Road ace Tiffany Keep has new targets after winning the KwaZulu-Natal junior mountain-bike cross-country championship title on Saturday.
She will now try to also become the national junior marathon and cross-country champion when she takes part in both events over the next two weeks.
Road ace Tiffany Keep will try to become the national junior marathon and cross-country champion after winning the KwaZulu-Natal junior mountain-bike cross-country championship title. Photo: KZN Mountain Biking
Keep completed the four-lap KZN course in 1:05:48, comfortably beating Frances Janse van Rensburg into second by almost five minutes.
“I felt I had a good race; I was happy with my performance,” Keep told In the Bunch today.
Riding for Silverback Volvo, Keep displayed promise on the road when she won the national junior title in February.
She also mixed it up with the elite women, finishing 12th overall in the Cape Town Cycle Tour and second in the Emperors Palace Road Classic in March, despite having gear restrictions.
After winning the KZN mountain-bike title, Keep said she had managed to get away right at the start.
“I rode by myself for the remainder of the race, which was good because I could just focus on my own pace.
“It was a proper cross-country course; very rough and technical. Some sections were steep, rocky single track.
“There were lots of roots and some steep hills too, so it was quite challenging for riders of all types.
“Thankfully I managed to keep it together without any crashes,” she said, adding that the course had suited her “to a certain extent”.
Keep is still undecided about specialising in either road or mountain-bike racing.
“I want to continue pursuing both disciplines for as long as I can,” she said.
“I am aware that once you move up the ranks in either discipline you would normally start to specialise. It will eventually become a lot harder to produce equally good results in both.
“But I will always say that cross-country is my main discipline, purely because it is where it all started for me.
“I come from a mountain-biking background, which certainly benefited me on the road in terms of aggressive racing.”
