Pro mountain biker Renay Groustra writes about his time in Pietermaritzburg.
Just when I thought Nick Floros, course designer of the world famous cross country course in Pietermaritzburg that the World Cup Circuit returns to year after year and that also hosted the 2013 World Championships couldn’t do any better, he did.
While everyone’s focus was on Tulbagh where the SA National marathon series played host to many top international riders and local marathon ace’s in their warm up for the Absa Cape Epic, the country’s top Cross Country riders once again descended on Pietermaritzburg for a UCI category 1 ranked race.
For me personally, I have lost count of how many times I have made the trip up to Maritzburg over the years. Every time we have been treated to a different course, and every time it’s one we enjoy racing.
This time Nick pulled a gem. We faced a slightly longer and slower lap which included many of the main features of the World Cup track including Rapid Rocks, Cork Screw, Buck Jump Alley, Treehouse Rock Garden, as well as some awesome new dual track bermed sections, Over the Bars drop, and a rock drop right at the finish with short and really steep climbing separating all of these obstsacles.
After having a bad start on the down the start straight, I managed to fight my way up to fourth place after the first lap.
Brendon Davids and Philip Buys had disappeared off the front taking Rourke Croeser with them, and it was time to play catch up. I paced myself and managed to pull back to Rourke but lost him when I had two riders crash in front of me on lap 3 in two separate crashes, losing his wheel as well as 45seconds in the process.
By now the steep climbs were hurting on lap 4 and 5, and to make matters worse I had a pack of guys hunting me down including Matthys Beukes, Arno du Toit, Gert heyns, Travis Walker and Stuart Marais.
Matthys played his cards right and with a massive surge on the last lap bridged across to me. We swapped a few attacks but eventually Matthys snapped the elastic in a big way and I trailed him over the finish line by 20 seconds in fifth place three minutes down on winner Philip Buys.
