Oceania's & off to South Africa

This entry was started on 27th March:
The past week or so, including the oceania champs seems like a blur. I was flat out finishing off at work and getting everything ready for the big trip. It probably wasn’t the greatest preparation for Oceanias, but the race turned out ok. Thanks to Wazza from KOM cyclery, it was my first race on the new bike, a GT Zaskar carbon hardtail. He stayed up super late on Thursday night to build it up for me, legend. With so much climbing I tried to ride a sustainable tempo, which seemed to work for the first few laps, but I had a pretty decent crash on lap 3. I didn’t get injured, but I was a bit rattled and I had to go on with my handlebars twisted. From then it felt like it got a lot tougher, and I lost a few positions, eventually finishing 8th. Not the greatest result but some handy UCI points for the first world cup.

The trip over to South Africa went smoothly but it was definitely a long trip which started with a 5am wake up in Sydney and finished 24hrs later when we rolled into Pietermaritzburg. I did get to tick off something from my “to-do” list though; finally I got picked up at an airport by a guy with a little sign!

After building my bike the next morning, I headed down to the race track for the world cup. The course is pretty fun, but not very technical (in the dry) and there is a fair bit of climbing with a couple of steep pinches. There are about 3 rocks on the entire course, for the most part it is fairly wide single track that is super smooth and hard packed clay. The surface is so fast with a few very steep descents and it is very easy to go into the corners with bit too much hot sauce. Having said all that, this track will be hilarious if it rains. Some of the steep descents are so off camber and I have a suspicion that the surface will be so slick in the wet. I’m not actually sure that too much would be rideable, I wouldn’t mind if it did rain though because it would be an interesting challenge.

On day 2 I decided to venture a bit further and go for a few hours on the road. I started by rolling through town and I have to say it was a bit intimidating. Lots of people and I was definitely the odd one out, it is pretty hard to blend in to an African community while rolling around on a shiny red bike and wearing lycra. I remembered the advice I got from my South African friend to always lock you cars doors when pulling up at lights, as i rolled up to the first set of traffic lights i was trying to work out how i could do that on the bike...? Later in the ride, I saw about 50 monkeys! this country is pretty wild.

Continued 29th March:
Well my comments on the track getting slipery in the wet were spot on. Today i decided to race a small provincial event here in Pietermaritzburg, and it rained last night. i checked out a few sections before the race and it was crazy, heaps of fun though. Nevertheless i decided to duck home and change to some more appropriate tyres. It made a big difference, but the track was starting to dry out so it ended up not being a huge issue. if it rains for the world cup, i'll be very happy that i have ridden it in wet conditions. The race went ok. I lead for the first couple of laps, but ended up got pasted and ended up 2nd by maybe 30 seconds. I had 2 pretty mad crashes on the last lap as i started taking a few risks in an attempt to get back up to the lead - good to know where the limits are. overall not too bad, i am still lacking a bit of punch but i'm sure that will come. I also now have a good appreciation for how much climbing is in everylap - lots.