Cane to Coast MTB Race

I decided to race a local race today, the race was the Blythedale Cane to Coast which took place just up the road in the Blythedale area. This was only the second year the race has been held and it promised to be a good one.

I arrived at the start around 7:30am and in true North Coast style the weather was beautiful and warm. Start time was 8:30 so i kitted up and myself and Rob went for a little warm up ride and checked out some of the single track that we would be racing on.
We lined up and as always the usual suspects had rocked up for a dice out for the podium, it was going to be a ding dong battle.

The gun went off and it was go time. We took off up a slight climb before dropping down onto a fast flat section of district road, and this is where Sean Merredew put the hammer down. The pace was full gas and he started to pull away with Ty White holding his wheel and getting away to. Then we hit a serious steep little climb and i pulled back up to them, Ty went to the front and i followed and we stayed in that position down the first bit of awesome single track. Once out of the track we hit a fire break road where once again Sean coming flying through and pulled away again taking Ty with him.
I was now on my own until i was caught by Wener Moolman from the Cycle lab club, he is extremely strong on the district road and come to the front and started pulling. We started to close the gap on Sean and Ty till we hit the single track and they opened the gap again. Myself and Wener stayed together and road as hard as we could, i pulled away once or twice in the single track but he caught up on the district road.

Coming in towards the finish i kept the pace high and tried not to make any mistakes. Wener held on and lucky for me he didn't try to sprint with me for the line, so i crossed the line in 3rd place behind winner Sean Merredew and Ty White.

It was a great race and a great course.

A big thanks to Senqu clothing for making my racing possible.

This afternoon i decided to another little ride out to Stainbank nature reserve for some super technical skills in the hope of improving my skills.
Tomorrow a well deserved rest day!