtaking views. Unfortunately to be able to experience these beautiful views you had to ascend to the high vantage points, which made this stage the hardest day on the bike including 2058m of climbing.
Leaving the start line we immediately started ascending. Nicci and I climbed alongside Hanlie & Jane during the first part of the event. Only when we had to stop to fix Nicci’s flat tire did we lose contact with them. Luckily I had a lot of training in fixing flat tires at Rocky Mountain Garden Route 300 and we managed to get going again within 5min.
For the remainder of the stage Nicci and I didn’t see any of our rivals and crossed the line in 2nd place. Hanlie Booyens & Jane Seggie went on to take the overall victory at Columbia Grape Escape, with Nicci and I in 2nd place and Jennie Stennerhag and Nicola Walker in 3rd place.
With less than 24h of recovery I will be taking part in my next event, the Cape Argus Pick & Pay MTB Challenge. In between I will do my best to find a new pair of legs:).
