Young Sabine Thies is arguably of South Africa’s most exciting mountain biking talent, not only is she winning everything in her age group but she was recently crowned SA Elite Women’s DHI Champ. Kathryn Fourie tried to keep up with Beani for this interview.
Driving out along the R614 from Pietermaritzburg, I get stuck behind several enormous trucks packed to the brim with sugar cane. Farmlands stretch out on either side of me, punctuated with thorny bushveld. I’m on my way to Wartburg to meet Sabine ‘Beani’ Thies, who lives on an 800 hectare farm with her parents Eugen and Jacky. They are 5th generation sugar cane and timber farmers – it’s tough genetics and tough terrain that seems to have shaped one of South Africa’s top mountain bikers.
Reaching the farmhouse, I see Beani at the fence, long brown plait bouncing over her shoulder, waving hello. Beani is 14 years old, and every time I’ve seen her between the provincial Enduro and DH races this year she has grown at least 5cm. I’ve been racing bikes since 2012, and have been lucky enough to watch a number of young riders develop from 10-year-old kids into full blown teenagers. Beani is one of the sterling crew of up-and-coming young guns that have cut their teeth on KZN’s finest trails.
Beani is unique in that not only does she ride XCO, Marathon, Enduro and Downhill – but she tends to win just about every race she enters. This was recently proven with a triad of 2016 SA Champs wins in all disciplines. There’s a crazy strong thread of metal woven into Beani’s fabric, and I’m at her house to find out a little more about where that strength comes from.
I’m a bit distracted from my mission, however, as I’m licked half to death on arrival by the Thies’ collection of daschunds. Shortly after being introduced to the pack, Beani shows me where her herd of bikes are kept, and then we head to her room.
It’s tidy for a teenager, and there are neat collections of items on shelves, in cupboards and in containers. Beani has themes; direction; systematic thinking. She pulls out a collection of Hot Wheels that she’s been accumulating for half her life; we discuss the neat collage of number boards stuck on her wall and she explains that she was once obsessed with Lego. “But I don’t mix the Lego pieces. I would buy a particular one, build it, and it never came apart again. Once it was built it stayed that way.”
The advanced mathematics certificates in frames on her wall suggest a smart kid, and the fresh running spikes on her windowsill to talent outside of mountain biking too. “The only sport I don’t really like is swimming actually, I’m not sure why,” Beani laughs, while playing with a pink and black camo survival knife that I eyeball. “Oh this? My Dad bought it for me when I recently went on my Junior Hunters course in July.” Because when she’s not riding bikes, running, smashing hockey balls or doing complicated maths, she’s firing rifles and learning about environmental ethics.
“I love the bush. The Kruger Park is one of my favourite places to go on holiday. We go every year; it’s special to me.” It doesn’t surprise me when Beani tells me later that if she doesn’t become a professional cyclist, then becoming a wildlife vet would be her next best choice.
Jacky has baked chocolate brownies and we settle down in the lounge to chat and drink coffee while a nature programme plays on the TV in the background.
KF: So Beani, you were six when you started riding?
ST: Ja, I was just riding around here really. My dad got his bike and I so badly wanted to go riding with him, so that’s how it started. We are very close, he’s like my training partner. He’s the only training partner I have.
KF: Does your dad ride competitively at the moment?
ST: No, he’s not a competitive person really. He doesn’t even do races at the moment, he just watches me and rides with me during the week.
KF: How did you get into racing, and how did your sponsorship journey start off?
ST: My first bike was a little 24-inch GT. Then I always saw this bike at Lee’s Cycles. It was a Mongoose, and it always looked so nice… my dad got me that as a present. But Joh! I had to wait until I was big enough to fit on it, as it was a 26-inch.
Then, I was just riding, and I did the Western Classic at the school. And I won that by coincidence, and that’s where my racing actually started. It was 15km. I was seven then. Not long after that I rode for Hattons, until I was a first year sprog, and then I won my first SA Champs. The next year I was taken on by Jeep, and I rode there for two years and then I came to GMC. I am now a Specialized Ambassador. My first Specialized was a “Fate”. I am also sponsored by Fox in Enduro and DH specifically.
KF: How do you feel when you ride? If you close your eyes and imagine you’re riding your favourite trail, what is the feeling you get?
ST: When I ride I just enjoy every moment of it. I try and make my training fun. When I am on my favourite trail I always say: “Ja, I should do that – I should go do that jump, I should see what jumps I can make out of natural trails.” I just have fun, and when I am training I think of my dad, because he has to do it with me. Here at home we have singletrack for the Harburg race, and he told me he would go around on the forest roads while I do the singletrack, he does that for me.
KF: Basically it gives you a good feeling, but you’re always wanting to improve and push yourself by pumping the trail?
ST: Ja, and some days I really want to push myself and we’ll do 15 to 17km and I will do it in like 40 minutes just to see what I can make myself do. But other days I just do it with my dad, some days I go and fetch him again (backtrack to where he is) because… he’s getting there… (giggles).
KF: How did you move from XCO into Enduro?
ST: Three years ago I did a cross-country, and we saw there was an Enduro on, there by Hammarsdale. I couldn’t do it because my dad said we had to get home. At the next XCO race I was able to do the Enduro after because we planned it better and it was really fun, on my XC bike. And I said to myself, this is great! So I did the last one, and KZN Champs, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly and I just carried on from there. I then got a Specialized Rumour, because I’d proved I was good at Enduro and going to stick to it, and now I use my Rumour purely for Enduro.
Kath: And when did you move into DH?
ST: Downhill started because I went to the GMC shop one day, and that bike was there (a Specialized Demo) and they let me ride it around on the tar in the driveway. I bought the bike after Greg (Minnaar) had a look at it and said it was fine for me, and I started practicing with Andre Pretorius. It started from there, really. I went to Cascades with him and didn’t really know what to expect, and I hit the step up on my first go… it was so different. I loved it.
Downhill is… also like… there is no pressure in it. With XCO, it’s so full of politics and stuff. And also you don’t get nervous for downhill.
KF: Humpf! (nearly spits coffee out), maybe you don’t… I certainly do!
ST: Honestly, it’s a lot different to cross-country. That’s what makes you nervous, being on the front line, and if you’re not in the front you get nervous as well because you’re scared you’re going to lose!
KF: So what is the appeal of XC races for you?
ST: It’s serious (bites into chocolate brownie). You have to be focussed, serious. You have to enjoy yourself, but you have to be in the mind-set to win almost. And also, Downhill is like fun… in cross-country, in training, no-one would share lines, everyone is secret about their lines. Downhill you go there, and everyone shares their lines and shows you new things. So XC makes Downhill and Enduro a lot more fun, because you get that perspective.
KF: Out of Enduro and Downhill, which is your favourite?
ST: It depends on the track really, because on some tracks I love riding my DH bike, but on others I would prefer my Enduro bike. The toughest DH track has been Mankele by far, but for Enduro the one with most uphill in it is the toughest, probably Cascades, and for the start… St. Ives. The climb is brutal.
KF: I saw on Facebook that you spent a day working with Nigel Hicks taping the DH track for KZN Champs. Tell me what that experience was like?
ST: Joh, it was tough. You don’t realise how steep the track is until you have to walk back up it. And the face has to face a certain way to show the branding running downhill, so taping on one side you walk down, and the other you walk up. That was a mission! I will never break tape and not fix it, and I’ll never complain about marking… because I now see what a mission it is!
KF: Will you carry on doing all the disciplines or at some stage will you choose to focus on one?
ST: When you become a Junior at age 17, you need to choose carefully because the World Cups for XC and DH are at the same time on the UCI calendar. You literally can’t do both even if you wanted to. I am not decided at this stage, I’m just going to see how things go.
Kath: If you choose to go into DH more, what areas do you think you’ll need to work on to take things to the next level?
ST: Joh, I’ll definitely have to work on big gaps… but tables and small drops are fine. But like A-line in Cloud 9, you have to do that if you want to be at an international standard of racing. And the drop on the new track… ja so, jumping and drops.
Beani Conclusions
Beani and I are crammed into the family Land Cruiser with Eugen who has offered to take us for a drive around the area where they ride. There are a few things that are clear to me after our chat:
- Beani is focussed, and constructively working to achieve her own collection of goals. One of those goals is winning races, of any kind – from running to riding to shooting a target dead centre. Her goals are contained in the excitement of collections of Hot Wheels, the satisfaction of the completed Smurf sticker books of her childhood, now more adult in the structures of competitive mountain biking.
- That focus on achievement has become balanced with her special, quirky, strong personality forming part of the unique community of gravity riders in South Africa. Beani is now a building block, a bright pink Lego block in that community, as she develops and moves to the top of her game; supporting others as she goes along. Not many people know it, but she’s made donations from her savings to other riders when they campaign and fundraise to ride overseas; people she considers her friends and her mentors. Beani gets it: success for one member of our community is success for all of us.
- It’s evident in the rapport between the three, the banter and the negotiations, that Beani is backed 100% by her folks. What she’s achieved would have been much harder to do without their backing, and tangible wonder in how they produced a little racing machine.
Before I leave, Beani calls me to the study to check out Gumtree. “Kath, I have to show you – look at this little daschund! He’s so cute! Look how naughty he looks!? I’m working on my parents…” Beani the collector, in action again.
