The Port Elizabeth Herald Cycle Tour 2019

When you do road races around Cape Town, you eventually realise that almost all races (Cape Town Cycle Tour excluded) are a variation of the same routes in a triangle around the Paardeberg area with  Durbanville to the west, Paarl to the east and Malmesbury to the north.


We are certainly privileged to have a good number of races during the year but one can only ride Bothmaskloof so many times before seeking some new challenges. I looked up the Herald Cycle Tour in Port Elizabeth. One of the very few races (and the only large road cycle race in the Eastern Cape) with full road closure and an official seeding event for the Cape Town Cycle Tour.


Stilbaai Systems Check
On Friday 22nd February after work I set off for my road trip to Port Elizabeth, overnight at Stilbaai and setting off again on Saturday morning for Port Elizabeth. Left Stilbaai a bit late on Saturday morning so it was a rush to cover the 450km to PE to get to registration before it closed at 17h00.

Sunday morning I lined up with about a 1000 other riders next to the beach in Summerstrand. I started in VA just behind the pros, the start was fairly leisurely. After a few kilometers we turned left into the suburbs. The pace was still fairly mundane, I even rode in the front for a short bit.

All went well till about 20km into the race where I was caught napping, first a 2km long downhill on the Seaview road where I fell behind slightly. Then a sharp right turn and suddenly a steep climb and the front riders attacked. I just wasn't strong enough to catch-up on the climb and suddenly the group was scattered with me in no mans land.

Frustratingly this was the last big climb for the next 40km so if I only managed to stuck with the group I would have been with them until at least 60km into the race. Instead I was grouped into a small group of about 8 stragglers. We worked well together but did not gain on the front-runners (but at least we were also not caught by those behind us)

Best scenery of the day!
So for the next 40km we made our way through green farmlands and the route took us back to the sea and large dunes at the Maitlands nature reserve. Then it was the last climb of the day at Schoenmakerskop, I realised on the crest of the climb I dropped all of my fellow stragglers and was now on my own. I thought they would catch up soon but with a proper tailwind and flat roads I decided to let them work for it!

So for the last 40km I was doing a TT on my own, every now and the I would look behind me and see a little group chasing but not really gaining. Given the good conditions I decided to see if I can chase down a sub-3 for the race. The kilometers ticked over quickly, with the wind at my back I was averaging 40km/h + but the time to 3 hours was running out quicker.

I could see the finish line in the distance when the Garmin ticked over 3h00, I just had too much kilometers to make up over the last 40km. Finished with a time of 3h01 so maybe a bit of unfinished business with the Herald Cycle Tour? A bit disappointing to lose my group so early in the race and then to also just miss out on a sub-3 but I enjoyed the racing on closed roads. Was also disappointing not to see a bigger turn-out for a race with full road closures, would be great if one could see better support from the locals.












Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Sub-3 Argus - Part 1 - Assembling the pieces of the puzzle

Image
Its March and time for the BIG one - The Argus Cycle Tour . Since going for an Argus victory is the exclusive domain of the pro-cyclists, most casual cyclists target a specific time, a Sub-5, a Sub-4, Sub 3h30 etc. Cycling magazines devote pages of advice on how to obtain that elusive "Sub-x" time. The big target for amateur cyclists however is the "Sub-3", it's the amateur cyclist equivalent of running the 4-minute mile, not quite impossible but very hard to pull off and instant "street-cred" in cycling conversations to those who manage it. To put it in perspective, in 2013 & 2014 the winning times was about 2h40, meaning that you had to finish within 20 minutes of the leading riders and within the first 500 positions out of the 35,000 entrants. The deciding factor in achieving a Sub-3 Argus is your seeding, in 2013 only a  B seeding or better would do, in 2012 & 2014 a few riders in group C also made it but virtually nobody below those
Read more

CTCT 2017 -The puppet that never got the chance to grow into a real live boy

Image
2014 Cape Argus I managed my first sub-3. 2015 Argus was halved due to raging fires and everyone got sub-3's 2016 Argus, now the Cape Town Cycle Tour (CTCT) I fell ill the night before the race and could not ride. 2017 CTCT was now supposed to be my first attempt at a proper sub-3 in 4 years. After the Attakwas early in January I managed to keep on training and keep doing races, my seeding looked good after the Stellenbosch Cycle Tour so everything was falling in place for a proper sub-3 assault. Then in the lead-up to the big day things started going wrong... First there were reports of fires in Hout Bay Then rumours started spreading about social unrest along the route at Masiphumelele near Kommetjie. Then the night before the race organisers sent us the following text message: Things weren't looking good but the Sunday morning I arrived in Cape Town ready to handle whatever the conditions, fires and protesters throw at me.  Initially th
Read more

Sani2C - Day 2 - Umkomaas Valley

Image
Sani2C Day 2 - the heaven & hell stage and the reason the Sani2C is famous. A long 100km stage, starting with a stunning single track descent into the Umkomaas valley, the track then crosses the valley  taking the riders over the Umkomaas river and out the other side with a monster climb back up the mountains. Our good ride on day 1 meant we were bumped up from Group J to Group E for day 2, meaning the slower riders were now behind us and not in front of us when bombing down on the long downhill single track sections. Day 2 started early and Group E were off at 8h00. The first few kilometers took us into a fun dual track section through pine plantations, suddenly the trees opened up and words can't adequately describe the scenery that unfolded before us. A beautiful valley with a big river snaking kilometers below us, and we were descending right down the "walls" of the valley! The beautiful Umkomaas valley at sunrise What follows is about 30km of t
Read more