Amashova - 16 October 2011 - by Emile Fouche

We lined up for a 6h05 start in a very, very wet Pietmaritzburg on Sunday morning the 16th of October. Originally the race register showed that there were 123 entries for the VA category (Age 30-39), but on the day there were only about 75 on the start line. The rain probably indicated to the rest that they should stay in bed. Riding for the Mr Price KZN 30+ team on the day was Sean Merredew, Andrew Reeves, Werner Venter, Mike Viljoen and me. There were quite a couple of other well represented teams namely Fego, MTN Club 100, Brothers Sport and the Bring it On Puza Thursday team.


Everyone expects the bunch to split up going up Fox Hill, with a break going off in the sunrise (or rain storm in this case) and the remains trying to catch it until they reach the finish line. This year it was different, it seemed half of the bunch did bring their climbing legs and got over Fox Hill. The pace was high going up Fox, but not as high as last year when only about 15 guys went over the top. Maybe it was because of the fact that Jaco Ferreira or Jacques Fullard were not in the bunch driving it. Sean tried hard, but no one else showed interest.


Heading towards Umlaas road an attack would go off every now and then, but all of it got pulled back. After Camperdown Spar there was another attack from an MTN rider heading towards Cator ridge. I went to the front to chase but ended up opening a gap behind me. I was closing in on the MTN rider, and the bunch was closing in on me so it was pretty much mission accomplished. Once the bunch got back together another MTN rider, Jeremy Martins (Ex DCM Chrome) attacked with Werner on his wheel and that was the first real break of the day. On Harrisson Flats it was sad to see Bring it On rider, Darrell Seed sticking his hand in the air, indicating a puncture (He also mentioned something about Vark Steaks). The break was still away going up Inchanga and the commissaire told us that the VB bunch were right behind us with a 1 minute 30 seconds gap.

At the top of the climb we noticed that Jeremy had punctured and we caught Werner going up Alverstone. All was back together again and stayed like that until we reached the M13. The second break for the day happened just before we reached Hillcrest with Deno van Heerden (Fego), Andrew, a MTN rider and another two riders. We were happy with this break as we had confidence in Andrew to be able to finish it off. Unfortunately MTN did not have confidence in their rider and they chased the break down. The break was reigned in on 45th cutting from where Jeremy Martins sneaked away. Once we got onto the N3 Andrew asked me to try and help pace, even though I felt stuffed. I went to the front, rotating with Mat Goetsch (Fego), Werner, Mike and some other guys. Jeremy brought his time trialling legs though and stayed away to take the win in the VA-batch. For MTN that wasn’t enough and they also took 2nd and 3rd, with Deno in 4th and Sean wrapping up the final podium in 5th.


It was a wet miserable 2 hours and 37 minutes in the saddle, but a great race with the whole Mr Price team finishing in the main bunch.