About a month ago North West University asked me to join their team to race the student tour this upcoming holiday, At first I was a bit unsure cause this is some serious road racing and I am a mountain biker. I only raced one road bike race like 2 years ago and it was a small local one. After a few thoughts I agreed and prepared myself for this tour. To give you guys some info on the stages,this is not a walk in the park on day one we had the mountain biking leg a 50km XCO race starting at rosemary hill. I knew I had to give everything cause this is my territory the rest of the week I will be in their territory. It was tough racing cross country again but I enjoyed it a lot and got myself a 2nd place overall and it took some pressure of me for the rest of the week. It was a nice track with some awesome singletrack and technical sections and I enjoyed every moment of the race.
Day 2 (stage 1) was the start of the road tour and we started with a 80km short stage in the morning. everyone was a bit nervous in the group and was a bit unsure what to expect from one another. Soon after the start the attacks began and it was full throttle all the way. I was a domestic(worker) in the team so I had to do a lot of chasing and pace making at the front of the race. There were no surprises and most of us finished in the peleton. Only a few hours after the short stage we started stage 2(still day 2) with a 20km individual Time Trial. This was my first TT ever and I really enjoyed it. I got myself a top 10 finish not bad for a mountain biker. Day 3 (stage 3) was the long stage a 140km ride just outside Pretoria. The first half of the race we kept a nice steady pace with one or two individuals trying to break away. The action started with about 40km to go and we had to cover a lot of attacks from the other varsities, and we did a good job nobody got away and we (NWU) controlled the pace at the front again. 10km to go a guy from NNMU attacked and nobody responded and he got a gap of about 25 seconds when I decided it is my turn to attack. I chased him down and we worked well together to keep the peleton of our backs with about a 40sec gap. With 1km to go we realized we can actually survive and suddenly we were enemies again and it was a bit of a cat and mouse effect,but I had to settle for second place. Still a very good achievement for the team and myself.
After stage 3, I was 9th place on the GC(general classification) day 4 (stage4) was a short but hard stage we did a 2.4km hill climb. My legs were a bit heavy after the effort of the previous 3 days and I struggled on that hill but everyone felt that way and I climbed up there in the 7th fastest time. That same afternoon the last stage was in sight a 45min + 1 lap criterium. It was a very short course of only 500m with about 40 cyclist, it had trouble written all over. It was full gas from the word go and it was not long before the riders crashed one by one and after about 10 minutes more than half of the field were eliminated.
With all the crashes a gap opened up in front of me and it and it was not to long after that and my race also ended, only 6 riders managed to complete the 45mins. I finished the tour in 10th place overall. I am really happy with my performance in the tour. I just want to thank Team Jeep and all the sponsors GU Energy, Salomon, Jeep Apparel for all the support they gave me throughout the week. It was a great experience for me to race on the road and it was great training for the rest of the season.
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