Champions Brad Gouveris and Anriette Schoeman will be chasing further success when the Bestmed Makro Championship takes place in Port Elizabeth on Saturday.
The feature 106km road race this weekend will be followed by the 70km mountain-bike event on September 16.
The road events, which cater for riders of all levels, will start and finish at the Lorraine Primary School, while the mountain-bike races will take place in the Hopewell Conservation Estate at St Albans, just outside Port Elizabeth.
Brad Gouveris (left) and Anriette Schoeman will be back to defend their titles in the Bestmed Makro road race when the feature 106km event takes place from Lorraine Primary School in Port Elizabeth on Saturday. Photo: Supplied
The 20-year-old Gouveris knows there will be no easy route to repeating his 2017 triumph, when he won the road title for the first time.
“Obviously I would love to defend the title,” he said. “That is always the goal and I am excited at this opportunity.
While his training was on track, he said you could only judge your fitness under race conditions.
With sprinting as his strength, Gouveris said he was looking forward to a route which suited his style.
“I’m a light rider and I have a sprint on me,” he said. “I am not a climber, but I can handle going up drags and this is the kind of course which doesn’t have any really long hills.”
Women’s champion Schoeman has won 17 out of 18 women’s titles since the tour began in 2000, but had not lost the desire to succeed.
“My cycling career has always been performance-driven and I enjoy winning races,” said the Africa Silks-Bestmed rider.
“To achieve that I am prepared to push myself beyond my limits, knowing that the harder I train, the better I can do.”
Schoeman added she had a particular affinity with the Makro race as it was an occasion for the women to ride with the elite men’s category.
“Sometimes when it’s just women, you will just watch each other for 80km and then it ends up in a sprint for the line.
“When you ride with the guys, the strongest [women] riders will end up in the front and then fight it out on the line, so that is something I enjoy.”
Besides the feature race, which starts at 7am, the road programme offers a number of options, with additional distances over 55km and 35km. There are also 5km and 10km events for children, plus a 1km kiddies’ dash.
Entries close at midnight on Monday, September 3, and registration will take place at Lorraine Primary School from 4pm to 7pm on Friday.
The mountain-bike programme has additional events over 35km, 20km and 10km. Entries close at midnight on September 10.
