Despite starting in last place, mountain biker Alistair Schorn finished with the fastest time on day one of the 2016 Old Mutual joBerg2c. Read how he did it in this instalment of Confessions of a Weekend Warrior.
Alistair Schorn
Having been through the registration procedures on Thursday, collected the giant bag, met the representatives from our sponsors Avis Van Rental, checked out of the office and finished the packing, I have to confess that day one of my joBerg2c experience didn’t start off in the ideal fashion.
The plan on Friday morning was to collect three of my mates and drive through to the start, but unfortunately we somewhat underestimated the complexity of getting three full-suspension mountain bikes on to a towbar-mounted bike rack.
Once we had assembled that particular jigsaw puzzle and headed off to the start at Karan Beef just outside Heidelberg (apparently the biggest beef farm in South Africa), it was as if the mist and traffic on the Eastern side of Johannesburg actively conspired against us.
As a result, we only arrived 20 minutes before the scheduled start of 8am, meaning that we had to drop our bags, disassemble our bike rack jigsaw puzzle and get ready in record time.
Throw in a couple of minor mechanical adjustments and we found ourselves crossing the start line in last position.
Because day one of the Old Mutual joBerg2c is a neutral one, with every rider receiving the same time, Michelle and I managed to go from last to first place by the end – even if it is shared with every other rider in the field.
Even though it was termed “neutral”, the ride was pretty hard, as we found ourselves in a few big groups that were cranking out some serious pace.
We managed to resist the temptation of carrying on sitting in these bunches for the second half of the stage.
The route and terrain proved to be very different from the first stage of last year’s event, particularly around the Vaal Dam crossing.
We needed about three different bridge sections last year whereas we only needed one this time.
Also, last year plenty of the sections close to the water crossing were pretty waterlogged, but this year they were completely dry.
These changes proved to be a real eye-opener in terms of the seriousness of the drought that South Africa is currently experiencing.
As is normal on the first day, it took some time to get everything sorted out – although there was time for a beer or two with our mates in the afternoon.
Now off to bed.
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Alistair Schorn has been racing bikes since the mid-80s – before most of today’s mountain bike pros were born. He bought his first mountain bike in 1992, but only took up stage racing after coming back from overseas in 2004. In early 2014, he was bitten by the singlespeed bug, which is still firmly entrenched in his system. His favourite places to ride include Mpumalanga and the Berg (definitely not on a singlespeed though!). As an escape from his day job as an economist, Alistair moonlights as a writer for publications such as In the Bunch.
