The 7 team riders were; Dirk Barnard, Emile Fouche, Sean Merredew, Gwyn Pine, Andrew Reeves, Werner Venter and Mike Viljoen.
With the undulating but relatively flat route a break away was possible but a sprint finish was also a likely event.
Our large bunch started at 06h35 on an unusually cold summer morning and we took a good few kilometres to defrost.
After only 2 kilometres Werner Venter unfortunately crashed out with a number of other riders. He was unable to continue and we later learned he had broken his elbow.
There were a few attacks early on but the pace was not too hard yet. At about 40km Jeremy Maartens of MTN started attacking up a hill, this caused a break of about 7 riders to get away. We did not stay away for too long though with a lot of other riders eager to chase.
As we were caught Maartens went again and the bunch let him go, many were not expecting him to get far. But being an ex pro with serious time trialling ability he managed to hold off a chasing bunch for 40kms on his own.
After much chasing by Emile, Mike, Dirk, Gwyn and other teams he was only caught at the top of Heidelburg hill 80+kms into the race.
After that there were a flurry of attacks and counter attacks, but every time the large number of riders in the bunch meant the groups were dragged back.
With no James Louter or Jacques Fullard to contend with Sean and I were ready to go for the sprint finish, but Julius Cobbet was ready too.
With a large bunch sprint inevitable we started searching for the best bunch position, and coming in to the final S-bend corners it was MTN leading it out. Unfortunately I punctured within the last 500m but managed to hit the final straight in the lead. Sprinting with a rear flat I was going nowhere and got totally swamped by the bunch.
Sean sprinted well and timed his effort better, getting 4th place in the end.
A charging Julius Cobbet won the bunch sprint convincingly.
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