Hi Durbanville HS Race Report By Dennis Lamminga I’ve been looking forward to this 90km race all week. It’s great because: · We can cycle the start, it’s only 6km away from our house! · The hosts, Durbanville High School, is always very well organised · There’s a plethora of choices: long & short Road distances, MTB choices and even walk / runs Oom Gerard Genis joined me for the quick pedal towards the start. He was looking very fit after last week’s One Tonner and I convinced him to start in the same group as me. At the start we saw most of the Outriders arrive en masse. Another beautiful Spring morning. Another wonderful turn-out by the club. The A and B groups were called to the start, and they started together. About a dozen of us huddled together in the C and D groups, and we were next to go. DC Team mate Michael Pawlowski gave me a nervous smile, but the man looked ready to race – we were going to attack the next 2.5 hours guns blazing! Strategy My strategy for this race was to lead from the front, try and get a bit of a echelon going near the spear-head of the 60+ rider group, and give it 100% right from the gun. The plan worked perfectly. After taking some sneaky shortcuts over some round-abouts, we found a strongish group leading out the peloton towards Wellington. There was a bit of a tail wind, so the going was fast. The rolling hills didn’t seem to deter the riders and everyone big-bladed over them as if they were nothing. At around 25km most of the group was still entact. I moved to the rear of the bunch to see if everyone’s still ok. Everyone was still hanging on nicely. The pace was relentless, we tried to split up the bunch by really putting down the hammer near the front, but the C and D group riders were strong enough to hang on. Pic: The first 25km was fast. Pic taken by FRAIL on his GoPro mounted under his saddle At the front again and everyone was getting quiet before the spike in the route at 40km: a nastly short little climb that normally tests the legs at the 1 hour mark. Amazingly everyone flew over and I even heard Anton saying at the top, “Now where is this hill everyone is talking about?”. That’s how quick it was. Another turn left into a head wind and the front dozen guys worked nicely together in true “Belgian Circle” style where one guy works a bit in front, slightly moves away to the side, and so gives the next guy the opportunity to work in front. This kept the momentum going up to the Silo’s and at the 70km mark we were joined by the short route riders.. The last 20km was going to be hairy. Everyone was on high alert not to cause accidents and try and stay left of the white line. The group was now huge, so it was a bit of a struggle to fight for position into the side wind. At 5km to go I tried a bit of work in front to string out the bunch and hopefully cause a break, but didn’t work at first. So I tried again at 3km to go, but everyone had different ideas and didn’t want to let me go – Kudos to all of them being super athletes and hanging on for dear life! The final sprint over the hill was a messy affair with cyclists being boxed in. Everyone tried to go for that top 10 finish and in the end our very own Outrider, Angelo Voulgarellis won the mini sprint. Despite Derwyn going farming at one stage, and some youngsters playing Russian Roulette against oncoming traffic, everyone else finished safely in the bunch. Esrick Bull and Josh Grant did amazingly well to finish with us and a personal big thanks to Anton, Angelo, Craig, and Derwyn who were always leading from the front showing strong legs and great camaraderie throughout the morning torture. Stats of our race: · 2h28 over 90km (exactly the same time as last year! ;-) · 9 minutes after the first guys · Average speed 36.2 kmph · Average HR 152 Outriders in the other groups did extremely well. DC Team Captain Daron and Master Anton Rossouw did an outstanding job controlling the E & F bunch and a special mention to Dangerous Duo Reinhardt and Chris who attacked from group H, and managed to catch E & F group to finish only 2 minutes behind us! Pic: Outriders cracking a smile after the race Fltr standing: Winner Angelo, Craig, Daron, Oom Gerard, Chris, Kobus, Lammie, Shaun, Reinhardt, Derwyn, Mario, Michael P., myself Fltr sitting: Oom Bernie, Esrick, Steve, Mike Riders of the day Riders of the day however go to Kobus and Bernie who won the tandem category in the short route. Kobus is back after a paraglide injury and it’s great to see our Tandem Duo doing so well again. He also took 3rd in his 50-59 Age Category. Bernie won his 60-69 Age category. Well done guys. -- Going through the end results on Racetec I am amazed to see the quality of the Veteran Racing in the Western Cape. Names like Michael Creedon, Sean Viljoen, Lieuwe Boonstra, Zane Armstrong, André Viljoen, Jan Wiehman, Rassie Smit, Paul Meinking, André Traut and Frans Cronjé all finishing in the first bunch – what an inspiration to all of us. Pic: Reinhardt, obviously pleased with his result, doing the hokey pokey..
