Renay Groustra shares his experience with us after him and his teammate Nico Pfitzenmaier won the first stage of the RECM Knysna 200.
In a beautiful contrast to our trip up to Knysna for the RECM 200 in the rain, hail, snow and howling winds, riders woke up to blue skies and a windless morning in Knysna which brought rather fresh conditions with it as well.
Day one kicked off from the Knysna Elephant Sanctuary, and 75km with 1420m of vertical ascent awaited an eager field of shivering riders on the start line.
I think they were just eager to get a little warmer!
Two days of solid rain in Knysna had left a very wet and muddy forest for us to play in, and Pfitzenmaier and I managed to separate ourselves from the rest of the field pretty quickly with some Knysna elephants watching closely from their enclosure with solo rider Dominic Calitz on our wheels for company.
We were treated to some great dual track winding though the indigenous forest, as well as some really great newly cut single track with some high speed tricky pieces in it.
All of this left us, covered in mud and freezing but with huge grins on our faces! – Renay Groustra
Read the full blog here.
