The Wet One!
This last weekend I took part in my second ever road race (The Fast One http://www.fastone.co.za/). The race started at the Nasrec Expo centre and finished at Vaal Triangle Campus in Vanderbijlepark 103kms away! My dad was also racing 
. We got to Nasrec around 6:30 in the morning and it was raining….not ideal for road riding….My dad and I were sitting in the car debating if we were even going to ride. Andrew & Richie (Riding mates of Worm and I) rocked up to start with me in “F” group and the rain stopped…game on!!! The race got off to the usual roadie start….slow and Andrew kept telling me to back off the pace…hehe.
Eventually we all got bored and staged our own mini-breakaway with Andrew, Richie, The Yellow man and me! We worked well for about 10km’s when The Orange man joined our mini-break. The Orange man didn’t do any work on the front of the bunch…so about 10km’s from Suikerbos we dropped him like a bad habit! The race proved a little too hot for the Yellow man as he fell off the back when we joined a faster group being led by a very strong Tandem team. The group had about 20 riders and we were cruising at 40kph!
With about 35km’s to go the Tandem team picked up the pace and the group split, Andrew, Richie and I managed to stick with the Tandem team and so did the Red man and the Blue man. Blue man fell off the group with around 10kms to go and we picked up the White man instead…. White man dropped his bottle in front of me with 3km’s to go!
We made the final turn of the race without incident and in the distance I could see the finish! I promptly got out of the saddle and powered past the Tandem team and crossed the line! I later heard that this is taboo after getting pulled along by a tandem and the polite thing to do is to let the Tandem cross the line before you….toffees to that – I’m a mountain biker!!!
I finished the 103km route in 2hrs 48mins at an average speed of 36kph. My final placing was 743 overall of 3665 riders, 78 in my age group of 284 riders and 26 in my group of 195!
Time: 2hrs 48mins
Distance: 103kms
Climbing: 405m (FLAT!!!)
Average Speed: 36.2 kph
After the race I took in some liquids and had something to eat and got back on the bike to ride back to Nasrec! It was Dennis (The old war-horse!), Andrew, Richie and I. After about 10kms Andrew started having pain in his knee which eventually caused him to abandon the ride back – Richie stopped as well because he was getting lift home with Andrew. Dennis and I soldiered on but as the pace started to drop – Dennis changed the route back to his house and he would give me a lift back to my car in Nasrec. When we arrived at his house he could hardly walk up the stairs! Shame….His Mrs gave me a lift to my car and that was that .
Stats for the ride back:
Time: 2hrs 47mins
Distance: 60kms
Climbing: 295m (Flat again!!!)
Average Speed: 23 kph
My keeps showing a steady improvement with his riding! His results for the race:
Time: 4hrs 17mins
Distance: 103kms
Overall pos: 3333 of 3665
Group (O): 137 of 199
Well done Dad!!!!