Tru Cape MTB Race

I rode in the Tru Cape on Saturday morning and had a great time. I entered quite late but in the end couldn't resist trying to redeem myself after last year's poor showing in the race (read about it here). This year I managed not to wipe out or to contract some vile illness which was a relief.

This race takes place at Grabouw Country Club and most of the trail is through the MTO forestry commission. This race is not for the fainthearted as it involves a lot of climbing. Once you've done it you realise why it's only 40k's when most MTB races are between 55 & 60k's. To add to this the Northwester was pumping and at one point as I was rounding an exposed bend with five other riders a gust knocked all six of us off our bikes! However, the views are stunning, the riding is superb and the single-track is some of the best around. I noticed that this year they closed off the really rocky section of single-track, probably because so many people struggled on it last year, me included, but all in all this is a very good race.

The official results are on the Winning Time website and can be seen here.
I finished in 2:43:18 in 78th place out of 185 with an average speed of 14.7kph. I'm a bit disappointed with my result. I rode the first half with Rod who finished 4 minutes behind me and Jono another friend from church finished 9 minutes ahead of me.

There's not much point in posting a weekly summary this week as I only rode twice, once on Thursday morning with Petie from Helderberg Cycle World and in the Tru Cape. On Thursday I was feeling very strong on the bike and really pushed my heart rate and race day is always a bit disastrous in terms of keeping the heart rate down. Despite this, both rides were a lot of fun! The crowd on Thursday was a bit different to normal so it was also good to meet some different riders.

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