Waylon Woolcock and HB Kruger worked together to deliver a one-two for the team at the Tour de Plett mountain bike race this weekend.
Woolcock, who recently tied up the Western Cape TrailSeeker Series, led the BCX charge across the line at Central Beach in Plettenberg Bay.
“We were pulled from Berg and Bush this weekend, so I didn’t really have any goals for Saturday,” said the 35-year-old.
“I knew I wanted to get as good a result as possible and with HB there too, between the two of us, we at least wanted to pull off the win.
“Going one-two would have been a bonus, which it turned out to be.”
Team BCX Waylon Woolcock, pictured here, and HB Kruger delivered a one-two for the team at Tour de Plett this weekend. Photo: Daniel Coetzee (ZCMC)
Woolcock completed the 87km race in 3:14:18, one second ahead of Kruger and six minutes faster than road star Shaun-Nick Bester, who has been racing in Europe this season.
“We didn’t really have any strategy, firstly because we didn’t really know where the race was going,” he said. “They give you an elevation chart, which helps a bit, but we didn’t really know the route so couldn’t strategise much.”
In terms of a game plan, this year’s Great Zuurberg Trek champion said their aim was to take advantage of their numbers and work together with the objective of eliminating the competition.
The duo set a fast tempo from the start to put the race under pressure and Kruger was able to go clear on the first climb after about 6km.
Woolcock, who initially hung back, bridged across to his teammate after attacking the chasing group.
“I could actually see they were struggling a little bit so at one stage I did a half-hearted attack to see if anyone would follow, which no one did.”
The two leaders were later joined by defending champion Dylan Rebello and they rode together until Petrus se Brand, where Rebello was left behind. He however managed to close the gap before they hit quarter distance.
“We weren’t too stressed about riding with him because we were only about 20km in and we knew we had plenty of time to wear him out,” said Woolcock.
It was down the next major descent that the Imbuko Wines rider encountered some bad luck, cracking his front rim after hitting a rock.
“That took him out of the race and from there it was pretty straightforward for HB and I until the line,” said Woolcock.
Reflecting on the competition, he said he had been impressed by Bester’s result and admitted he had not been on their radar.
“We didn’t know Shaun-Nick was going to be there. We thought our biggest competition would come from Dylan, Jurgens (Uys) and Nicol (Carstens).”
The victory was a nice high in an otherwise up and down season, said Woolcock.
“This year, like most, it’s been full of highs and lows. It’s been a really good end to the year and hopefully we can finish it off at Wines2Whales.”
