On September 10, 2011 we lined up outside the Dundee primary school for 80km of the Mpati Cycle Challenge. The Mr. Price Vets team was represented by myself, Emile Fouché and Gwyn Pine.
The racing started with a short neutral zone to get us through the town of Dundee. As soon as the racing proper started, attacks started left, right and center. At about 10km into the race Emile and myself got away and open a gap of about 20 seconds to the chasing group. Werner Moolman (Cyclelab Durban) knew that the two main contender in the group- AC Swanepoel and Victor Grobler (Team Intelibus) was not going to make the racing, but rather sit wheel to the end and then attack, so he made the pace hard, unfortunately in so doing he closed the gap to us, dragging the group back to us. Werner Moolman then straight away put in another attack to which AC Swanepoel and Victor responded. Emile and myself knew we couldn’t let them go, so we worked hard to cross over. We crossed over at around 30km done and from there on the 5 of us rode away from the chasing group.
The out and back route was more demanding than we expected and the headwind all the way back to the finish didn’t make the ride any easier.
With around 3km to go I put in an attack to try and break the breakaway up, but didn’t really succeed. Emile then went, also with no success. Victor and AC then went, with Werner Moolman chasing.
In the end Victor took the win overall with Werner Moolman 2nd and AC Swanepoel 3rd. I crossed the line in 4th overall and 1st in the Vets 30-39, closely followed by Emile. My first podium and my first win-great feeling I must admit.
It was a fantastic race and a good day at the office for the Mr. Price Vets team.
After the Margate South coast challenge has been canned for the second year in a row, we decided to head to Johannesburg to do the Dome to Dome which took part on the 4th of September. The team members going up were Werner Venter, Mike Viljoen, Andrew Reeves, Gwyn Pine and me. Gwyn , being the Ballie between the 30 plus year old laaities raced in the 40+ category. We weren’t allowed to race with the licensed VA category as we were registered as a Top club team.
We lined up in the start pins with the Pro/Elite/u23 bunch. You know, it is that category where the paid riders and those with the prospect of being a paid rider start (Those who can train while the not so lucky sit at work). At 6h15 the shout was given by the commentator to start the race and there we went. The Dome to Dome, which should now be called “Back to School”, is not an easy event and it turned out to be a hard morning of sucking wheel. It was a new route this year, starting at the top of Sterkfontein heading out past Tarlton, up past Maropeng, a lap of the Cradle and back to the top of Sterkfontein. The race started off on a drag from Protea Rif School and then a bit of a breather until you turned right onto Robert Broom Drive. We encountered a climb and unfortunately we lost Werner there as he had a bad day. We got onto the R24 and then turned right onto the T7 where the bunch was going at a high pace over a drag that made me almost spit my back teeth out. This is where Mike decided he had enough and only Andrew and I were left. Unlike me Andrew can handle himself at the front of the bunch with the Pro teams. A break of ten riders strong formed where most of the Pro-teams were represented and the bunch went into cruising mode, which was still at a speed of between 45 and 50 kilometres an hour at stages.
There was a long drag before we reached the actual climb towards the finish line and the pace of the bunch was high, too high for me and I popped off. Going up the climb, I could maintain a good pace and saw Andrew just a couple metres ahead of me. Andrew crossed the line as the 5th (No chip) Vet with me in 6th with a time of 2h15:07. The race was won by Reinardt Janse van Rensburg from MTN Qhubeka in a time of 2h11:33.
After the race we made the decision that we would be withdrawing from the Top Club team status, as we want to be able the race. An established Sub Vet racing format was destroyed to help get the country’s top and Pro cyclists used to racing in bigger bunches. Maybe a good idea at a time, but Top Club failed. We want 30+ racing back and we want to be able to compete against riders in the same situation as us, working for a life and cycling as a hobby (Although we don’t always want to admit it).
Bring back Sub Vet racing! We are not the only team that feels this way!
