Stage 3 of the 2016 Liberty Winelands Encounter took the riders around the world class trails of Wellington in a 47km jaunt starting and finishing at the Kleine Valleij Wine Estate. Seamus Allardice took part and reported from the #WinelandsMTB.
Stage 3 was set-up to be an epic day on the bike. The route was short and punchy with the promise of loads of great trails and the weather was cool and a little overcast as my partner Warren Fincham and I left his place in Paarl.
It started brightly too, as we reached the start nice and early and set ourselves up near the front, alongside many of the riders we’d finished the last two days with. The early kays were similar to the early kays of Stage 2, fast district roads with big bunches pulling together to make light work of it. I was going well with a nicely paced group when I realised Warren was nowhere to be seen. He’d stopped for a comfort break and hadn’t shouted to me that he was doing so. So I slowed slightly, let the group pull away and waited for him to catch up.
I reached the first bit of singletrack without Warren catching up and followed a couple of riders down it as it snaked through what was up until recently a blue gum forest. It was one of the most fun sections of trail in the entire race, just fast and flowing – the kind of trail you can just forget the brakes and race it the very first time you ride it.
Reaching the first water point at 20km Warren popped up seemingly out of nowhere. We filled our bottles for the uphill slog to come and headed out. The next 20km didn’t go quite so well for me. I was climbing within myself but my back was starting to tense up which in turn led to my left knee taking strain. Before long my knee was in agony and I couldn’t enjoy the hard earned singletrack descents on Doolhof’s trails. By the time I reached the second water point at 40km I was not a happy camper. But fortunately the medics were set-up just before the water point and with the help of two neurofens I got going again.
From the water point we headed towards the Doolhof and Welvanpas farmsteads via some rocky but fun singletracks. The combination of my favourite kind of trails and the neurofens had me feeling much better but by the time we pasted the Welvanpas trail café and headed up a little singletrack climb before crossing the vineyards to the finish at Kleine Valleij.
It was a day that promised so much and I’m only disappointed that I couldn’t ride it was well as the trails deserved. But all-in-all it was an amazing mountain biking experience. The trails were tough, despite their relatively short distance and I doubt I was the only one caught out by this. In a few sections the trails need to bed in a bit more, but the particularly technical trail along the bank of the Bergriver Dam should be far more fun to ride by the time the 2017 Liberty Winelands Encounter rolls around. The food and the hospitality at the race was really top notch, especially at Kleine Valleij where the staff had the mountain biking crowd totally sussed – their lunch lines flowed faster than any of the trails on the route and bottle necks were avoided through well thought out layouts. The La Franschhoek Hotel was incredible too, but I felt very out of place stomping through the posh foyer in my dusty mountain biking kit. I think ASG Events and MTB Adventures are onto a winning formula and I’ll be eager to see how the inaugural Liberty Waterberg Encounter is received in June. Here are the details for the Waterberg Encounter…
Sus the Liberty Waterberg Encounter:
Dates: 10 – 12 June 2016
Venues: Sondela & Zebula Game Lodges
Distances: 80km, 73km & 69.8km
Website: www.encountermtbseries.co.za
Follow me on Twitter @SeamusAllardice or look up the Liberty Winelands Encounter on Twitter or Instagram with the event hashtag #WinelandsMTB for photos and rider feedback. Plus catch my full report in the May issue of Full Sus.
