Trailseeker Lionman, Oyster Festival & USSA

In the last few weeks we've competed at two Trailseeker marathon races, the Oyster festival and USSA (University championships)

With great results and comments from the team below we are looking forward to the National XCO Championships this weekend. Kombo will hopefully do the Zimbabwean national championships, he is having some issues with his study visa and travelling to and from Zim so holding thumbs.

We would like to welcome Ashley and the Subaru team as our official vehicle sponsor, this is a great addition to our structure and we look forward to the “road” ahead :-) BTW they just released the all new Impreza check it out on the link below.

Subaru Impreza - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAHYc7eCvGc

Matthys Beukes - 1st Oyster Festival

Hope everyone is well.

​Just a quick update on my recent couple of races and training in general.

I’ve had a solid few weeks training at home and my form is back to where it was before I got ill.
It took some proper hard training but thankfully that is what I love! 

After the wrong turn saga in Grabouw at the Nissan Trailseeker WP event it was time to look forward to one of our biggest races in the area, the Knysna Oyster Festival MTB Challenge. Its also the first race I did as a 7 year old and my brother has won it in the past a couple times so this race holds a special place in my heart. I won it in 2015 and set a new course record so my goal this year was to try better the record although I believed it would be a massive task…

I started seeing some good numbers in my training and knew I am getting on top shape with a few days to go. However, upon waking up Friday morning I felt horrible with allergies from a fire close to our house during the night. I thought it was over but later in the day I started feeling a bit better and went for a short ride to see how the body felt. Everything was ok’ish and I decided to at least start and see how I feel going up the first climb.

Anyway, long story short… I didn’t feel like super man but the power was there so the race was on!

I rode a steady tempo at the front keeping the record pace in mind but not burning matches up until halfway.

On the climb out of Petrus se Brand I lifted the pace and dropped the other 3 riders. From there to the finish is about 1.5hrs with a lot of pedalling on fast open roads. It became very sandy at places and I thought the record would be out of reach but never the less, I kept a solid tempo and could see I was going at a decent pace.

Philip Buys - 1st Mabalingwe Trailsekker Lionman

My update comes all the way from three weeks ago when I took part in my first ever Marathon world champs in Germany. 

I traveled to Germany with strong legs in hope of a solid result, but unfortunately my race turned into one more learning experience. My tactics were all wrong and my seeding of around 150 was not ideal. The short of it all is that on that course I could not work my way through the field quick enough to sit in the leading bunch and from there on I was either on my own in the wind or in a bunch that was just not going forward.

For the future marathon worlds champs we will have to get more marathon UCI points to better our seeding and make things a bit easier and I am sure that other courses will be a bit more technical.  

Arriving back home again I took a few days easy to recover from traveling and to get some motivation back again, it’s always difficult to get going again after a disappointing performance. 

Luckily Cross Country National Champs was the next fast approaching goal and the fight for that title was good enough motivation to get me back in the swing of things.

Winning the Trailseeker race at Mabalingwe on Saturday was also good for confidence before the title battle this weekend. I had a problem free race and could execute my tactics exactly as planned, which indicates that training was spot on and the shape is there.  

God willingly the next few days build up to National champs will be all smooth sailing and then everyone will be in for some exciting racing on Saturday.

We will give our best to deliver the goods!

Cheers!

Kombo Bere - USSA championships

Hi hope everyone is well. 

I raced at USSA champs last weekend Monday to Thursday.  Day one was a 80km road race, we where given instructions by our head of varsity to work for Arno Du tiot our main GC contender. At 17km there was a bunch crash and was victim to the crash, luckily no injuries.  The rest of the stage was fast very windy all went down to a sprint for our sprinter Arno. 

That afternoon was a 12km road time trial where I managed to place 11th among the 80racers. 

The following day we had the long stage road race 116km with multiple hot spots and King of the mountain on 98km. Road most of the in the front of the race controlling the pace, bring the break aways back and doing lead outs before hotspots. Very heated and intensive stage. Day three we had the 2km Hill climb on the road and then in the afternoon the criteriam on the road which was intensive with my role being the same. To control the tempo and do the lead out before the sprint laps. 

The final day was the mtb xco race where I finish 5th with the course being very flat. The tour was great preparation for the upcoming Ashburton marathon at the end if the month. Very thankful for such a great opportunity. Have a blessed week and keep well