09 May 2012 Van Wyk thrilled with victory at African Continental Championships, Mauritius
The 2012 African Continental Championships was held on the lovely island of Mauritius on the 5th of May. Team bizhub-FCF’s Junior Linda Van Wyk participated in the ...
Jade Roberts
(January 2010, Clarence Training Camp)
Contego Wine2wales Stage race
Having traveled across the Garden Route, camping and roughing it out in the forests I wasn’t exactly overly keen about heading back into the tents for W2W. Luckily Ischen let us take over her house and washing machine for a few days and with a couple of nights under a thick comfortable duvet with a real bathroom and some delicious home cooked grub I was ready to get back to basics.
2011 has been a full year and I am definitely ready for a little break off the bike and racing. But I was nevertheless really looking forward to the Wines2Whales 3 day mtb stage race to finish off the season. I missed out on this event last year and had heard only great things being said about the routes, the single-track and the organisation of the race. I teamed up again with Catherine Williamson, riding for our sponsor Bizhub, in the ladies category. I knew I would have to squeeze 3 more days of hard racing out of my body, with the Contego Girls (Ariane Kleynhans & Mariska Strauss) as our main competition and obviously keen to win for Contego, the main sponsor of this event.
Day One 70km
Starting from the beautiful Lourensford wine estate with the sun shining everyone seemed overly excited and the start was crazy, especially as we were straight into a 10km climb. Trying to keep the lead Contego girls in sight I let Ischen set the pace while I desperately tried to hang on. We passed the girls but then lost them on the singletrack descent. I was pretty rusty going down there and ended up stuck behind an even rustier guy! After the first feed (sped right through glancing across at the table and hoping I wasn’t missing too many nice treats!), we caught and past the other girls and continued on our own catching a fair few of the overly excited guys who gave us grief early on. The climbs were tough to our liking and the views over the vineyards were amazing. We even saw a bit of history going up an old ox – wagon trail. With some technical but not life threatening tracks we finished shattered but happy and even happier after the Contego girls didn’t come in for 19 minutes, just in front of the Develop team of Yolandi and Catlin. The campsite in Grabouw Country Club was idyllic, very much like the Lake District at home and a cool breeze that made it comfortable to chill out in. Where the Pioneer will be remembered for the ostrich, W2W wins hands down for the yogurt and chocolate moose… it was a good job the race was only 3 days long.
Day Two 64km
With little climbing and 60% single track Ischen and I both knew it would be a hard one to win. We were also racing blind (not literally thankfully) but in that we were the only girls in A batch. That was nice in a way, as with 19 minutes lead we knew the other girls would have to catch us and still put 10 minutes into us. The course was amazing, so much flowing single track it was one of those days that you smile and ride! Ischen had a couple of small falls but nothing serious and we finished 6 minutes ahead of the Contego girls who took the stage with us 2nd, our lead now 16 minutes. Yolandi and Catlin came in 4th, Yolandi been chased as usual by the male species, this time a young bok… lucky for them both they were only small things as it could have made another u tube hit!! The evening was highly entertaining and we were presented with a 1.5 liter bottle of wine which, without a screw top will obviously have to be finished in one go, fairly easy for Ischen and Pete, slightly harder I imagine for me and Rob!
Day Three
Woke up loads in the night expecting the tent to collapse any minute in the wind and highly aware of the draft coming through the tents broken zip. At least it was dry as I was about to get up at five. Spoke too soon, by the time I made it to breakfast I was a drowned rat and it was only 8 degrees! Warm up was done with some balm in the Caddy with the heater on when we heard the start was delayed an hour. An hour later it was cancelled. At first we were relieved but soon hugely disappointed. The route I remember from last year was the most scenic yet and the last mountain bike race of the year ended up as a hollow victory, though I’ve got to say 8 degrees and raining would not have made the day so pleasant! There was even snow on the mountains… snow!! Its not even snowing in England and its our winter!! By the afternoon the sun was out and I think the race was cancelled a little too quickly but I guess there was 1000 riders who had to get through the day and the risk was maybe a little to great. The beach finish in Hermanus will have to wait another year.
