Saturday 6 June saw a break in the dull Cape Town weather just in time for an experimental race. Olympic Cycles at The River Club, Black River Park hosted a cyclocross event, not sure what the up take would be like in this discipline and unable to guarantee the weather, entrants were lured by the promise of free beer and boy did that work! Not only did we get fantastic weather but also just shy of 100 enthusiastic entrants and many more very intrigued and “noisy in support” spectators.
Cyclocross not being as popular here as in Europe(for now) we offered a MTB bike section, youth and ladies with the main event being the CX bike division. Rounds were run as 10 minutes plus one lap and should you get lapped by the front riders you were to pull off the course. The course, which was designed in front of the Olympic Cycles store was roughly an 800m grass lap that had a few surprises for the riders: wooden pallets, a compulsory portage section and a pumptrack, all this and the abuse of the rowdy, cow bell ringing spectators as the course lead riders straight through the beer tent to the amusement of the onlookers. There was no official timing and people werent too worried by the odd corner cutting or “illegal” tactic to make the pass, everyone was there to have a good time riding their bikes.
It was a day to get on your bike and have a laugh with the whole family and friends. If you didn’t have your bike or you wanted to test the set up and handling of the CX bikes – Scott, Santa Cruz, Silverback, Giant and Trek were there for you to try out. There were food trucks to line the stomachs for the Jack Black kegs which ensured the cups were never half full. Redbull provided sound and energy that kept the spectators and riders smiling as the racing intensified in the final rounds.
With the small number of youth(mainly those on their study breaks), they were run at the same time as the ladies. Racing in these two divisions were hotly contested with Franco Pretorius and Luke Williams fighting it out amongst the youth for a number of laps until Shane Smith closed the gap and threw a spanner in the works. In the end it was Franco who surged ahead to find himself comfortably placed on the top step of the podium. The ladies had no answer for the dominating performs by Leigh Haskins who shot out the gate and powered away despite a huge effort from Rose Bailey and our youngest lady Julia Marx putting on a great show to round off the top three.
The biggest division was our MTB bike division – mainly filled with “racing snakes” saw the jostling for the front row on the start grid as more competition than the ride itself. It also had a number of characters like EFC fighter Brendan Groenewald, Craig Kolesky, Shaun Lewis, Adriaan Theron and Dayle Homes who added many a laugh for the spectators as they crashed their way around the course and opted to skip their last rounds to hang at the bar instead. At the front of the race things were serious, too serious so a Le Mans start was added to the final, where dirty tricks of hiding bikes left many a rider confused. Once racing was officially underway it was the usual suspects leading the pack, Pieter Calitz lead for a couple laps until the “children” took over and pushed on in their own usual cross country league. Jarrod van den Heever crossed the line first by a narrow margin ahead of Andrew Sparks with Wayde Finch chasing hard but having to settle for third.
It caught many by surprise by just how many CX bikes there were on the start line with a star studded line up including the likes of Richard Baufeldt, Gary Perkin and Steve Smith to name a few of the contenders for the main event. In the spirit of the fun and games that the day had offered, a down down was added to the start of the final, but being a race, there was more beer thrown at fellow competitors than actually consumed. Paris Basson was untouchable as he blaised ahead until a dreaded puncture left him carrying his big for half a lap until he swapped out for a Fat Bike at the tech zone – it was all too late as Nic Lamond had pounced on the opportunity and stolen the lead. Thomas Rood wrapped up the final step on what was to become a beer soaked podium.
There were plenty of spot prizes for riders as well as for the festive spectators from the various brands and Olympic Cycles offered up great vouchers for their stores including a massive R10 000 for the main CX bike division. Now that the main prize is public knowledge we are almost positive that we are going to see a lot more CX bikes on the start line of the next event which is already in the pipeline for later this year. So stay tuned to www.onemovement.co.za for more info on this fun filled family day out enjoying your bike!