Red Hill Race Report - WP Road League nr 4

[City Cycling Athletic Club]

The weather forecast was for rain in the early morning for the Club 100 annual road race around Simons Town and Red Hill. It was still raining at the Race Commissaires and Team Managers meeting 30 minutes prior to the start of racing and the message was ‘ride with caution’.

With all the marshals and traffic control in place, the riders rolled across the start line promptly at 7.45am and it wasn’t long before the race was strung out on the false flat leading up to Cape Point gate. Riders started popping off the back on small climbs at Millers Point and Froggy Pond. The pace  then settled down through Simonstown and the peloton started Red Hill with just Reece McDonald (RDX) ahead of them.  The climbers put down the hammer on the switchbacks and Matt Beers (Toyota Specialised) flew past the view point on his own to take the KOM prize for Category 1. None of the teams could gather sufficient troops to organise a chase on the 2^nd and 3^rd laps and Beers built his lead up to 6 minutes over the next 60 kms. The Toyota Specialised rider crossed the finish line at the summit of Red Hill in a time of 2hrs6min over the 88kms followed by Jaco Venter (Team Mad Macs) and Daniel Loubser (Freewheel Cycology).

Category 2, 3 and Women raced 2 loops of the Red Hill circuit.

u19 Junior cyclist Jessie Munton had to call on her track speed to successfully contest sprint for Women’s KOM and first place. Tessa Keers and Layla Schwellnus fought all the way around the course to make the race very competitive for all the participants.

The Category 2 bunch started the 1^st climb of Red Hill all together and then were strung out as the climb progressed with Reynard Traut (Cape Town Giants) claiming the KOM prize. The race came back together for the last lap with the climbers keeping their matches dry. They lit the fuse when 3 riders went away to contest the sprint with Theodore van Wyk (independent) claiming first, from Josh Lindenburg (Mother Amateur Club) in 2^nd and Jaco Roets (Somerset CC) in 3rd.

Guy le Ray-Cooke (independent) claimed first place in a tightly contested sprint to the line with KOM Nicholas van Wyk (Bellville CC) in 2^nd  and Delano Rasmus (Bellville CC) in 3^rd in the Category 3 race.

for some fantastic photos go to 

https://www.facebook.com/WPCycling 

Edited May 22, 2023 by City Cycling Athletic Club

[FootballingCyclist]

I spectated the event... And with confidence, I can say, Matt Beers is NOT human!!! We were standing at the lookout point before the top, on the 1st lap Matt had about a 30sec lead over @Sid the Sloth who was riding his 1X 56t big blade(RIP Knees), on the 2nd lap, the gap was all of a sudden 4min30 and he managed to finish with a 7min gap on the 3rd and final lap and beat Jaco Venter who came in 2nd (ex SA Champ and WT rider) and @Sid the Sloth coming in 3rd...

 

We were laughing as spectators as Matt came 1st in Cat 1, and finished in what would've been 7th in Cat 3 as he caught so many riders(Cat 3 started 20mins after Cat 1 and the full loop is just under 30kms).

 

BUT what made it even more insane, was chatting to him at the end, he wasn't happy with the 52/36 gear setup on his Aethos and he said he was spinning out quite often as he didn't have big enough gears, but the cherry on the top was he still had 3 hrs to do on his programme, he finished the day with 205kms @ 33.7km/h average with 3300+m elevation gain.

 

That dude is just wired differently....

Edited May 22, 2023 by FootballingCyclist

[peetwindhoek]

He oozes a personality that just makes you have to love the mullet! What a guy!

In my office:  

[City Cycling Athletic Club]

video footage just uploaded on Western Province Cycling Association FB page