One month after breaking his pelvis last year, Riccardo Stermin decided to bite the bullet and, with Andreas Studer, enter the Trans Baviaans.
Despite still not being 100 per cent ready for the repeat event of this year’s ultra-distance race, he and Studer went on to win convincingly on Saturday.
“I was still on crutches when entries opened in December, but I thought stuff that, I’m going to enter and see what happens,” said the 54-year-old.
“It was a race against time to get fit and I could feel it. I struggled this year.
“I cramped and I never seemed to have enough reserve,” said Stermin, who added it was his toughest Trans Baviaans out of the five he had completed.
Riccardo Stermin (left) battled to overcome an injury from last year before he took on the Trans Baviaans “The Repeat” this weekend. Photo: In the Bunch
He and Studer battled through a “relentless” headwind from Willowmore to Jeffreys Bay to finish the 230km event in 9:43:07.
“This was our slowest time ever and the wind played a factor in that,” said the Welgemoed resident.
“The route was rutted with a lot of corrugations and one expects that.
“But the wind, the wind wasn’t nice. We had this unrelenting headwind the whole time, right until the finish.”
Stermin, who missed out on setting an event record by three minutes in 2013, said despite his lack of condition he’d set out determined to achieve nothing less than first place.
“Others ride the event for the sake of riding it but I can’t. It’s not in my nature to enter an event just to make up the numbers,” he said.
Mechanicals plagued the partners right from the start. His chain dropped off the rear cassette and became wedged between the last gear and the frame of his bike numerous times.
Stopping to correct this cost them valuable time and Stermin said they were hard-pressed to make it to the first checkpoint first, as they had planned.
“For us it’s crucial to get into checkpoint one first because of the tagging system. If the group is quite big it can create a bottleneck situation.
“I think we were the third group in. We filled one water bottle then we were out and that helped create a little bit of a gap for us.”
The pair extended the gap despite Studer taking strain from the 140km mark.
Far from feeling fine himself, Stermin said he went to the front to set the pace as they made their way along the second half of the route. They finally reached checkpoint seven with a nine-minute lead, which allowed them some room to breathe.
“There was no way that the second team was going to be able to close the gap.
“I won’t use the exact words Andreas used, but he said even though he was in bad shape, they won’t close nine minutes on us.”
Not one to count his chickens before they have hatched, Stermin said they continued to push until the end.
“For me it’s never over until you cross the line. Anything can happen. You can have a mechanical or you can puncture, so you just keep pushing.”
That’s exactly what the two did and the finish was a welcome sight for the exhausted pair.
It was their ability to suffer that made them a formidable team, said Stermin.
“We’re also mindful of each other’s wellbeing. I think that, coupled with the fact that we can both suffer for a long time, makes us a good team.”
The previous weekend’s Trans Baviaans “The Race” was won by record holder Timothy Hammond and partner Matt Beers. Read what Beers had to say about his first Trans Baviaans.
