The GR300 this year served a few purposes,
a first get together as a full team, a chance to meet the guys behind providing
us with our Rocky Mountain bikes and a chance to ride in a great place with our
team mates. I was with Nikki while
Yolandi and Leana were paired up.
Having spent a few days there with my husband beforehand we had already
made a load of friends from the Coaches Corner Cycling Club and rode some of
the route with them on their Wednesday night ‘pint’ ride.
Day One
No one felt 100% waking up, Leana had been
up all night and I wasn’t too well either and upon getting to the race we heard
more reports about a stomach bug going round. Nikki and myself got away to a
descent start. I felt unwell the middle
section and had to stop a few times then Nikki started with bad cramps and we
eased back. Despite that though
the course was amazing. We rode
the whole Harkerville red route this year and I will never tire of the part you
ride out of the forest and appear on the cliff side. After that there were some long climbs and varied trails and
tracks. We had passed the leading
ladies, Ischen Stopforth and Yolandi de Villiars when they had a puncture but
they soon passed us back and we finished 2nd place while our
teammates came in 4th, Leana battling a lot with the illness.
Day Two
The start was pretty ‘hectic’ this
morning. After a long neutralized
zone out of town we turned sharply up into single track. We weren’t that well positioned and were
stood around a fair bit but in that case you’ve just got to relax and save
energy and not get stressed about losing time. We rode through a poor area but the support was the best I
have heard from locals. They were
out cheering us on, one was holding a sign saying 1km to go and at the top was
a reggae band of all things!!
Nikki was struggling with the bug still and feeling pretty whacked. I seemed to have got off lightly and
felt fine so we rode a steady pace and met a few friendly riders on route which
always helps on such a long day if your not 100%. My work was cut out at the end though, a long flat head wind
stretch back to Knysna with no one in sight followed by a technical new
single-track descent right down the side of Phantom Pass. We finished in 2nd again to
Ischen and Yolandi
Day Three
As soon as we set off up Phantom Pass this
morning I knew we were in for a hard day.
Nikki, despite not feeling 100% at the start was riding really strongly
and I soon sensed we were up for the race today. We had set off in the 2nd batch so had our work
cut out after the backlog over the bridge but we did catch the leading ladies
on the open road at the top and rode in the same group for a while. Today was another varied route with
plenty of single track, jeep track and lots of climbing through the
forest. We rode our won pace
occasionally passing other teams and were both working hard enough that when we
passed Conrad in the last feed we both were very grateful for the coke he had
for us. I had one scare when my
chain came off on a descent and wrapped itself all over the place but I managed
to untangle it without getting into a flap myself! One of the best things about the race in Kysna is that you
can rely on the last 5 or 6km to be mostly downhill and as we dropped down past
the golf course for the last time we knew we had the stage win and came in top
20 only 16 minutes behind the winners.
The other girls still held on to their overall win but it was nice to
have a day where we both felt strong and didn’t have any issues, unlike our
team mates…Leana had battled with the bug for 2 days and today was Yolanda’s
turn and she couldn’t finish feeling dizzy and faint so had to pull out.
Thanks to Rocky Mountain for making a 29er
fit even a shorty like me, Squirt for a chain stick free race and clean bikes,
Ballistic Bike Trading for our accurate Brytons, to 32Gi for the best tasting
energy drink (the raspberry one definitely the best!!) To ASG for our flashy kit, shiny
helmets and comfy shoes and of course to Bizhub for giving me a pretty good
job!!
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