Saturday evening saw the Mr Price vets team make the trip to the north west corner of KZN. Once used as a popular stop over for wagons in the 1800s, Newcastle was soon to be invaded by a breed of wheels and testosterone very different to that of the late 1800's. In this century – the wagons are carbon , the engines are legs and the drivers are well...... lets just say lycra wasn’t made in khaki.
After a seemingly long drive we (Andrew, Mike and Werner) arrived at the Newcastle Inn . Emile and Bryan had driven up earlier in the day and were already digesting dinner by the time we arrived . Somehow we managed (not sure how...) to convince Emile to join us for a late beer while we ate our dinner at the local Spur. During dinner team tactics were discussed and multiple plans were made for the 80km route the following day. The start : Waterside Wimpy. The Route : an undulating cruise through the countryside of Newcastle.
The best laid plans are always flawed..........
Newly attired in our new kit (better late than never), we hit the road at 5am the following morning on our warm up to the start. The weather was perfect for a days racing and what was to turn into a superbly organised and attended race. Like i said - all plans are always flawed. It started on a hill, we turned the corner up a hill and finished up a hill. Luckily we were in our own territory and not in Jhb participating in a Nascar type bike race with just as many bone braking crashes.
The first few kilometres were as per usual - the odd attack and nervous chase. This was soon destroyed by an almost vertical climb 20km into the race. We weren’t sure how hard the hill was, so we sent Werner up the road just before the climb to scare the bunch. It almost worked but ended up blasting the bunch into pieces courtesy of tempo chase from Werner Moolman of Cyclelab Durban. A few unsuccessful brakes went away shortly after but the brake of the day went at 30km when Emile countered a move from Werner Moolman and shot up the road. Rowan Tyler(Fego) and Mike Adey(Cyclelab PMB) gave chase and made it across to make it a 3 man battle at the head of the race. Now that the break was represented , the bunch settled into a reasonable pace until the next steep climb split it even further, leaving about 12 in the follow group. Making it into the second split, Mike and Andrew were locked into protecting the lead that Emile had created. Luckily we did not have to do too much as we had a man up the road.
The calm did not last long after the turn as the chasing 3rd bunch managed to bring us back as close as 13 seconds just before the turn back onto the main road - 15km from the finish. This information sent our bunch into a frenzy of attacks from Cyclelab and Fego. Luckily Emiles break had a maximum of 2m26 by the main road so the fight now was for 4th . The attacks also gave another minute to the third bunch which by this stage was starting to hurt.
As discovered in the morning, the finish was preceded by a rather long and hard climb. The final attack came from one of the Mr Price juniors that had made the split. This blew everything to pieces. Mike popped first followed closely by Andrew, leaving the final positions to be fought out by Cyclelab , Fego and the Mr Price juniors.
At the finish line we discovered that Emile had snatched a third after being away in the break for most of the day. Rowan Tyler put in a massive attack on the second to last bump and managed to hold off a charging Mike Adey for the win.
So for the third weekend in a row we were on the podium. Not bad for a bunch of thirties with day jobs.
Thanks to the team management and support for the well organised trip.
Mike Viljoen
