14th on the 14th April
I haven't had that funny feeling on my stomach in quite a while... A pre race feeling but with the added sound of rain. It quickly reminded me of the racing days back in Spain 2 years ago.
A very early wake up, a dark drive to the race in the pouring rain. It only started getting light at about 7am I think and we set off at 7:30am for 3 laps of the Red Hill Circuit in Simonstown.
I rolled over to the start line, but quickly found some bushes next to the road for a pee and then heard the commissar say 10seconds! By the time I hoped on my bike, the commissar car was next to me & I knew I had to get into the bunch. That I did and felt the legs needed to warm up, so I went to the front of the group and closed a few breakaways before giving one long pull on the front to warm the legs up for good.
The race carried on per usual, we didn't slow down on the downhills and the pace kept quite high. A few sprints and attacks came with guys trying to break clear on every little incline.
It was quite nice having fellow club rider Paul Smuts with me there on the day to race with. He spent some time last year bike packing and following the Tour De France with his bicycle & has made a great transition into the racing scene locally. I think he also won his batch at the cape argus, mate you got to forgive me if I get it wrong here, but I think it was the 2nd batch of the day?
On the final lap, a split happened. Paul & Matthew Keyser was in there with me, including junior Josh Burger, who showed some serious vasbyt out there to finish top 15. Matthew was probably the strongest guy out there on the day, he helped us nicely on that final lap to close that gap to the leaders perfectly at the bottom of Red Hill. It was like clock work, but I was shattered by that time and crawled up the climb to the mountain top finish.
There were some other little tricky things I had to navigate, like when my Wahoo & Gopro mount vibrated loose after a bolt fell out. I didn't feel like buying a new computer and gopro, so I sat up mid race and loosened that mount before placing it in my back pocket, obviously when I looked ahead, the bunch had a few hundred meters on me that I had to close down... Thought that would be my race but managed it.
Happy with how that day went & looking forward to see how the body works throughout these wet winter months in the Cape this year.
Race Results can be found here https://www.wpcycling.com/race-results/results-red-hill/
Photos - Cycling Hub SA on Facebook and Salie Toefy for Western Province Cycling Association.
Swim on !
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