PMB xco national

Prior to the fourth and final leg of the National XCO series I was lucky enough to stay at my coach/mentors house- 5 minutes ride from the track. The week leading up to the race I rode the course ample times and knew that I had everything dialed. The course was not seriously demanding but would be a brutal race due to the jarring of the unsettled track.

On the morning of the race i had a perfect warm up and rode to the course 30 minutes before the start.

With a rather dissatisfying start i was left in about 5th place. I luckily had more than one game plan and quickly switched from "plan A" to 'plan B'. After the first lap i was 50 seconds down due to some irritating spills. 2nd lap left me 1 minute behind. I knew that if i didn't shift to full throttle straight away my race wouldn't be satisfying. I changed my mindset and hit full throttle. I managed to bring the time gap down to 35 seconds in one lap, going into the last lap, one of the spectators said i was 15-20 seconds down so i knew it was possible to catch the leader Patrick Belton ( team jeep). Unfortunately for him he punctured and i rode off with a win with my fastest two laps being my last two laps.

Preparation for SA champs is going very well and I am looking forward to it more every single day.

Big thanks to KZN MTB for putting on such an amazing event and fun course, never disappoint.