OFM Classic

This race is billed as the biggest race in central South Africa. Central South Africa being Bloemfontein of course.
Although Bloemfontein is reasonably flat, this course has enough bumps and wind to make racing very interesting. A few years back Bloemfontein hosted a very successful S.A. Champs.
This year, the course had been re-arranged a bit. Usually the race heads out on a very flat section to the airport, then comes back through the suburbs and over some short sharp hills. This year, we hit the hills first, and the airport loop came right at the end of the race.
The goal this year was for the team to work for Issy Zimmerman (a.k.a. the Jerusalem Jet) as it has been his ambition to win this race for a number of years. Something to do with impressing the inlaws after the young Jewish man made off with the plattelandse meisie!
With the bumps coming early in the race, and the team feeling confident that if we caused the split we would have the legs to stay away for the rest of the race - the first 15km of the race was going to be very aggressive.
Kevin Prinsloo was assigned first watch - and needed to be in any moves that tried to get away in the first few kilometres. Then Andrew and I would go hard over the first two bumps and put the bunch on the back foot. The pace would be high for the next few kilometers then Andrew would attack a couple of times leading up to the last hill. As the bunch came back together, I would counter with Issy on my wheel. Andrew would then bridge to us, and we would be away.
Things went exactly to plan, and the only other rider that was able to come with was Deon Coetzee (current S.A. Champ riding for Tony Impey Cycles).
Deon immediately began working with us even though he was outnumbered and the time gap quickly got to 45sec.
We soon past the Elite Ladies and headed out on the N1 into a strong headwind. 10km later, the gap was up to 2m30sec and a small chase bunch containing Anton Duvenhage (Boss Logistics), Shane Brown (DiData), Kevin Prinsloo (Cyclelab Toyota), Samuel de Swardt (Cyclelab club rider), Jorge Faria (V&A), Mark Linington (Club 100) and a couple of Germiston Wheelers riders (Andy Irvine and Tinus Scheepers) was trying to bring us back.
A short loop through farmland north of Bloemfontein and we were heading back towards Bloem now with a strong tailwind and some long drags. This was the second point in the race where we could cause splits. Coming back onto the highway, Andrew attacked with Issy but Deon was able to get onto Issy's wheel. Deon saw that I had been gapped and countered, pacing hard on the highway trying to remove me. Andrew and Issy weren't going to help him, so the next few kilometres were spent with me trying to get back into the group, and Deon trying to drop me. Eventually he slowed, and as I came back on to the group, I attacked him and forced him to pace again. I opened a nice gap and put the pressure on. Then, as the gap started to close, Andrew and Issy attacked Deon again. I jumped onto Issy's wheel, but Deon was not too far behind and I realised that I was giving him the chance to hang on. I sat up and let the gap open. This was the last straw for Deon, and the elastic finally broke. Andrew and Issy were away.
The gap quickly opened to over 1 minute, at which point I started pacing with Deon again, wanting to get to the finish as third place was still up for grabs and the chase group was 2m30 behind us.
Deon and I maintained a steady pace to the finish, with Deon taking third place.
Then, a very unfortunate incident happened as the chase group came to the finish. Samuel de Swardt participated in the sprint (for 5th place) though he had not contributed much to the chase. This upset some of the other riders, Shane Brown and Jorge Faria, and resulted in Samuel being physically pushed into the curb and crashed.
I can understand the guys being angry when this happened, but physically crashing the guy off his bike is just unacceptable. The incident was reported to the commaissaires and hopefully some action will be taken.

GPS data from the race and power data can be seen here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17717655