Gerrie
has won the toughest race in South Africa,
It
is a drooling 160 km race in the mountains in
Nelspruit /Barberton area,
Well
done to Gerrie!
As
a team we competed in 5 races since the beginning
of the year in the Vets 40+ category with the
following results.
1. Klerksdorp - 19 January 2008 –
result Anton “won” (Team win)
2.
Hyper – To – Hyper 27 January 2008
– result Anton “won” (Team win)
(Johannesburg)
3. Berge en Dale 2nd February 2008– result
Anton “won” (Team win)
(Krugersdorp)
4. Tswane Capital classic 3rd February 2008–
result Anton “won” (Team win)
(Pretoria)
5. Emperors Classic 10th February2008-–
result Nigel “won” (Team win)
6.
The Argus- Cape Town ` 9th March 2008 --- Results
7th Jorge Farria
7.
The Maluti challenge-- 5th April 2008
Race
report.
This was a challenging hilly race, distance 125
Km,
The race started at a high pace as all the Vet’s
teams want o position themselves well before the
mountains, 20km into the race Nigel and two other
cyclist went on a break with a gap of 2 minutes,
then Jeorge relized that the two other riders
are sprinters and that is not Nigel strength,
thus we need to get Anto up front as well. So
Jeorge, Attie and Fred set up the pace to close
the gap. At 1st all other cyclist thought we were
crazy closing on our own team mate, however we
had the “win” in mind.
So we were setting the pace for 70km, from Bethlehem
to Fouriesburg and left to Clarence, anyhow we
caught up with them, thus had a good change now.
Thus for myself (Fred) hitting the mountains now
it was not easy, thus Anton and a group of guys
got away and finally winning the sprint, with
Nigel in 3rd, Jorge in 8th, Adriaan Beukes 10th
and myself 14th.
8. Wilro 100 - 20th April 2008.
Results Attie 2nd – V&A racing team
Please
see reports of competitor below.
While
the Wilro 100 Challenge is not noted as a “tough”
route, the constant drags in the second half as
well as the wind always prove to be a challenge,
and this year was no different…
Cool
conditions greeted us for the start which was
conducted at a moderate pace until the start of
the notorious Hekpoort decent where it appeared
that everyone wanted to achieve a “personal
top speed”…
With Christo van den Heever (Cyclelab Toyota)
stretching things on the front the fun and games
were on in the pack as first Jackie van Eeden
(Dimension Data) lost a water bottle further adding
to the confusion and then Graham Cronje (Cyclelab
Toyota) burst his front tyre at close on 90km/h….
How he controlled that bike was impressive to
say the least…
Once
this was over and the undulations started, and
so did the surges off the front. Nothing serious,
but just enough to test the legs until Fred Venter
(V&A teaml) put in a big attack just before
the second left turn. I followed and Spike De
La Rey (Dimension Data) followed me…
For the next 28min we worked well together but
with a gap of only around a minute we always had
the feeling that we were the proverbial “carrot”
while the various teams decided on what tactics
they would employ…
After the right had turn at Magalies Andrew and
Graham (Cyclelab Toyota) had decided enough was
enough and put the hammer down which quickly closed
the gap to us. Once the junction was made Andrew
attacked with only Anton Duvenage (Wadeville Steel)
and Gary Beneke (Dimension Data) able to follow
his wheel. By this stage there were only about
15 riders left and when Jackie van Eeden (Dimension
Data) started to cross to the lead group it took
all the Christo, Colin and I had left to get Graham
over to the break as well.
While
this turned out to be the winning break (as expected)
I was quite surprised to see that only Andrew,
Graham, Gary and Anton stayed away as the rest
of the breakaway was sent back to us with plenty
of “war stories” as to just how strong
Andrew and Graham were on the day… Could
this be the Vets Super Series as well as quite
a few Elite races this season starting to make
the difference?
The
remainder of the race was pretty straight forward
as most of us just sat in a rolled through when
we felt like it as the gap to the leading boys
was never going to be closed.
In
all it was a good race and just what the doctor
ordered if you plan on tweaking your performance
for SA’s at the end of the month…
Results:
1) Andrew Mclean (Cyclelab Toyota)
2) Anton Duvenage (Valve & Automation Steel)
3) Gary Beneke (Dimension Data)
4) Graham Cronje (Cyclelab Toyota)
5) Shane Brown (Dimension Data) |
