Sani2c 2011

What a week of racing...
My brother Justin and I were sponsored an entry for the 2011 Sani2c by Subaru and we raced as the Subaru Suunto Cebe team.
Justin had just come off racing Joburg2c so we knew he would have the endurance, especially for day two the 100km day.

Day 1
As was to be expected in Underburg in May...it was freezing! probably about 2 degs when we woke up and think it got to around 8 when we were standing on the start line at 7am.
The race kicked of behind the lead car for the first few km's and the pace was full gas! We rode in the lead bunch till  we hit the first set of dual single track where things got seriously fast as the top teams attacked to try make a break. Once out the other side of the track things started to regroup and we got into group consisting of the Garmin, Thule and BMC teams. We rode in the group for awhile till all three teams got away from us in the single track, it was slippery and i was not having a good time there. Once out of the slippery track and onto the district rode we chased hard and managed to catch and pass team Thule in the final 2km finishing in 14th place in a time of 3h3mins, 3mins down on team BMC and team Garmin...a very good first day of racing!
Of cause we then indulged in all Sani2c has to offer, from the endless food, the endless Milk and Juice, the Chill Zone's with free beer, the massage tent, the Itec connect zone with free internet....plus a whole lot more! One other really nice extra was the USN team handing out an Epic Pro sachet (to top 50), Recover Max (rest of field) plus a USN tornado shaker to all the finishers, real big up to USN for that!

Day 2
This is the big day, and the one that worried me a little. It started off as always with a furious pace, i felt i did well to get into the single track just behind the lead bunch as we started the decent into the great Umkomas Valley. Unfortunately i was lacking confidence and dropped off the back of the bunch and got left behind by my brother too, it was going to be a big chase once i hit the bottom of the valley, which it was. The chasing took it's toll on me and i very quickly started to suffer, luckily my brother was feeling super strong so i sat his wheel and he literally pulled me for around 70km... in the final km's we managed to catch a few teams as they started to suffer after the long day.
We finally crossed the line after the gruelling 100km's in 11th place, an awesome result and all thanks to Justin as he rode so strong the whole stage!
Our 11th place and great time of 4h20mins put us into 13th place overall.

Day 3 and the final day
This day is always super super fast day and it starts off with a down hill and straight into single track in the first 2km. Justin and I had a bad start and found ourselves fairly far back in the bunch, i felt good and pushed hard over taking riders till i was in amongst the top 12 teams. Unfortunately doing all the work on day 2 had obviously taken it's toll on Justin as he was quite a way back still and i was forced to sit up and wait for him. Quite a few teams passed me as i waited for Justin to catch up, when he did i could see he was battling and it was now going to be my turn to do the pulling. I sat on the front and worked for around 20km's, but much to my disgust i was just pulling 3 other teams to the finish line and they were not even willing to help, obviously roadies... I then had my first problem, a piece of sugar cane leaf rapped around my cassette forcing me to stop, and i shouted to Justin to carry on going. I pulled it all out and started to chase again, when i caught him i again when to the front and started pull the bunch. We rode really hard through Vernon Crooks nature reserve and the into the Jeep/single track that lead us down to Sea level. It was in this single track where i had my next problem, we were flying in the single track trying to get away from the teams we had been pulling when i hit a bump and had a huge crash... i hit the ground really hard, luckily i never broke myself or the bike. I jumped up got back on the bike and chased hard, again catching my brother.
We rode the final km's extremely hard and managed to still finish in the top 20 teams and held onto our 13th place overall.

It was an amazing 3 days of racing at the Sani2c and was once again an extremely good job done by the Sani2c team and Farmer Glen. A truly world class event...
A big thanks must also go to Dave Harrington from Ultimo and to the Subaru team for giving us the opportunity to race this great race.