Today I got reminded of how long I have been in South Africa when I raced the “99er” for the 9th time!! It is a nice and well organised race close to home, so it is always fun to be back! Unfortunately the weather was not on our side this time. As we arrived at the venue the rain started drizzeling and by the time we started it was really raining, making the roads slippery and causing lots of punctures and a few crashes.
The girls started with the Vets, but I think the best Vets were riding with elites today or they were not there. The Vets that we started with were not used to racing. There were quite a few good girls there so it could have been a hard race for the podium spots. Unfortunately it did not turn out to be a fun race. Ashleigh and Sharon attacked a few times and my tactic was just to go on their attacks and hopefully get away with the two of them. We got away a few times but the guys chased back every time and when they were with us they sat our wheels. Half way in to the race we had a strong head wind with a slight gutter, we put the hammer down there and eventually dropped all the other girls. It was even one time when it was only us 3 girls and the guys in the bunch and we got away from them and still they did not let us go but chased us down and then did nothing again…
Ashleigh punctured about 25km from the finish and was gone, so now it was only me andSharonleft, she attacked at the bottom of Vissershoek and I had no chance to go with, so I could just ride to the finish to secure second place for the day.
