Cape Argus Cycle Tour

Unbelievable! Racing bikes in gale force winds is not for the faint hearted!

After all the negative publicity that Andrew (Mclean) had to endure in the week leading up to the race, we were all highly motivated for this race! On Saturday I took a ride out to the new Boyes Drive section of the route to have a look at the hills on it. Not too bad, but definitely a chance to soften up competitors legs during the race.

Weather forecast was predicting a strong South Easter though, which would mean a block headwind until the turn at Smitswinkel. Depending on the strength of the wind, there would be no point in trying to break things up until Smitswinkel.

Well, the wind was gale force! I was staying in a B&B in Newlands, and it is a 10km flat ride to the start - nice warmup, except it took me 13minutes pedalling easy! The wind propelled me at around 50km/h all the way to the start line.

Usually the city bowl is sheltered from the wind, but it was chaos at the start line. It was so strong that my bike lifted off the ground when I was standing holding it. The porta-loos became flying missiles with a deadly payload!

So, no point in doing anything until Smitswinkel then!

Heading out at the start, the entire front of the bunch got blown over in the wind! this meant that by the time I got to the highway, I was a good few hundred metres behind the front guys! No problem though, with such a strong headwind, they came to a virtual standstill and we crawled up to the hospital.

Edinburgh drive was also fairly slow, and the bunch crawled out along the Blue Route. At least the wind direction was not swirling, which made staying on the bike a bit easier. It was a fight though to stay in the first 10 to 15 though, as the front guys slowed, riders kept coming round the sides.

As expected, things stayed together until Smitswinkel. My strategy was to attack up Smitswinkel and open a gap. Andrew would then come across and we would use the strong tailwind to open up a gap on the bunch.

The tactic worked to perfection, except it wasn't me that attacked, it was Gary Marescia. Going up Smitswinkel, I was nicely place on 3rd or 4th wheel when Gary attacked hard. Unfortunately the guys in front of me could not go with, leaving me boxed in a bit. Andrew then attacked and nobody could respond to him either. Leaving us to make a steady pace up the climb and see if anybody tried to bridge, taking us with. Myself and Issy Zimmerman, along with another rider, made it to the top together and the rest of the bunch was shattered. With the strength of the tailwind, there was no way a single rider would be able to pull back Andrew and Gary, so a small chase group formed and we just sat in.

About 10km later, Gary popped and came back to the bunch, leaving a 40km solo TT for Andrew. Something which he did comfortably, given the terrain and the strong tailwind.

That left us in the position of just sitting in, and trying to get away up Suikerbossie. However, with the ladies race being part of our race, tactics became a bit messy on Suikerbossie and the bunch stayed together of the sprint at the finish. Even though I had been sitting in most of the race, I was pretty flat at the end and did not have great sprinting legs! Pity, as I would have liked to try get a podium in this race!

Overall Normalised Power for the race was 310w and finishing time was 3h06, almost 20min slower than previous years.