Die Burger MTB Race report

Saturday 31 August was the day for one of the biggest MTB races in the Western Cape.
Die Burger MTB Challenge is the new name for the Stellenbosch MTB Challenge. This event is one of Dirtopia's premier events, and if you only do one race in the winter, let it be this one.

Having scored VIP Parking tickets with my entry, I pulled in at Markotter with a bit of nerves.
After a quick bike prep I realised I forgot my timing chip in the flat. Epic Fail.

Nevertheless, I met Freddie and Phanus, and after a quick goodbye and goodluck kissy to my Marike (my girlfriend and Lucky charm) I headed off to the start chute with the boys.

Usually I take time to warm up as this helps me to deal with the frenetic pace after the start gun. But I had to settle for some stretching combined with shooting the breeze with those around me. John rocked up in the nick of time again, so it was good seeing everyone before the start.

As usual, after the gun clapped everyone sped off. I managed to get to the front of the pack by bunnyhopping the sidewalk and racing forward. It was quite cool seeing the Sportsmans Warehouse bakkie as the lead vehicle, even though my lungs were already clapping hands at me.

We quickly got the bit of tar behind us and went up to theCoetzenburg Cross. Going up the Proefplaas side of the mountain is not one of my favourite climbs, and when we reached the cross I was feeling the lack of hill training. We quickly despatched the contour road and the downhill on the back side of the hill.

I saw Johann Swart (johannswart.wordpress.com) with his camera on one of the hairpin bends and promptly whipped my back wheel to the side so that he could get a lekker shot. I also promptly learned that my back wheel has zero to no grip when leaned over (note to self: never change tyres before a big race) and so set the tone for most of the day's corner. Tokyo drift style. It might be slower, but sideways is way more fun.

At the Hangbrug I saw Jandre Robbertze (robbertze.wordpress.com) also with his camera and tried to keep my feet dry by popping a wheelie over the river. Didnt work. The water was cold.

After Hangbrug we went up Botmanskop, and if I didn't catch Rolf along the way that climb would have hurt me more than it did. But alas, a conversation with Rolf always takes the mind off the hurt and I managed to get all the way up without pushing.
The downhill on the Helshoogte Pass side dished up some nice sideways fun. Managed to catch Freddie just before Helshoogte and we descended the old pass together.

From here on we entered private areas and everything was new to me. I lost Freddie somewhere in Rustenberg farm where we had a bit of a headwind and fast farm road descents. As we went up Delheim we heard some dude with a PA from what must have been 60km's away. It was nice listening to him talk thrash, but knowing that I had to mission against the wind carrying his voice over to us. Hiding in a bunch I managed to finally reach the water point. The goodies they had on offer looked very enticing, but I decided to press on and make some ground on the group that stopped for water.

It was here that we entered the first singletrack. The singletrack in Delheim is amazing.  This is the stuff dreams were made of. I don't know how many pieces of singletrack we rode, how long it took, how far it was or how fast I went through it. IT WAS FUN!!! I had a permasmile for the rest of the day and weekend because of that singletrack. Insane stuff.Minstrels will one day write songs about this singletrack.

In one of the many pieces of singletrack I managed to catch John and stuck with him until the water point. He missioned of and I only saw glimpses of him for the rest of the day.

After the singletrack I caught Freddie again, one of us managed to take a wrong turn. We stuck together for the rest of the race. We cruised over Elsenburg until we reached Welgevonden where we met up with the 42km route. There were a lot of the 42k riders on the road at this stage..

The kind speedcop (never thought I'd write that) blocked off the whole R101 so that we could cross the road unhindered to ascend Papegaaiberg.

Papegaaiberg is neither long, steep or high, but after 50kms it hurt. Freddie and I mustered up our last strength to ride it up. I must admit, we cruised past a lot of the 42km guys, I felt like a warrior knowing that I could still have enough speed to pass them like that after doing 50km's. We caught Bernice on one of the climbs, and she caught a very gay remark I made when Freddie asked me "does this feel okay." Sorry Bernice.

Before we knew it we were chasing down Papegaaiberg. For once I was grateful that we bypassed the singletrack as the bottleneck would have been insane.

In town we followed all the bergie roads to enable us to avoid tar all the way to Markotter. In all honesty I don't think we did more than 1km of tar road on the 60km.

As we approached the finish line my body decided to punish me for ignoring its pain the whole day, and I got a huge cramp in my calf. Thanks Fred for staying by me here when I could barely pedal the last 100m.

After 3h18 Min's i crossed the line next to my buddy Fred. We saw John and Marike, and learned that John finished 1min in front of us, and Marike also just finished the 42km. Me and Fred finished in 41 and 42 positions overall, and placed 6th and 7th in our group. I'm pretty chuffed.

All in all a awesome day and I can't wait for the next Dirtopia event. Meurant's course combined with Arina's organising skills made a great event. Thanks guys.

PS: I got an email from Racetec today. They saw me cross the line without my chip and manually took my time. Looks like I might be getting an official time still. Bargain!