Cherry MTB Challenge:

This past weekend it was time for Ficksburg, my home town to host the 45th annual Cherry Festival. With this enormous attraction to the town our cycling club, (my parents and I) organised a fun, but tough mountainbike race/challenge through the heart of the eastern Free State.

My job for the two weeks leading up to this event was to make sure the trails were rideable and well marked from start to finish. It might not sound like much, but between building bridges, opening bush tunnels, marking in thunder storms and a 'moerse' lot of grass cutting, I had my hands full.

After nearly four weeks completely off the bike I decided to pre ride our 60km Marathon route on Thursday just to make sure everything is ready and well marked. I died. 4hrs with 2bottels in this:

Friday afternoon things soon got festive as the guests started to arrive. I must admit it probably wasn't the most focused pre race night of my life to say the least, but I managed to give Marcel Marais a few hints about what to expect out there. On paper it looks fine...

In the start chute of the marathon it looked like an Epic Sports outride with a couple of shirts on the front row. Even Jaco du Toit got up there and managed to sit near the head of the field for the first 1.2kms. We soon went into some pretty technical single track and from there on I had the lead bike for company.

Knowing the route like the palm of my hand, I knew what to expect and rode accordingly. Wish this could happen more often! At the finish my gap over 2nd place was exactly 20minutes, but more importantly 50minutes over 8th place - Jaco. Marcel finished in 5th and was also the first junior. A very good and respectable ride for a youngster starting with marathons.

For most riders it was a super hard day in the saddle, but I was happy with all the positive feedback and compliments.

Local is leke!
Arno