Cape Cobra 2012

2012-01-24

This weekend saw the second league race for the season, the traditionalCapeCobraaround theCapePeninsula, a tough race with 7 serious hills! There were more racing ladies then normal, that was nice to see!!! And there were some really good riders there, Sharon Laws (England) that last year rode for the Garmin Cervelo UCI team, Ariane Kleinhans (Switzerland) recent winner of the Attakwas and Leana De Jager (South Africa), part of the new Bizhub ladies UCI pro team. Since some of the best sub-vets in theWestern Capehave stepped up to vets the racing for us girls has become even harder!

The pace was hard on the hills but slowed down in between so the bunch splitted and got back together. On Slangkop they really put the hammer down and I lost contact with the front bunch but we managed to catch them again. It was a sprint for the corner for the naval hill, I was unfortunately a bit too far back and lost sight of Ariane and Sharon. On the way down I passed Ariane after she had crashed in a corner,Sharonwas still ahead. I was now sitting with the second bunch of guys, they gave up the race a bit and on the last 5km hill to the finish I heard how the motorbike with the camera man was behind me next to Ariane, she was coming closer. What I did not know then was that I was in the lead. With about 2km Ariane was with me and suddenly with 1,5km to goSharoncame flying past. She really caught me by surprise since I thought she was ahead, she had taken the wrong turn at one place. With 500meters to go I attacked and left Ariane behind and could secure the second place.

With that I will hold on to the pink leader’s jersey. The next race is next weekend in Paarl.

A big thank you to my new sponsor Jay and Focus bikes inCape Town! I really liked my new bike, it was awesome! I was glad to give them a podium position in my first race on their bike.