Professional mountain biker Yolandi du Toit lets us in on what happened at this year’s Nedbank sani2c.
The three day Nedbank sani2c stage race celebrated its 10’th birthday this year. This event needs no introduction in the mountain biking scene in South Africa, as the race has been completed; or is on the bucket list; of every mountain biker in this country and for good reason!
Over the period of ten years the event has grown from a “one race and one event” to today’s “three races and one event”. The three races are known as Trail, Adventure and Race. Each of these start a day apart with the Race version being the last to start it’s journey from Underberg to Scottburgh.
For this year’s event, I teamed up with someone who also doesn’t require any introduction as she has added almost every title there is to her palmarès in South Africa. I’ve always wanted to partner up with Yolande Speedy and was very happy when the opportunity presented itself.
The event started in the dairy and cattle community of Underberg situated at the foothills of the Southern Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal.
Stage one: 82 km and 1230m of climbing
This year the weather was in our favour and we set off in very bearable winter weather conditions from Underberg Primary School. The first day’s 82km stage took us through the grassy hills of the Midlands area to our overnight camping village at MacKenzie Club in Ixopo.
In the race Yolande and I had a great and problem-free day and finished in second place. We were both very happy with the result as we were aiming to make the podium but placing second in the ladies category was a great bonus.
Stage two: 99km and 1600m of climbing
Day two was the queen stage of this year’s edition as it was the longest in distance and included the most climbing. The early 6.15am start at dawn also made for an interesting start given the minimum light we had to navigate by for the first few kilometres.
Yolande and I played yo-yo with the third ladies team as they passed us while we were sorting out the mechanical hick-up and then again during the crash. Each time we caught up to them and pushed open a slight time gap over them to finish in second place on the stage.
Stage three: 84km and 910m of climbing
Yolande started the day with a double row of stitches (inside and outside) and once again proved how tough she is and was ready to race on the third and final stage.
The 84km rolling course was very fast as it gradually descended to the finish line on the beach front at the resort town of Scottburgh on the south coast of Kwazulu-Natal.
Yolande and I (both Garmin) were very happy with our results at the end of the race as we managed to place second on all of the stages; and so secured us an overall second place finish in the ladies category.
Read the full blog here.
