Tour Durban – 2 May 2010

The Mr Price vets team lined up at the 30-39 start group, eager to make an impression after riding in the previous week’s Panorama Tour. The main competition on the day was going to be the in form Fego Coffee team. It was rather unfortunate that the Black Rock team and the complete Bulk Pack Meat team was not present.

The race started briskly with several attacks going immediately after the gun. One of these attacks stuck and a group of 7 riders got away. Emile Fouche and Gwyn Pine represented Mr Price in this group along with Fego coffee’s Matt Goetsch. This meant that the rest of the Mr Price team sat in and simply covered any riders trying to bridge to the break group.

Gwyn drove the break hard up the M7 resulting in Martin Atterbury popping out of the back of the break group to join us in the chase group.

On the M7 Werner Moolman intelligently revved the pace of the chase group sky high so as to shake out all the hangers on. At the top of the M7 the chase group had been reduced to about 15 riders and it was here that Fego Coffee had another rider join the break group.

With Gwyn driving the break group the gap ultimately got up to around 1:20 on the chase group before Werner called us to increase our pace to bring the gap down a little. The idea was to get the gap to around 1 minute and hold it there in case any one of our team mates in the break got into trouble.

With the pace drifting up and being pushed by those individual riders who had missed the break, the break away group was caught about 3 km before the La Mercy turn around. Thereafter the attacks started coming again with each one being covered and no one letting anything go. As we approached Durban it was obvious that it would be a bunch gallop to the post and we would need to rely on Mark Davel to blitz over the line for a win.

The last 2 corners were quite messy and Mark needed to be well placed going into them. He was not lucky enough to be perfectly positioned and approaching the line he opened up, leading the pack to the line. Unfortunately he went a few meters too early and just as he started fading, Deno Van Heerden edged passed him on the line.

We were ecstatic with the 2nd place the Mark Davel got. Well done also to Gwyn and Emile for the long time you spend in the break.

MTN Panorama Tour 24 to 27 April 2010 – Sub Vets

By Emile Fouche

Werner asked me to write a report on our Panorama Tour this year and I decided to write the report from my perspective.

We couldn’t believe that the Panorama Tour was here already when we packed the vehicles to leave for White River on Friday morning. Saturday morning would be the start of the first stage and I was unsure of how prepared I was for what was laying ahead for us in the next four days, as I had just returned from a four week bout with the dreaded flu.

The Mr Price teams entered for the event were made up as follows: Sub Vets (30 +): Werner Moolman and me, Vets (40+): Iven Scharein and Gwyn Pine, Masters (50+): Derek Tivers and Flip Krugel, Mixed: Mark Davel and Isabel Moolman, Ladies: Sandra Haywood and Marina Smuts.

It was overcast when we left the house for Casterbridge to line up at the start line. It was a bit unfortunate that about all the Mr Price team riders were seeded in the lower batches even though we were all some of the higher seeded riders in our respective categories. That made things a bit difficult from the gun as we had to race past many teams in the neutral zone to catch up with the front teams that was having a jol and a cup of tea behind the neutral car. Just before the 25km mark some action started to happen as it was the MTN hotspot for the Mens, Ladies and mixed teams ahead on the Da Gama Dam climb. Werner and I managed to end up in a break with a couple of strong teams including riders like David Garret, Moolman Welgemoed, Gary Beneke, Calvin Beneke, Jacques Fullard and Jac-Louis van Wyk. We were off and on this front group a couple of times but we managed to stay there with Werner pushing and dragging me behind this group. I was taking a lot of strain. At the bottom of the Spitskop climb Werner told me that we should move to the front of this group and as I was about to try and move forward when one of the younger riders in the group decided to change direction and take my front wheel with him which caused me to crash. We lost quite some time here as my bike (and I) was stuffed and we tried to get it ride able again. Another bunch caught up with us. I realized my front brake calipers were completely loose, so I had to remove them and hook them around my handle bars which created some interesting riding conditions on the descends as I only had rear brakes now. With Werner pushing and dragging me along we managed to stay with this bunch and finished with a time of 3 hours and 28 minutes. We were in fourth place for the Sub Vets after stage one, about twelve minutes behind the category leaders. Stage two on Sunday morning was overcast yet again. At least we were seeded in the A batch now and did not have to race through the neutral zone to be in front with the race leaders. I was feeling a lot better than on day one and managed to give Werner a bit of a break from pushing and dragging me up the hills for the first 60 km. This is a fast stage but from the 50 km mark the front bunch was rolling quite slowly and another bunch caught us from behind. Mark, Isabel, Derek and Flip were in this bunch. The real racing only started with about 20 km left to go as this was where teams could hurt one another on the hills before the finish. We were six minutes behind third place and the plan was to make up some time. Werner went to the front with me sitting his wheel and drove the pace hard. Unfortunately I was not on form and the stronger riders in the bunch got away from us (This included the team SAfindit which was in 3rd place). Werner, Iven, Gwyn and I were riding together now. The three of them working hard and I were just trying to hang on for dear life. We finished this stage in 2 hours 12 minutes, about four minutes behind the stage winners and category leaders. We moved into 5th position for the Sub Vets now and 3rd place was getting out of reach.

Stage three started in some light drizzling rain. On about the 20km mark Werner shouted at me to follow him and we had a bit of a break away to try and take the Hot Spot on the 35km mark. The other teams weren’t letting us get away though and riders like David Garret, Moolman Welgemoed and Nico Bell followed us up to the top of Spitskop. When they went to the front they were too strong for me and rode away from us. After a couple of kilometers a chase group caught up with us. Yet again I could not stay with them but managed to stay on the wheel of a tandem and the the SAfindit team. We stuck together for quite some time but on the downhill to Sabie bad luck struck yet again and my cassette on my rear wheel came loose. There we lost the tandem and SAfindit and watched them ride away as we rode into Sabie. We started the climb up Long Tom pass and I was not having a good time at all. A bunch caught us from behind containing the 40+ category leaders. Gwyn and Iven was in this bunch as well. I tried staying with this bunch as long as I could but even with Werner dragging and pushing me along I could not. I was spent. We started the long descent from Long Tom Pass all on our ace when Werner spotted one of the official backup vehicles. We switched bikes and Werner told me to ride so long on his bike while he changed my rear wheel. Werner caught up with me again in a bunch a couple of kilometers down the road. At least I managed to stay with them. Later Mark and Isabel’s bunch caught us and now we were quite a big bunch rolling on to the finish. On 105km we hit another climb and this bunch got stretched out quite a bit. We finished this stage in 3 hours 32 minutes, still 5th in the Sub Vets and 21st overall.

At last the final day was here and we were ready for the time trial with at least one podium in mind. It was on a tough 24 kilometer with the same grueling finish as on stage two. I could not do any work but I sat on Werner’s wheel for all I was worth. We caught a couple of teams that started in front of us. With 9 kilometers left to go disaster struck once again, Werner’s rear wheel punctured. Werner told me we are still going on and he carried on with a flat rear wheel. We finished the Time Trial in 41 minutes and 38 seconds, missing 3rd place on the podium with 34 seconds.

We finished the tour in 9 hours, 54 minutes and 38 seconds. Our final result was 22nd overall and 5th place in the Sub Vet category. This tour is a must do and I can’t wait to take revenge on these killer hills of White River and surrounds next year!

Well done to Gwyn, Iven, Isabel, Mark, Flip and Derek with all their podium positions. Thanks Werner for your patience during this tour. It was an honor having you as my partner.

Panorama Tour 2010 – Veteran’s category report

Team “One Click” represented Mr Price Cycling Club at the 2010 Panorama Tour in the veteran’s category. It was Gwyn Pine’s and my first time at this event and we unfortunately were seeded into start batch “D” on the first day. This meant that we had to go all out to get to the front of the race at the start of the first stage.

Stage 1 (115km, 2213m ascent). The racing started out fairly briskly in cool, misty conditions. Despite our initial hard effort, Gwyn and I managed to hang on to the front of the race until the first hot spot at 25km where I blew up. Gwyn, the strong man, helped and encouraged me but we still lost contact with the leaders of the Vets category and we grovelled for another 90km over many energy sapping climbs and down some fast descents (max speed just on 90km/h). With Gwyn’s tenacity and strength we finally made it home as 5th Vets (23rd overall) 4 minutes down on the other 4 Vets teams.
Stage 2 (80km, 1192m ascent). I had heard about the neutral zone and that it was very easy to get dropped in it because of the high speed that the peleton rode at. However, nothing could prepare me for the actual experience. It seemed as if the speed was the same going up the hills as going down. Fortunately after the neutral zone the pace became a little more manageable. The peleton rode a fairly comfortable pace for the first 50 km but with 30 km to go the road suddenly kicked up all the way home and the pace hotted up. All the leading Vets teams stayed together in the second group with the front group being made up of the top overall GC contenders. Somewhere along the line a Vet team got away and ended up wining the stage despite being some 10 minutes down on the GC. Gwyn and I had a far better ride and ended the stage 4th in the Vets (24th overall). Our GC position remained unchanged at 5th even though we had made up a few seconds on the stage. We gained confidence in this stage because we started seeing cracks appearing in some of our opponents.

Stage 3 (113km, 2055m ascent). Again the neutral zone was far from being a normal neutral zone but at least Gwyn and I knew what to expect. The racing was again fairly brisk with Gwyn attacking the peleton in the first 6km of the stage which forced me to try and bridge to him. We were quickly brought back on the first real uphill and the peleton split up as we began the climb up Spitskop (5.5km at 5.3% gradient) to the hot spot. Gwyn and I both gained a small gap on the leading Vets teams on the early parts of the climb but at the hot spot we had been caught. The pace however caused a split and with some teams puncturing, 3 Vets teams got away. On the decent into Sabie we reached speeds of up to 85km/h and covered the next 11km in just over 10 minutes. Unfortunately Long Tom Pass loomed and put an end to our speedy run. The next 8.1km were all uphill with an average gradient of 5.2%. Once over Long Tom the remaining Vets teams worked together to maintain the gap that we had over the chasing teams which also meant that Gwyn and I could potentially move into 3rd on the GC. Fortunately we were able to maintain the hard effort and were rewarded by gaining 7 minutes over the next Vet team to put us comfortably into 3rd for the stage and on the GC. We were still around 4 minutes down on the 2nd Vet team on GC, we knew that the time trial would require our best effort. The first place GC was beyond our reach over a 24km time trial.

Stage 4 (24km time trial, 454m ascent). We started 19th last (being 19th overall on GC) just behind Graeme Cronje and Cherise Taylor with the 4th placed Vets team 1 minute ahead of us. Gwyn, being the time trial specialist, set a cracking pace which had me on the rivet from the gun. He powered us through the time trial both up the drags and down the descents enabling us to catch the 4th placed Vets team within the first 10km of the time trial. Now we knew that we had gained another minute on the 4th place but still pushed on hard unfortunately not being able to catch Graeme and Cherise! We ended the tour with a rewarding 22nd best TT overall (42:23) and 2nd Vet for the stage. Despite gaining more than 30 seconds on the 2nd placed Vets team on GC, we remained 3rd on GC at the end of the tour and 17th overall in a time of 9:58:38.

Many thanks to Gwyn Pine who is not only awesomely strong but also always so positive.

Congratulations to Isabel Moolman and Mark Davel for a fine, consistent performance to take 2nd overall in the Mixed category.

Iven Scharein

MTN Panorama Tour 2010 - Mixed

Day 1:

The Panorama Tour 2010 for the Mr Price Team started with an early wake up on Friday (just after 3am) to meet at Werner's place for the long drive to White River. Leaving just after 5am we finally arrived at our accommodation at about 2:23pm and then straight off to register and grocery shopping.

In all the training we jokingly referred to raining for the neutral zone as this is always one of the hardest sections. While there is some sort of seeding system in place, the lead car typically heads of at such a pace that only the strongest teams survive the neutral zone in the lead group and this year it was to prove true to form on day 1. The seeding system was supposed to put all riders in the same category together in the start pens, but some teams managed to get themselves re-seeded so while Blom and I started with the majority of the groups in "C" batch, the favorites in the Mixed section (Greame Crionje and Cherise Taylor) managed to move up to "A" batch. Although the race is supposed to be a mass start with the seeding just determining how close you are to the front, by the time we moved out of the start pens onto the main road, the leaders must have been almost 500m ahead and despite sprinting as fast as possible, we never managed to catch up to the lead group before the end of the neutral zone and as a result were only ever going to be racing for second.

The first stage is about 115km and there is almost no flat road. With well over 2000m of climbing it was really tough. The first half of the stage has a number of small but nasty climbs as you head towards Hazyview and then left towards Sabie where the fun really starts with a 12km climb to the top of Spitzkop. Although we did not know it at the time, heading towards Sabie we were in the group with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Mixed teams and I jokingly told Blom that we would attack the group (about 30 riders) as we reached Sabie and started the climb. I was feeling really strong on the day so true to my word,as we reached the left turn I grabbed hold of Blom and we attacked - quickly opening up a gap of about 100m before one of the stronger male teams rode across to us. Just as they reached us and I thought we would work together, they pulled off to the side of the road to fill their water bottles at the water point. We were not going to hang around and wait so we pressed on - all the time conscious that were were pulling out a bit more distance on the chasing group.

Finally we had some good fortune as we started catching some of the teams who had dropped off the lead group and just near the top of the climb the team who had stopped for water also joined us. Now with a really strong group of about 10 riders we rode really hard for the last 30 or so km back to White River, and despite dropping off this group on the final kick up to the finish we still managed to finish almost 5 minutes ahead of the next Mixed Team who had been with us at the start of the Climb out of Sabie. Our time for the stage was about 3hrs 45mins, well behind the leaders (Greame and Cherise) but they did have the advantage of being able to ride comfortably with the leading group without having to put in the effort themselves.

The other Riders from Mr Price also put in strong performances with Werner and Emile 4th in the 30-39's despite Emile crashing, Gwyn and Iven 5th in the 40-49 ad Derek and Flip 4th in the 50+. Sandra and Marina finished in the top 10 in the Ladies section.

Day 2 is a bit easier and with a bit of a buffer over the 3rd place team and no chance of catching the leaders (unless they have a serious problem) we looked forward to recovering a bit before the challeng of Stage 3 with 2 major climbs over another 115km or so with again more than 2000m of climbing.....


Day 2:

Probably the easiest stage of the Tour but still over 1100m of climbing in 80km and most of this climbing is in the final 30km.

Fortunately Blom and I were in the top 50 overall after day 1 so we were "seeded" and able to start at the front of the field for day 2. After a short "neutral zone" there was a nasty couple of km at full pace which split the bunch and unfortunately we were the last team dropped from the lead group as the pace was incredibly hard. We were however fortunate to end up riding with quite a big bunch which also included the 3rd placed mixed team so we were not too concerned.

After a tricky first 20km we hit the fast flat section down to Nelspruit, and were fortunate to have a strong tandem in the group as we really flew with little or no effort. From Nelspruit we took the left turn taking us towards the airport road After another few km we were really surprised to see the lead group just ahead and they seemed to be riding really easy. as it turned out there were a few riders away but it was nice to have actually caught the lead group.

This situation was sure to change and did as we took the left turn back towards White River past the airport. What goes down must come back up.... Blom and I rode relatively hard at the start of the hill and managed to get in a group ahead of the 3rd placed team. We worked hard to stay in this group and at the end of the day were rewarded with another 2nd place, gaining another 4 mins on the team in 3rd, but Graeme Cronje and Cherise Taylor were just in a different class finishing a few minutes ahead of us to extend their overall lead.


Day 3:

Another really tough day including 2 major climbs each about 8-10km long. The weather at the start did not look promising - light rain and heavy skies overhead. The start followed the same route as day 2 and once again the group split just after the neutral zone but we worked hard to get us back to the leading bunch. As the climbing began in earnest once again we were dropped off this group and riding with the 3rd placed mixed team. Riding up the first big climb of the day we made a point of sticking near the front of the group, and this paid off as we were fortunate enough to be caught by a strong tandem (I think they had punctured earlier) in the last few meters of the climb giving us an opportunity for a fast descent into Sabie. Looking around we were pleased to see that we were now the only mixed team in the group.

From Sabie we turned l,eft and began the grueling climb up Long Tom pass. In a way it was a blessing that we rode into the mist as it made it impossible to see how much further we still had to climb. Near the Turn back towards Nelspruit we had another bit of good luck as we caught another Tandem. With almost 30km of downhill from this point it was the best news ever. At stages we were going so fast the group nearly split up on the downhill. At this pace we were constantly catching teams who had fallen off the pace of the leading group. To our absolute surprise one of the last groups contained Graeme and Cherise as well as Werner. An even bigger surprise was that Werner was riding Emile's bike!!! (Emile had a problem with his wheel so they had swapped bikes with Emile riding on ahead on Werner's bike while Werner waited for a spare wheel).

The final 10km proved just too tough for us to be able to stay with Graeme and Cherise and contend for the Stage win, but all the good fortune (and tactics) of staying with the Tandems paid off as we were now almost 30 mins ahead of 3rd (and a long 19mins off 1st) going into the final day's 24km time trial.

Day 4:

Nice to have a bit of extra sleep as the TT start list was reverse order on overall classification and we were now 33rd overall. With the time gaps between us and our closest competition the TT was merely academic in terms of the overall position. With sore legs from 3 days of hard racing and little motivation for being able to improve on our overall position we decided that we would push hard but not as Iven might put it "Super-Hard".
The 24km route for the TT was not flat and at the end of the day our 47:21 time was only good enough for 3rd on the day, but there were no changes in the overall positions. Having been on the podium every day and finishing off 2nd overall meant a really successful tour and a lot of trophies for Blom and myself.

A couple of special thanks.

Firstly to my partner - Blom, you were amazing. Sorry for abusing your body like that! Secondly to all the other Mr Price teammates for making this such an enjoyable weekend. Well done to Iven and Gwyn for your 3rd Place overall in the 40-49 category - an excellent result. Finally thanks to Taryn for all your support and giving up your long weekend to be babysitter for the mini-Moolmans.

Mark