Bad luck strikes again!
Tire problems seemed to be the flavour of the day for lots of riders, myself included - I paid special attention to getting a tire that would work on this course. Its quite tight forcing you to use a lightweight tire but the rocky nature of the trail also means that you have to use something with a strong carcass. So its all about compromise - as always, performance comes at a price.
The stakes were high with just a couple of points separating Marc Bassingthwaite, Brandon Stewart, Renay Goustra and Craig Paul - the SA title would come down to the last of the 5 race series. No pressure!!!
The race started out well, I settled into the racing for the first couple of laps then started pushing the pace up a bit, dropping Marc and Philip(Garmin) to take the lead. Then i burped my tire, and again ... and again - forcing me to slow down on the technical stuff to avoid pinch flatting. Marc started clawing back and passed me just into lap 6. I stopped to bomb my wheel, losing around 1min30 sec ... On the last lap, I managed to catch back slightly but not enough! Thats the way it goes.
Marc rode a solid race and deserves to have a good win - he had technical issues at the World Cup and his form is good... its just a pity that a Namibian wins the SA XC Cup ! :-) Good work Bass. But watch out next year! hehehe!
