Jason Reed (Cyclo Pro / Car Spares) shares his PwC Great Zuurberg Trek experience with us.
It’s always very interesting to me to take part in a multi day team event with a new partner (Grant Mac Geoghegan from Port Elizabeth) this adds a whole different experience especially when you are aiming for a podium place.
Both riders have to be equally motivated and accept that they may be weaker or stronger on the days.
We were quite confident that we could ride well together and achieve a top five placing and we knew the main battle would come from two extremely high calibre teams that being Andrew Maclean/Bruce Diesel and Andrew Hill/Adriaan Louw.
The first stage started up high in the Zuurberg Mountains, at the Hotel we descended and climbed through big rough mountain passes for the first eight kilometres.
The team of Hill/Louw went hard up the last climb before the big single track descent this is where we fell back a bit and Maclean/Diesel caught up with us. We went into the long singletrack descent which had some compulsory portages because of the steep and sudden drop off to the side of cliff.
I could see we had the upper hand over the Maclean/Diesel team on the descents and at the first opportunity during the long and tricky single track I overtook the pair and Grant soon followed.
Once we were together again we worked very hard in the technical single track to gain as much time on the chasing pair as possible. Once the single track ended it was open roads to the Hayterdale Trail Park finish line.
Support along the way was awesome with us being the “home-town” team, we looked forward to seeing the people at the water points dancing and singing at maximum volume. Thanks for that!
We managed to claim second on stage one with about a 3min 30sec behind winners Hill/Louw and about 4mins ahead of Maclean/Diesel.
Well Done to the Zuurberg Organisers and all the sponsors. Special thanks to Cycle Pro for repairing my bike and keeping it running faultless.
Thanks to my sponsors; Carspares, Isostar, Cycle Torque, Mitsubishi Motors and Connect Me ISP.
Read the full blog here.
