Adriaan Louw and Candice Neethling beat a field of over 1 000 mountain bikers to claim the men’s and women’s marathon titles in round two of the Western Cape Nissan TrailSeeker Series in Grabouw on Saturday.
2015 Nissan TrailSeeker Grabouw
Louw held Contego Swift teammate Lourens Luus at bay in the finishing sprint to take the 70km title in 3:24:55. Dylan Rebello of Team Jeep was third in 3:28:48.
A fast start and a flurry of attacks split the field early on as Louw, Luus and Rebello drove the pace and opened up a comfortable lead over the chasers.
With 15km to go, the Contego Swift riders dropped Rebello, who had suffered a mechanical, on a climb. Although he chased hard, he was unable to haul them back and rode alone to the finish.
The win signalled a welcome return to form for Louw after a tough start to the season.
“I battled a bit early on this year. I put in a lot of hard work after the Cape Epic and it looks like the legs are finally coming around,” he said.
“We have a very busy racing schedule for the second half of the year and this one-two team finish was a good way to get that off to a successful start.”
For Luus, his runner-up spot confirms that he is also on the comeback trail following a 10-week injury layoff.
“It’s been a while since I felt this good on the bike,” he said.
“After getting third place at SA marathon champs a few weeks back, I’ve been focusing largely on the cross-country nationals next month.”
In the women’s race, former cross-country Olympian Neethling and Carmen Buchacher drove hard on the climbs to leave their rivals in their dust.
At the 45km mark Neethling went clear of Buchacher on a fast downhill and stayed away to take the win in 4:05:19. Buchacher finished two-and-a-half minutes back, with Tanja Oosthuyse rounding out the podium in 4:18:14.
“It was so cool that we had our own start,” said Neethling, who rides in the colours of Freewheel Cycology-Pam Golding.
“From the beginning, Carmen and I worked together off the front. It was a challenging course with not much in the way of open roads so you had to work hard the whole way.
“My cross-country background certainly helped, especially in the latter part. I use less energy that those girls not used to technical courses which counts in my favour,” she added.
The third round of the Nissan TrailSeeker Western Cape Series, the Hemel & Aarde, takes place on October 10 at Hermanus.
View the full results here.
