Mondo Addo Mountain Bike Race

30/10/11

As a good start and introduction to South Africa me and my husband, Rob raced the Addo Elephant Park Mountain Bike Race.  We arrived the morning before and set up camp on the polo field and found the first thorns underfoot which were enough to puncture my crocs never mind the bike tyres!  After an easy spin around, a few café stops and an early night we woke to nice cool temperatures and little wind. 

I set off first in the 85km race.  Not too sure how the legs would react to a hard race I just rode around the front of the group and found the pace quite steady.  We soon split up on the first climb and I found myself in a chatty group with three or four other guys.  They didn’t contest me for the QOM as long as I lead them out for the finish that I thought was fair enough!  After that climb came a steep one, wet from recent rain and pretty unridable.  The views from the top over the Elephant Park were amazing though there wasn’t an elephant in sight.  I stopped looking at the scenery on the descent.  We were told to walk the first section, which I happily did and watched a guy go straight over the handlebars.  After that I was alone unable to hang onto the guys on the tricky single-track descent.  There were so many ‘Cautious’ signs, which I took too literally and at the bottom it took me an age to catch back up to the guys.  Feeling quite strong by then I followed a 98kg guy on a 29er down hill (couldn’t have planned that better if I’d tried!!)  We (well him really) then caught a rider I’d be racing the Double Century with and we rode together quite nicely through the lion reserve. 

Having dropped the 29er and later a young development rider who wasn’t working with us, me and my DC ‘team mate’ worked our way to 4^th and 5^th overall.  We had caught one other guy up and I was happy to let them fight for 3^rd place happy that I was comfortably first woman and was also one of the very few riders that didn’t go through a packet of bombs!

Riding into the finish funnel I was a few places behind Rob who had completed and loved the 65km despite losing 45 minutes fixing punctures.

6 bombs down, 2 tubes and 4 pretty knackered tyres later we left Addo for our trip along the Garden Route, next stop, a bike shop!!??