Conpemdium Derby

This past Saturday was the Compendium Derby Cycle race held in the Hillcrest area, a really great area for mountain biking with huge amounts of single track and jeep track trails.

The race starts at the polo pony fields in Hillcrest and being the end of May it was a chilly 9degs at when i arrived there. But the temperature did not stop the hundreds of riders that showed up for the event. Being a popular event there was sure to be a good strong field in the 40km main race for the day, and so there was. This strong field even included Neil MacDonald and Waylon Woolcock of Team RE CM (team Bonitas) recent winners of Joburg2c and a second overall at Sani2c just a week ago. And of cause all of KZN's top mountain bikers turned up for the event.

We started off along a district road and very soon in we turned right and straight up a hill where the attack went from the BMC guys. Very soon 7 of us had broken away up the climb, and it stayed that way for the first 10km till the RE CM riders picked up the pace. The pack split up and we started to get a little strung out, i then found myself sitting with Tyronne White, Luke Roberts (BMC) and Andrew Hill (TIB). We kept a really hard pace to try to limit the gap to the leaders, till Andrew Hill decided he had had enough as a result of being sick the previous week. Tyronne and Luke the picked up the pace and i dropped off, i rode a steady pace to conserve my place in the field.
The race then dropped into Giba gorge for a bit of fun in the single track all through the park, which would unfortunately mean we would have to climb out of Giba all the way back up to the polo pony fields. On the way out of Giba i was caught by Dave Leiman and Matt Goutsch, and Dave attacked so i went with him and we pulled away from Matt. Dave then kicked again and i just couldn't hold his wheel, i chased him till the finish line where i finished just behind him and claimed 6th place and 3rd sub vet.
At the finish line the Klint from powasol grabbed my bike and whipped it off for a wash, such awesome service from a great company and great brand.

It was a good hard race and i was happy with my result.
A big big thanks must go to the guys from Senqu clothing for making it possible for me to race the Compendium Derby. There are a great company who make some really awesome out door clothing.