Shaun-Nick Bester successfully defended his title in the 60km National Classic MTB Cycle Race at Carnival City, Brakpan, today.
Last year’s victory was his first in the dirt since he suffered a horrific crash on the road while riding for a pro-Continental team in Portugal just two months earlier.
Shaun-Nick Bester (pictured) successfully defended his title in the 60km National Classic MTB Cycle Race at Carnival City, Brakpan, today. Photo: Supplied
Now specialising in mountain-biking, Bester was delighted to repeat that achievement.
“It is a very sentimental race for me. It’s always nice to come back to races like these that have that emotional attachment and obviously to be able to win it again,” Bester told In the Bunch today.
“You’ll probably see me coming back to this race for the next few years.”
He had to earn his victory today, however, beating renowned South African all-round cyclist Bradley Potgieter by just four seconds.
He said with Potgieter being “predominantly quite a good road cyclist”, the race was somewhat tactical.
“It was very windy out there today and him being a bigger guy than me his momentum and size helped him a lot.”
Bester and Potgieter rode at the head of affairs for the first 25km, swopping the lead as they progressed.
“I tried to drop him a few times but the route didn’t play to my advantage,” Bester said.
“Every time he would be able to catch up [to me].”
Fortunately for Bester he had taken time to analyse the end section of the route, which gave him an insight into how best to play his cards.
“I discovered a little uphill drag in the last 600m to the finish so I planned that if Bradley were to stay with me then I would put in my final attack at the bottom of that.
“As we got to that final corner where the drag started, I just attacked and went flat-out from there. I managed to drop him just before the finish.”
With Nico Bell likely to take part in the Wines2Whales Shiraz next weekend, Bester will clinch the Trailseeker Series title. For this reason he will give the final race in Cullinan a miss next Saturday.
Instead, he will take part in the Tour de Farm on the same day, before he focuses again on road events – the 947 Cycle Challenge on November 18 and the Double Century on November 24.
