SA National Championships - PE 2013

As I write this I am sitting in Geneva airport waiting for my baggage to arrive. That’s right, after driving 8 hours from PE to Cape Town, flying 2 hours to Jo Burg, Flying 10 hours to Frankfurt and finally flying for an hour to Geneva, the airline lost my bag! Great start to the day right? No worries though, I only have a 9 hour drive to Andorra to go! J

Anyway this is about the weekends happenings at the SA national championships held just outside PE. My mother and I left on the Thursday morning to arrive in the evening before practice on Friday. We got to Addo which was where we were staying and the closest town to the track. I don’t know if you can call 5 houses and a petrol station a town?! But anyway we settled in and the next morning headed down to see what was potting at the track. Some riders were already on track which meant I didn’t have time for a course walk, but I had heard that it was not really necessary so I headed up for run one. I got a big surprise as the track was so tight up top with trees on the insides of every corner and then at the bottom there was a nice steep uphill followed by a flat pedal! I knew it was going to be tough as making a mistake here would be very easy. I got in five runs on the Friday followed by a good track walk to check out some new lines and after watching loads of helmet cam runs I knew where I was going come Saturday morning.

I smashed out six runs on Saturday including a few timed runs which helped and by the end of the day I felt fast and comfy on track. It was just quite tricky because the track was so different, you could not just attack like most tracks, you needed to almost go slower to go faster. You had to be smooth and flow through all the corners which would give you a faster time than if you just go balls out! We headed back and got ready for action on Sunday.

Sunday rolled in and I was focused and ready for action, I got in just one practice run before seeding which was cool. In seeding the goal was to hit the technical fast but not give everything in the pedal which was exactly what I did. I seeded 3^rd with a 3:25, less than 2 seconds off the leader, Jonty Neethling. I was pleased with that and knew I had quite a bit left in the tank. Soon enough it was race time and I was ready to go!

After a solid warm up I headed to the gate. 5….4….3…2…1….GO! I was off pedalling like a beast and hitting all my lines, I hit the top section really well with almost no mistakes and then pedalled hard at the bottom. I came across the line with a 3:19:82 which put me into 2^nd spot behind Tiaan Odendaal. I am pleased with the result and my shoulder is feeling better and better, keeping in mind that its only 10 weeks after my surgery. I am always a little disappointed not to win but the consistency is there and the win is coming soon J

Results:

1.       Tiaan Odendaal – 3:15:83

2.       Stefan Garlicki – 3:19:82

3.       Adi Van Der Merwe – 3:21:67

4.       Jonty Neethling – 3:21:99

Thanks so much to all the people who support me and all my amazing sponsors who keep me on track! INVESTEC, morewood, Seattle Coffee co, Red Bull SA, Science 2 Sport, John Wakefield, Virgin Active, Cycles Africa ( Manitou, Hayes, Sun Ringle, Odi ), Spank, Csixx, Bell helmets, Leatt protectives, Adidas eyewear and Faithwear!

Next up, my first world cup of the season in Andorra!

Until next time…..

IXS EUROPEAN CUP #2 - Spicak, Czech

This past weekend was the 2^nd round of the IXS European cup series which was held in Spicak, Czech. I was looking forward to the race as last year I had a DNF there due to a huge crash. The track there is very different to anything else around, it’s super tight and rocky all the way down. It’s almost like mixing trials in with downhill as in some of the turns you needed to hop the back wheel just to make the turn!

We started practice on Friday and the track was super slippery, it was not wet but it wasn’t dry either so the rocks were slick. I was feeling very awkward on the track because the only way to go fast is to get very loose! I was not ready to push on the track as I am still guarding the shoulder a bit. However when Saturday came around I started to get into it and was going really well in practice. It started raining half way through the day and the track got really wild which would make seeding interesting J

Seeding came around and I was off to a terrible start, I made so many mistakes at the top and lost around 10 seconds which was very frustrating. However I knew I had the speed and was keen for Sunday plus some good weather. I ended 35^th with a time of 3:33 and 18 seconds off the leader.

Sunday morning was great with the sun out and the weather a bit warmer. We did get a bit of a shock on our first run when the track was so wet due to overnight rain. It was absolute madness but still fun! I pumped out 4 runs and I was timing sections trying to find a bit more speed. I was feeling fast and a 2 crashes in practice which I was kind of happy about because it showed I was pushing again. I was just hoping to keep it on two wheels for race run.

After a few hours I headed up for my run and soon enough I was on track. I pushed hard out of the gate and made a mistake in the very first section which was irritating. Then about half way down my foot unclipped unexpectedly in one of the turns which caused me to almost crash and lose speed. I got going again and right near the end I slipped on a root in an off camber section and almost went off track losing all my speed. I finished the run with a time of 3:21 which was good enough for 46^th place and 17 seconds off the winner, Robin Walner. This was obviously not the result I wanted but this is downhill and anything can happen. I am really happy with my riding and my speed is coming back, I just need to put together a full race run J

I now have a couple of weeks off before heading home for national champs in PE.

Thanks so much again to everyone behind me, the fact that I am even riding at this stage is amazing and things will turn around soon!

Thanks to INVESTEC, morewood, Seattle Coffee Co, Science 2 Sport / John Wakefield, Virgin Active, Cycles Africa - Sun Ringle – Odi – Manitou - Hayes, Bell helmets, Leatt protective, Adidas eyewear,  Faithwear, Csixx, Spank and Red Bull SA!