The Fedgroup Berg And Bush Decent has been rated as the best stage race in South Africa and I could see why when I arrived at registration on Thursday last week. A definite atmosphere surrounded the event; this was unlike any I’d ever experienced at a stage race in South Africa. The participants were relaxed, with beers in hands and war stories abounding, everyone was rearing to go in a more laid back way than I’d seen before.

This was the first staged event I’d raced as a mixed team and I was quite nervous with what to expect from my partner. I’d been partnered up with team TIB’s Brenda Potts, a roadie who has been “recalibrated” to the knobbly tires over the last year or so. This was a bit worrying as roadies aren’t known for their technical aptitude but I was happily proved very wrong when we started to descend the first technical decent and I turned around to wait for my partner and she was right behind me. This added a great air of confidence to the task at hand and I knew we were going to have a great race.  

The start was at just under 1700m above sea level and we could feel the lack of oxygen in the air as we raced up the first climb. We passed many of the mens teams up the climb which really helped to put time between us and the chasing mixed team Samantha Ostheizen and her partner. But little did we know that the hugely talented Sue and Ian don Washape who had a mechanical at the start line were racing up behind us. The race was now on and it was up to the technical ability and team dynamics to see who would be crossing the line first.



We managed to keep the other teams at bay for the stage and maintained a 4min lead into Emseni

Day 2



Day 2 started at Emseni camp and and after 70km looped back to the campsite after the big climb up to Spionkop. The fast paced start suited our team with Brends’s road cycling background and group riding experience. We pushed hard at the start to break away from the chasing pair of Sue and Ian. This worked well but after 10km the flat rolling nature of route negated any advantage we might have made. The other lottery we had to take into consideration was the Spionkop dam crossing . The lottery lay with in the engen size of the boat of choice or the skippers enthusiasm across the 2km expanse. We decided to get on the same boat as the chasing pair but as we got off the other side the racing began again. We raced up the first climb and made a break from sue and Ian. We got to the top of Spionkop first and pushed hard down the other side through the technical section. By the time we reached the finished we had a 2min lead over the Sue and Ian going into the final day.



Day 3 of the event was always going to be a tough one especially after the 2days of hard racing and with the strength of our competition growing stronger every day we were in for a great battle for the stage win. We took the lead from the work go and pushed hard to get a sizable gap on The Fedgroup 7 team of Ian and Sue up the first climb. This climb was only 5km in to the day and if you weren’t to careful you’d blow the legs up by gaing to fast out the gates. The plan worked and we sat in 8^th place amongst the mens teams up the climb. This gave us a 1min lead over the chasing pair but more importantly we pushed them into the red early on as they are not known as the fastest starters. The two of them finally caught us at the 2^nd water table after we missed a turn. However the pressure was on them as they would have to make up the 7min deficit from the last two days of racing. Brenda and I sat up and worked on matching any attacks they might throw at us. We did so and followed them to the finish line and on the final climb into the finish we jumped to claim the overall Mixed title and finished 9^th overall amongst the men.