This past Sunday was the Boxlee Golovane Explore, an 85km team mountain bike race starting and finishing at the Holla trails mountain Bike Park. You could enter as a two or three man team, with two man teams being the popular option. Individuals were also allowed to enter but would not qualify for podium.
I was asked by former Springbok Rugby player Jeremy Thompson to join him in a two man team and I jumped at the opportunity as I knew it would be a great day out on the bike. Jeremy has had a fair amount of time off the bike and wanted to use the event to build on his fitness.
Race day arrived and it was raining and slightly chilly which no one was ready for as the weather in KZN has been amazing in the past weeks. The 85km course would more than likely be extremely muddy but that never stops mountain bikers as could be seen by the numbers of riders on the day. There was some stiff competition on the start line but we were there to have fun and get in some training.
The race started and almost immediately there was a split in the very big bunch as about 5 teams and a few individuals broke off the front in the first few km’s. The pace was high as Team TIB insurance leads us up the first long climb only 2km into the race, this is where we decided to slack off and conserve our energy for the 80km still to come.
Very soon though the mud started to play havoc with our bikes causing chain suck forcing us to stop continuously to clean the chains and put some lube on. However it then got worse as Jeremy’s back break had stopped working due to the mud. We continued to just soldier on taking caution on the downs and nursing the chain suck on the up hills. Will still kept our cool and were maintaining 3rd place, until we came across Team TIB who had had some bad luck of their own by breaking a derailleur which now put us into second place with 40km still to race.
At about 60km we hit the awesome single track section of the race we had been waiting for, however it wouldn’t be that fun as Jeremy had to take it easy without back breaks. Eventually we were caught by Team Cycle lab PMB who caught and passed us as we then had more chain suck after the single track. Knowing they were not far ahead we chased hard and caught them at the next water table and stuck with them until the dreaded chain suck attacked again forcing us to stop and clean the chain once more. It would now be a serious chase to the finish line with only about 10km’s to go.
We chased hard on the last we km’s of smooth district road and slowly we were closing the gap to the Cycle lab pair. With 1km to go we reeled them in and it was a scramble to the line, unfortunately for them Tyron took a slight wrong turn into the finish and we managed to sneak across the line first, leaving us second overall.
It was a great day out on the MTB besides all the hassles. A good event and a great 85km track.
No comments:
Post a Comment