a[s]g Tyger Valley:

With the absence of team manager Paul Cordes, we arrived at the Tyger Valley College fairly early Saturday morning to organise and setup our base for the day.

The a[s]g Pinarello trailer with Epic Sports gazebos looked fantastic as always and it was soon time to line up for the 70km challenge.

I must admit I felt relaxed, but very eager to dish out some pain. It didn't take long for a select group to go off the front, with myself and a few senior riders like Andrew McClean and Julius Cobbet.

With no one willing to help me or contribute to the pace making the race turned into an uptempo training ride for me. On the flat fast gravel roads I couldn't keep my eyes off my beautiful CycleOps Joule head unit to measure my power and heart rate efforts to perfection.

After a frustrating first 40kms of negative riding, I managed to split the group with a rather negative tactical move in a single track section.

I knew riding off by myself would be super tough if they pulled together so I still just rode within myself. A while later only Andrew regained contact and then stuck to my wheel once again.

On the last rocky rise about 3km before the finish, I had enough left in the tank and with the help of great traction from my Continental rubber, I managed to ride him off and take the win. Julius finished 3rd.

All and all it was a good day out for us with team mates Amy and Jacques also winning their races.

Till next time!

African Continental Champs:

I've experienced some exciting xco races in the past, but this was definitely one of the best tussles I've ever had on a bicycle.

With some rain during the lady's race, there was a big question mark hanging over tire choice for most of the guys. I felt confident with a Continental X-King on the front and a Race King rear combo.

From the gun Brendon Davids went off the front, but the racing in the chase group was so close that our positions changed between 2nd and 6th all way through the race. I tried to ride my own pace and avoid the early attacks to save some energy, but still had to fight to stay in contact with the group.

Once again all the equipment worked 100% and after 5 slick laps with some serious 'vasbyt' and a bit of luck I managed to finish 3rd against a very competitive field. James Reid finished 2nd with Brendon hanging on to take the win.

SA XCO cup #1:

After a couple of smaller races to get the season rolling nicely, it was time for us to load our Dogma xc's into the trailer and hit the road down to the mother city, for the first leg of the national xco series.

We arrived at Willowbridge Thursday afternoon and after having lunch while staring at the very spectator friendly course, we went out for a couple of easy laps to find out what was in store for us. All round I enjoyed the course, nothing serious to stress about with  some really fun sections.

Saturday morning I woke up to the sound of raindrops on the roof. It didn't bother me, according to accuweather it would only be 2ml and stop at 9am. We were only racing at 12. Ofcourse the rain never stopped and conditions only got worse as the day went on. Luckily the continental X-King is a perfect all round tire so I had no worries to change equipment before the start.

Must say lining up behind  guys like Florian Vogel, Ralf Näf and a couple other international riders had my nerves going. The start was messy. Got to love sprinting full gas with elbows touching through mud for a single track. I got away nicely, but some favourites were caught napping.

My first lap felt good, but with the excitment I over cooked it slightly. I battled to settle down and couldn't get into a rhythm and lost some time. I got it back together and managed to regain focus and from there on it felt really comfortable. The longer Ritchey stem I decided to use worked like a bomb. My position on the bike and the handeling felt perfect.

I started catching riders from about the halfway mark. The combination of good coaching from PYcycling and the High5 supplements was definately working well. After a grueling 8laps, I finished 5th u23 men. Even though I was a little bit off the pace, I felt that I could maintain a steady pace all the way to the end. Always a good foundation to build on.

Looking forward to some good racing

Arno

Gauteng provincial #1:

After a very last minute bike build Friday and no real time for a test ride it was time to line up for my first xco race of the season. Not ideal, but very exciting! I couldn't wait to not only ride, but race the new Piarello Dogma XC machine. As usual the elite - u/23 men only started just before midday. Great performances from the rest of our team all round through the morning added some extra positive pressure before the start.

I started my warm up rather early just to try and get the hang of the new stallion. Tiaan checked the tire pressure of my Continental rubber and it all felt good! In the start chute I chose not to stand on the front row with the idea to fight my way through as the whistle blew. Some starting practice for bigger races to come. I went into the single track comfortably in the top 5. Soon I managed to get into 2nd spot, the pace was pretty easy but I was happy to sit there and get the hang of the bike first, before going cowboy. We came through after lap one in a group of 4 riders, with my biggest worry being Ben-Melt eventhough we were not racing in the same cat.

The first quarter of the track was mostly steep short climbing and about halfway up this section on the 2nd lap I made my move. I managed to open a fairly descent gap, but I was not suprized to see Melt following my move as I looked back. Over all I enjoyed the feel of the new bike, but there were some minor setup issues. I had about 10 seconds on Melt, till we hit lap 4. As we started the climb, my gears were jumping. At first I thought the gear cable slipped so I tried fine tuning it a little, not the easiest to do while climbing a 20% single track hill. I soon realised this wasn't the problem and that I had to stop and tighten my rear Ritchey wheel. Somehow it came loose, but unfortuanitly I only had myself to blame for this one.

The tables turned and suddenly I was under pressure chasing an old skinny guy. Unfortuanitly his diesel engin only got going at about that point in the race and he started pulling away slowly. My legs were dead. Sort of expected this after running around Epic Cycle Shop the whole of Friday building my bike. Never the less I took a High5 Energy gel, a big sip of their caffeine Sports drink and kept on fighting.

In the end it wasn't enough to close the gap, but I managed to hold onto second over all and 1st u/23. I also raced with the light weight powertap hub and gathered some interesting and usefull data with the CycleOps Joule.

Once again the support from the whole a[s]g PYcycling family was amazing and this made for a really fun day at Thabe trails.

Cheers

A

Diving into the season: USN cup #1

After some big hours in the saddle, it was time to ref up the engine at the first leg of the USN Cup, the season opener. The rain apparently put off some other team mates, but for some reason I was looking forward to getting wet and wild.

As the whistle blew, I worked my way straight to the front to avoid any mishaps in the peloton. I also prefer riding infront of a group in muddy conditions. The bunch soon split up and I continued riding a comfortable, but reasonable pace. As we hit the first single track I soon realized that the surface wasn't to bad and I put in a effort to test the other guys. Straight away they lost my line and Iopened a gap as we slid our way through some technical sections. I was happy.

I put my head down for a while to try and get out of sight, which I thought must be pretty far when you're wearing a fluo Rudy Project helmet. Keeping in mind that this was the first race of a long season and that it was wet and slippery, I tried not to do anything stupid or take any risks. Exactly the opposite of what youmg teammate Nicholas was thinking apparently. He crashed out after sitting in a solid top 5 position.

We had to do two laps of a 30km loop. Starting the second  I staight away felt sorry for the guys at the back, the weekend warriors. Traction and grip was just nowhere to be found. Even thou there were no one in sight for me I knew that guys like Ben-Melt would be chasing hard with some serious diesel power. Luckily the race was a lot like the cross country format which I prefer, so I knew I  just had to keep momentum and hold the bike upright all the way to the finish.

Happy with a solid start to the season.
A