Dis-Chem : Race Report

[Guest Michelle]

Cashandra: Very impressive ride!!  Not once did I see you get any help from the guys you were riding with (unlike the girls chasing )

[Sonic]

I NEARLY DIED?.  This weekend saw me doing my first two B bunch races, the<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Dischem being the first, I woke up at 4 in the morning, as my father was

riding VB, so I had to be there really early, we got there at 5:30 kitted up

and went to watch EPOH fall off the rollers (which he didn?t ) I went

to the start with a friend of mine, Andrew, the race started and I had one

thing in mind?.

Get to the front before Saartjiesnek, it seemed I wasn?t the only one, I

hooked onto someone?s wheel and caught a lift. We got to Saartjies, the pace

dropped off completely and I found myself at the front, so I sped it up a

little to break up the bunch. It worked and we were left with a bunch of

about 20 strong  rider as we worked our way towards the rest of the ?neks?

The bunch got smaller and smaller until we were only about 12. Between the

?neks? and Hekpoort there was only three of us working at the front which

got on my nerves. When we got to Hekpoort the New Image cycles

guys showed their strength and went to the front and set a blistering pace,

which I kept up for about 1.5km up the hill, then I got dropped with 4 of

them riding away from me. I tried my hardest in the subsequent downhill to

catch them but a youngster like me didn?t stand much hope. I teamed up with

another A and B rider for a while but got dropped on another downhill. The

rolling hills and mountain passes past the satellite station really took it

out of me. But I grit my teeth and stuck my head down and just tried to keep

a rhythm going. I caught a few A bunch guys that decided to stick on my

wheel and I pulled them along, they tried to help but didn?t really, they

did thank me for the pull afterwards.

 

Eventually I came in with a time of about 3:21, and 5th in B, I was really

happy with my result as it was the first time I had been seeded this high. I

want to say a big well done to TCS and Andrew who came in about 8 minutes

after me especially as he has only been doing about 40 minutes of training a

week.

[amused]

I have checked championchip and I see Cassandra was 5 min ahead of Ronel, this is impressive considering all the girls chasing.  Well done and on the win at Dome to dome, you probably will have to take the back seat again when your team arrives back.  thats sounds unfair to me.