Wines2Whales - Day 3 - Oak Valley to Onrus

Wines2Whales Day 3 (77km 1450m climb) was here and it was time to pick the ego off the ground and make up for the previous day. My lack of heroics the previous day meant we had to drop down one group to start in E.

We left Oak Valley at 7h40, quickly crossed Paul Cluver to drop down on some singletrack to the Houwhoek Inn Hotel. The benefit for me of dropping down one group was that the pace on the singletrack was more leisurely, allowing me to slowly regain the confidence I lost the day before
Singletrack
After Houwhoek Inn we dropped down to Botrivier via the historic Kat Pass. Dewald & I decided to play it safe down the pass as there were some treacherous sections, still some other riders couldn't resist bombing down the pass at full speed and one idiot almost ended Dewald's race prematurely when he couldn't control his bike on the downhill.

After the waterpoint at Botrivier school Dewald & I picked up some speed, raced through open wheat fields, some dirt roads, tar roads and some flowing singletrack. We were catching a lot of teams on this section, including the downhill-hero who almost took Dewald out a bit earlier & another rider who reminded us that there were no seeding tomorrow and therefore no rush!
Riding through the fynbos
After some more climbs we crossed over into the beautiful Hemel-en-Aarde valley, again lots of singletrack (which by now we were confidently gunning at full pace), some sand, pass some more teams and then we crossed over to Russel Hamilton Wine Estate for the last waterpoint of the day, we were pleasantly surprised to see Corlia & kids waiting for us there!
Look who's surprised to see his family!
After Russel Hamilton the route had one last sting in its tail, a big climb out of the wine estate to a ridge overlooking Hermanus. Riding along the ridge looking down at Hermanus and the finish line is a special experience.
Then it was the final drop off the ride down into the Onrus river valley, some fast & furious singletrack next to the river where we were flying! Then into Onrus, for a quick ride on the beach and then onto the finish line.
Dewald leading out on the beach.
We finished Stage 3 in just over 4 hours, moved up a few places on the overall rankings and finished inside the top half of the field. Interestingly our time would have been good enough for a Top-20 finish in the W2W Adventure & W2W Ride, showing just how strong the field are in the W2W Race.

Day 3 was easily my favourite day of the race, fast singletrack, not too technical, some open roads that test the endurance, a few hard climbs and some stunning views. Only regret was not seeing a whale, the official photographer spotted some from the helicopter so I know they were out there!
The second half of the title.

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