What happend at the Cederberg???

[Dicky DQ]

?????

[Skye]

Rode their MTB for 3 days I hope, send me your e-mail add and I will send you the results 

[hagar]

they got lovely wine there in the Cedarberg and the planterium went then on a dirty week end once with Sweetie before i started cycling awesome place to ride would love to go back again sometime but with her car  that road can get rough

[TitusTi]

Day 1:<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

So I get a surprise entry into this race and arrive totally unprepared, figured I wouldn?t race it but just use it for training instead, good idea, in theory. Have a couple of beers on Thursday night and get all amped to race the next day.

The race start with a 4km neutral zone, things are looking up, the race starts and everyone just stays calm and relaxed until we hit the dirt, a sharp right turn results in a big ass  pile up, which I avoid ?cause I got them sharp elbows out and I hit the double track at the front, wondering how wise an idea this is, good part is I can slow everyone up a bit at least.

After a bit of wondering about a sandy vineyard we pop out onto a tar road and proceed to climb for a bit, then the tar became gravel and the gradient increased and my legs stop going up and down. I then spent what felt like a day and a half trying to get to the top of (K)PakHuis pass, eventually we get up there and it?s time to have a bit of fun on the descents, turns out they?re quite short, fun though. Then spend the rest of the day struggling to get to the end only to fall on a stupid little right hand bend about 300m from the finish line. Finish the day in about 16^th place about 40 minutes behind the leaders and about 20 minutes behind where I should have been a

Decide get in some anti-oxidants in red wine format, also watched a guy get his dislocated shoulder wiggled about, cool, dinner and a show!

Day 2:

Red wine seems to have worked miracles (either that or the Hammer products are helping me recover quite quickly), still can?t climb but I can climb a little faster at least, in fact I can actually hold gaps to people who were riding away from the day before. Then decide to switch off the brain for the descents and see how fast a person really can go before your sanity muscles start kicking in, apparently your survival instincts kick before this, good to know. Finish the day being chased up the last hill by 2 guys, thinking if I can get to the top before them I can open the gap, I make it to the top with a  50m gap and proceed to open this up all the way down the hill, finished 6^th today, a little better. I now seem to have picked up the nickname of ?The Hammer Man? and I can?t even do a hammer slide, must learn!

Gonna try the red wine again!

Day 3:

Day 3 dawns to a nice fast pace, I can hang in just fine as long the climbs aren?t too long, we hit a climb that is too long, bugger! Get dropped from the front group and get involved in the chase, finish a couple of minutes down on the front bunch, it?s a short and rather uneventful day actually. It?s done, time to celebrate with a Boerrie roll or 2.

[#Pete#]

Day 1: Mostly uphill somehow, with lots of heat (upto 45 degrees at one stage in the afternoon), lots of slow jeeptrack sandy rocksy type stuff found nowhere else such that the 70 or so km's felt like a 100km. Tough day, but nice camp site at the end (esp vs last year's desert camp).

 

Day 2: Lovely ride, even the climb up to Eselbank was almost rideable for mere mortals. Shorter than advertised, which is alwyas good. Again - camp site worked (pity the bags and food weren't there though - beers made up for it)

 

Day 3: A downhill dash to the end - just so one feels like the legs have recovered and ones actually improving (less than 2 hours for the leaders).

 

Organisation almost as crap as last year - these guys have a long way to go to touch other 'leaders' in this genre such as Sani2c or The Epic. But great route this year and good vibe largely made up for it.

 

[Groot Lem]

Some good base miles for me. Erik kleynhans (Maties) won by more than 10 min over Oliver Munnik.

 Apparently not as well orgenised as previous years, esp DAY2 when we waited untill 4pm for bags to arrive. Almost scored free beers because of that. I didnt drink a lot as one of the aims were to lose some weight. On which website can I see Bigtime results??

[TitusTi]

I saw they have the results up on their site. www.180mtb.co.za or something like that.