Top South African mountain biker Robyn de Groot was pleasantly surprised to achieve overall victory at the Bike Giro in Feldberg, Germany, on Sunday.
De Groot finished the four stages just less than nine minutes ahead of Germany’s Sabine Spitz. Swiss Renata Bucher was third.
“I’ve been working hard at getting in good race shape again,” said De Groot, who underwent complicated vascular surgery at the beginning of the year.
“I knew I could realistically expect to be on a good level from July onwards when I looked at my build-up and rehabilitation post-surgery.”
The 36-year-old added that being able to ride and push herself as hard as she knew she could without the previous physical limitations was the biggest victory.
“I’m grateful for this more than most people will ever know.”
Robyn de Groot achieved overall victory at the Bike Giro in Feldberg, Germany, on Sunday. Photo: Supplied
De Groot said it was definitely great to win races and after placing first in the Albstadt Bike Marathon and third in the M3 Montafon MTB Marathon last month she was happy with her current form.
“To be honest the biggest victory for me came from comparing last year’s Bike Giro to this year. For me it’s just chalk and cheese with how I feel on the bike,” said De Groot, who came fourth in 2018.
The dormakaba rider said the 66km first stage was slightly wet and rainy. She rode away after about 20km, opening a gap.
“I was surprised that I managed to stay away in the slippery technical sections, but I pushed fairly hard to maintain the gap.”
On the 75.1km second stage the men’s and women’s batches were separated, which meant they had a less stressful start jostling for positions leading into the first descents and singletracks.
“The women’s batch was slowly whittled down to four riders. The others were Sabine, Renata and New Zealand’s Samara Sheppard.
“As we rode, the small group then became a leading group of three when Renata was dropped going up some muddy technical jeep-track climbs.
“I got away on a steep singletrack climb at 33km, but Sabine caught up to me on a technical descent and we managed to ride together for a while.
“Then I rode away on an open forest road at around 40km and soloed to the finish, opening up my lead to Sabine, who was in second place, to three minutes.”
De Groot said she felt “super sluggish” during the 10.1km individual time-trial on stage three and had to dig deep not to lose too much time overall.
“I knew I would need to put in a superb performance to beat Sabine on this course and in the end I had to settle for third, 40 seconds behind Sabine and 20 seconds behind Samara.”
She knew she was in for a tough day of climbing on the 47.2km final stage that finished at Feldberg, which is a ski area and the highest point in the Black Forest.
“The first 10km was a descent which was fast and flowing and then we started climbing soon after that, which was where I managed to get away. From there I soloed to the finish again.
“The final climb was a seriously steep bridge up onto the ski slope and up towards the finish on some taxing grassy singletrack.”
De Groot had to ride hard to ensure she maintained her gap and also to have a safety net should anything happen technically.
“I was fortunate that all my equipment ran smoothly and I had no troubles. I was super happy to take overall victory.”
Out of all the stages she loved the first two the most, which started and finished at the Rothaus Brewery.
“There were amazing singletrack descents as well as really fun, technical and hard-working singletrack and jeep-track climbs which I really enjoyed.”
An obstacle for her was that she did not have spare wheels, so the pressure was on to keep everything together and ride as smoothly as possible to ensure her equipment was well looked after.
“This isn’t always easy when the track is wet and slippery from rain, so I had some pressure knowing there was no backup.
“Last year I punctured within the final 2km and had to run to the finish, so I just didn’t want to have to do any running again this year.”
De Groot said she loved racing in an international field, which was why she came to Europe whenever she had the opportunity to do so.
“This is where you grow the most. To be out of your comfort zone, doing new races and racing against opposition you don’t know very well, it pushes you to evolve as an athlete. I’m very grateful for this opportunity.”
She will now remain in Europe until the end of September as she competes in a couple more marathon races before tackling the Marathon World Championships in Switzerland next month.
“I’ll then return to SA and race there for the remainder of the season, which is also something I look forward to.
“I love getting back home. The mountain biking there is different to European conditions and it once again stimulates me to have a change of scenery and race conditions throughout the year.”
