KZN Provincial #3 - Rico's - 10 June 2012

My weekend didn't get off to a great start, when I trashed my rear wheel on my first run down the track. I managed to hit a very solid stump while rolling down, and scouting out the track. After a quick drive home and a wheel change that a F1 team would be proud of, I was back on the track busting out some runs.

The shuttle was super quick and so I did quite a few runs, not because I was trying new lines or anything, but because I just love being on the bike. The jumps weren't huge and there weren't tech sections, but it flowed really well and was good fun to ride.

A lot of water was dumped from the sky on Saturday night and didn't affect the dry sections very much. However, the small forest section became very slippery and managed to claim a few riders on their first runs. I also had a nice slide on the dirt in the first corner, when my sneaky inside line on the grass turned out to be slicker than expected.

My first race run was good. All went according to plan, and I had a clean run. I was in the top 5 and was happy with that. I was feeling good at the top while waiting for my second run because I knew I had more in the tank and I knew where to try and push harder. I had a great run which was a couple of seconds faster than the previous one. I finished in 4th overall, with less than half a second between myself and 2nd place and a mere 0.01 sec off 3rd. I was 2nd fastest Junior on the day. Really stoked with how well our provincial series races have been run this year and I hope this efficiency and great event co-ordination will continue into the future.

SA DHI National #3 - Port Elizabeth - 27 May 2012

Last year we didn't have the best experience at the PE National (with the race being called off due to rain) so I was hoping for something a lot better, track and weather wise. We arrived after a 12 hour long road trip in the Jeep. 

The track walk was probably one of the worse experiences in my life. I walked the track pretty early on Friday morning and was met by about 1000 big spiders - and I don't do spiders! In between being the "track spider web removal guy" I managed to find a few good lines on what looked to be an awesome track.

My thoughts were right - the track was a ton of fun to ride. It had tight, awkward, flat, drifty corners the whole way down. I haven't had that much fun on a first run down a track this whole year.

I managed to get everything on the track done before the end of Fridays practice. The one thing that I couldn't do was remember the whole track. With so many tight corners and thick bush a lot of it looked the same. But I did manage to catch a few runs on GoPro so I studied the track using this footage.

Race day was rather cold, although the sun was out. My one and only practice run of the day didn't quite go according to plan. During the latter part of Saturdays session, somebody must have destroyed the take-off of one of my lines - the line hopped over this massive deep rut near the bottom. Thanks to the take-off not being there I came up short and cased the rut hard and went over the bars. I got down from my accidental head stand and pushed back up the track to give it another shot. This time I boosted and cleared the rut with out a problem. To add insult to injury, my tire burped in the next corner, sending me over the bars again. After sorting out my tire and icing my swollen ankle, I then found that my cranks had shifted over slightly. Mark Hopkins from cSixx helped me out and got everything sorted just in time for me to get on the shuttle for my seeding run.

My seeding run was good. I was stoked to be be seeded 3rd overall and after some more ice on my ankle, I headed up to the top for my race run. 

Everything was going great in my run until I drifted a bit wide in one of the corners and came into contact with a tree that stopped me dead in my tracks. I put my feet down and luckily didn't come off the bike. I charged hard for the rest of my run and tried to pull back some time. I ended up 6th overall and 3rd Junior. This wasn't the result I was hoping for, but I had such a fun weekend on the bike and an awesome time in PE. Huge congrats to the guys from Hayterdale Trails on making a super sick track and to everyone involved in the event. 

Busy few Weekends of Riding

These past few weekends I haven't done much other than ride a bike, which to me is a weekend well spent. It all kicked off with the Karkloof Classic Enduro on the 15th of April. This was the first event of its kind in the country and I definitely  think there will be more to come. In short, riders ride to the top of the hill and are not timed. We then are timed on the way down a piece of single track - we then repeat the process for a second time. This gives us two timed runs which are added together to form our final time. I found that the 6 inches of travel on the Morewood Shova was a bit too much for this event as I really battled on the up hills. I was finally placed as 2nd Junior and 8th overall the following day after a slight disaster on the race organisers part - they lost my time and so I wasn't counted in the overall standings or awarded with any prize money on the Saturday. I then did the Karkloof 40km along with Travis Browning. We really worked hard but still had lots of fun on the many pieces of single track out on the route. I was rather surprised to find out that we finished  20th out of 610 riders. Not too shabby for a bunch of downhillers haha!

The following weekend saw another Enduro event, this time at Cascades. The course was not very suitable for a 6 inch travel bike and so I am afraid to say that I was beaten (in one case, quite convincingly) by some xc riders on their carbon xc bikes. Definitely not my finest hour! Never the less it was a really great event and I had some fun on the bike. I then raced home and packed for the journey to Newcastle, where the Vulintaba MTB Experience was being put on. I met up with my legendary Team Jeep team mates and we camped for the night. Sunday morning, and we were up bright and early, ready to quickly lose a few golf balls and then ride the 40km. I can't begin to explain how much I absolutely loved the course! It was about 80% single track and I was riding with some good friends which made it even better.

This weekend has already gotten off to a great start, riding wise. I had an awesome session at the bmx track with TJSA team mate, Kyle Davids, today and I am looking forward to spending a lot more hours on two wheels this weekend!

SA DHI National #2 - Pretoria - 15 April 2012

After seeing some helmet cam footage of the 139 Track in Pretoria I wasn't too sure that the track was going to be any good. The video didn't do the track justice because it was such an awesome, fun track. I walked and rode the track on Friday and I enjoyed it the more I rode. Leading up to the event I wasn't feeling that great. I had a throat infection which caused my chest to tighten, and after only a couple of runs on Friday I had no energy so I called it a day.

Saturday's practice went really well. I got all of the jumps dialled and I finalised all of my lines. I didn't want to stop doing runs because I was having so much fun on the bike, but I had to conserve as much energy as I could for my race run the next day.

I did two runs on Sunday before my seeding run. I felt awesome on the bike so I sat back and re hydrated with some GU Brew. My seeding run felt good. I was seeded second fastest overall behind fellow Junior rider Tiaan Odendaal.

My chest was feeling a bit tight before my race run but I put that out of my head and focused on my run. I pedaled hard on the top section and felt smooth through the middle sections. When it came to the bottom section I really pushed on the flat bit. I made a slight mistake on the final corner and nearly lost the front wheel but I managed to recover. This set me up slower for the final straight. I crossed the finish line in a time of 2:09.67 which placed me in 2nd Overall and 2nd Junior. This was definitely my best result of the year, and I hope that this is just the beginning of it. Congrats to Tiaan on an absolutely awesome ride for 1st place. I am super stoked with 2nd.

A huge thanks must go out to Patrick Morewood for helping me out with my suspension set up. Its great to work with such a knowledgeable and passionate person. Thanks to everyone at Team Jeep for all of their support and to GU Energy for all of their nutritional support! Lastly thanks to Marnus Swanepoel and the event oranisers for putting together an awesome track and a good event. Looking forward to the next one for sure!

Overall Podium

KZN Provincial #2 - Worlds View - 1 April 2012

The Worlds View race is always awesome. This year, my good friend Shane Martin decided to rebuild the old track with some nice new changes. We really worked hard on the track, and the entire thing was handmade. The  finished product was a fun, challenging track that everyone would enjoy.

Saturday poured with rain, and so I put the full spike mud tires on the Morewood and got out all the wet weather gear. I woke up to sunshine on Sunday, but the track didn't dry out too much in the beginning of practice. My spare wheels had just been built up and so on my third practice run, all of the spokes came loose. I thought there was something wrong but I carried on riding, which was a mistake. M wheel was so loose and was flexing so much that when I hit the rock garden I lost control and did a complete 180 and nearly crashed. I put on my rear wheel that had my dry tire on and did another run. The track was so tacky that I ended up putting my dry wheel on the front as well.

My first race run went according to plan. I hit all my lines and got to the bottom in a time of 1min:45, which put me into 3rd place overall. I was really happy with that but I knew that I would have to step it up to hold onto that position.

My second run went pretty much the same, except I pedaled harder than before and I felt a bit quicker in some sections. I posted a time of 1min:43 and was super stoked with my run. I managed to keep 3rd overall and I couldn't have asked for a better result!

I finished 2nd Junior behind Tiaan Odendaal, who rode awesomely, and 3rd Overall behind Tiaan (1min:40) and Greg Minnaar(1min:37). It was super cool to have a world class rider such as him attending the race. It was a great weekend and I loved riding the track. The race organizers did a great job once again and a special thanks must go out to Adrenaline Cycles for all the pre-race bike prep.

Overall Podium

Junior Podium

2012 UCI DHI World Cup Round 1 - PMB - 18 March 2012

My favourite time of the year was back again! The vibe created by World Cup is one that no other event can match. It was such a nice surprise to be selected for the South African Federation team and to be told that I could ride, because I didn't expect it after my performance in Cape Town.

We had ridden the track the previous weekend so I knew it well, and didn't have to do too much practice. I still needed to clear both N3 tables and the huge hip at the end, Money Maker. I got the tables dialled in the first couple of runs during Thursdays practice. I decided to attempt money maker on my last run of the day, and it went smoothly so I was feeling confident on the track.

On Friday I did two practice runs and everything went according to plan. Qualifying runs started in the afternoon and so I sat in the car, relaxed, and listened to some good music. I headed up to the top with my mechanic (aka my brother Josh) who had my spare wheels with muds, in case the weather turned. Thankfully I didn't need them. Andre van Aarde also helped me so much at the top, and I am so grateful for all his help.

My qualies run was going really well right until I slipped a pedal and unclipped in between the first and second N3 tables, so I rode over the second table and got back on the gas for the pedal section. I finished my run strongly and felt good until the finish line.

I was so disappointed to hear that I wasn't fast enough to qualify for the final - top 80 men went through. I was even more bummed when I heard that I had missed qualifying by 2 seconds! I did a 4min:27 and the guy who was in 80th did a 4min:25. In the end I was 91st. The riders this year definitely stepped it up a lot from last year.

A huge thanks goes out to everybody who helped me out - Andre from Rush Sports, Adrenaline Cycles, Pat Morewood for my suspension set up, Mark Hopkins from cSixx for letting us pit with them, Conrad Davies for his help and to everyone from Team Jeep South Africa. I had so much fun and it was such a great experience.

KZN DH Champs - Cascades WC track - 11 March 2012

Having a once off KZN Championship was a new thing to downhill this year. The event took place the weekend before the first round of the UCI MTB World Cup in PMB. We had put tons of work into the track, on a number of weekends before, prepping it for the world cup. The track was awesome and we had great weather for Saturdays practise. It rained heavily on Saturday night and the first practise run was super slippery and I decided to put a mud tyre on the front. Cloud 9, the steep section, was so slippery that the officials advised riders not to ride it.

The mud tyre was not necessary for my seeding run as the track had dried up a lot. It just provided some nice rolling resestance on the pedal section. I took the officials advice and rode the chicken run at Cloud 9 because I didn't know if it had dried up. I pushed hard in my run, but held back a little to conserve energy. I was seeded 2nd Junior.

After talking to some of the riders who had ridden after me, I decided that I would just ride the slower line of Cloud 9 to be safe. Track conditions were actually perfect but I had already commited to the slow line so I stuck with it. I was so lucky to have used Andre from Rush Sports' dropper seatpost which made a huge difference on the pedal section. I made a slight mistake on the hip table and lost control and broke through the tape on the side of the track, but luckily kept it together and only lost a few seeconds instead of a lot more if I had creashed. I finished srong and there was some good support at the bottom of the track,

 

I finished 2nd KZN Junior and 3rd Junior Overall. Also stoked to have finished 28th Overall in a field full of international riders. Huge thanks to the race organisers for the awesome job they did, to Andre for all his help with the bike prep and Max Cluer/Team Jeep for all their input.