Race Report - Bouckaert Soenen League Funride

Report by Sipho Mona, Team Manager: Team GT/Velokhaya/PPA.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The race started at the grounds of Paarl Boys School, with 126km facing the riders for the day. It was surely going to be a difficult ride for most of the riders given the length of the race and race organizers not allowing feeding for the series.

The race navigated through the wine route of Wellington and towards Malmesbury at a moderate pace. That was until the riders reached the only climb and King of the Mountain of the day (Riebieck Kasteel), where the bunch inevitably split up and saw all the best placed riders for the GC contending the KOM and Siyabonga Mnqwazi came third.

The race then descended towards Malmesbury and took left at the T-junction back to Wellington, and then Paardeberg circuit. The team was still fully represented in the bunch until our riders began their attacks with 30km to go. They were chased back by the bunch but Wandisile Mahlombe, Bonga Nqobane and two other riders got a reasonable gap and worked hard to open it up. At the point it was up to 20sec with 10km to go until the two other riders decided not to work to make the break a success and left our two riders to do the work on their own while the couple enjoyed a free ride.

The bunch was then able to forge ahead and bring them back with less than 5km to go. The race was back together again and every team was gearing up for the bunch sprint of which Siya single handedly maneuvered through the other teams lead outs and got a well fought 6th place overall.

Not a result we should be happy about but we are definitely making headway in the sprinting discipline.