Race Report: Midvaal Vets Tour Stage 4

Well, the GC was looking very interesting this morning! I was lying in 5th place, less than 2 seconds off 3rd place!

The final stage was a kermesse, 4 laps of 5km each. I always thought a kermesse was much shorter laps but anyway!

The first and second laps had hotspots at the start/finish line, which was at the top of a nice incline. I decided I would try to get a good warmup and was feeling very motivated to try jump into 3rd place. I felt quite good riding on the rollers and my hopes were high.

My plan was to try to get away early and win one of the primes, then try to protect my position on GC. The pace started out really hard and any thoughts of getting away were quickly dashed. The bunch was strung out in one long line.

Coming up to the first prime, I felt as if I had no gas in the tank. I could not match the accelerations and watched in dismay as the front guys left me for dead. Stefano Madies (who was only a couple seconds behind me) took the prime. The group came together again as the pace slowed after the prime, but for me the plan had fallen apart. All that was left for me was to stay in the top 6 and be in the prize money.

Staying in the top 6 also proved to be impossible, but that was due to my own team mate moving up the GC by winning the second prime and coming second in the race - so no complaints there! Johan Labuschagne (CycleLab) rode away from the bunch and managed to stay away, taking a well deserved win! Jock Green took second place.

In 30 minutes the race was over and I must say, I was very disappointed in my own performance. Having said that though, the field at the tour was very strong this year, and I ended up just over 1 minute behind the winner, with a chance of a podium finish on the last day. I'm sure I would have taken that result at the start of the tour.

Power numbers for the 30 minutes: 355w normalised power. I don't think I could have gone any harder than that! Clearly I still have work to do!

The Tour this year was really well attended, and the field was really strong. Mr. Price KZN took a deserved victory and they rode as a team. Congrats to Werner Moolman for his victory, it was well earned and deserved. Craig Harvey pushed him all the way, and also took a well deserved second place. Jock Green took the points and polka dot jerseys so not a bad performance from him either.

From Absolute Systems/Bulk Pack Meat perspective, obviously we would have liked to win the tour, but Craig Harvey took second, Jock Green took fourth (as well as the points and kom jerseys). We won 2 stages as well, so pretty successful tour for us.

Thanks to our sponsors: Absolute Systems, Bulk Pack Meat, Trek/Bontrager, Garmin, and our new sponsor Biogen.