Sani2C is the second biggest mountain bike stage race in South Africa, next to the Cape Epic. In these long mountain bike stage races, everyone races with a partner. I raced with teammate Patrick Belton of Team Jeep Felt.
With 5000 riders starting each race in a new location, as we made our way closer to the sea every day, there were 2500 tents pitched up. The organization of this race was amazing! Breakfast, lunch and dinner was prepared for a massive amount of people. At dinner would be awards for stage wins, a sequence of pictures over the course of the day, and a video of everyone racing. Such a great experience, I would love to do this race again!
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| The tents we camped out in after every stage. |
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| My amazing full suspension Felt that helped cushion the bumpy terrain and flew down single track! |
Stage 1- As the first stage of Sani2C it was not surprising that it was a fast start. Everyone has fresh legs and eager to race hard. The stage was 86 kilometers long and was dry, fast rolling open roads, little single track, but had some short hard climbs. Patrick and I had a rough stage 1. The start was extremely fast. It was so dry and dusty we could barely breathe or see. Both of us went into the race a little too fresh. Our heart rates were high and our legs weren't very snappy. We ended up coming in 4th. We knew we could do a lot better.
Stage 2- This stage was completely different from stage 1. The distance was longer, at 99 kilometers, and it had rained the whole night and was still drizzling when we woke up. Everyone was shivering on the start line with the freezing cold rain. It was a fast start onto a wide dirt road that was already getting muddy. The course profile for the day was basically downhill for 30k on single track, flat to rolling for 30k along the bottom of the Umkomaas Valley, and climbing for 30k to the finish. Because of the rain all night to the morning of the race, you can imagine what the single track descent was like. It was absolutely comedic the whole way down, watching people slip and fall and slide down the banks of the steep switchbacks. The whole way down Patty and I were laughing. We were sliding all over the place as well, but kept up right. As we hit the valley floor, the mud just stuck to my bike and it got to the point where I could no longer pedal because it was so clogged up! Thank god there was a river crossing just ahead. Patty jumped into the river with my bike and tried to get most of the mud off. Apparently we started a trend, everyone ended up washing their bikes as well! We continued on, feeling a lot better than the day before, and flew across the valley floor. I made sure to take lots of Roctane GU's along the valley floor, because it was a long way up to the top of the climb. Once we made our way to the base of the climb, it was very difficult to ride in some places because of the mud. But we ran all the places we couldn't ride, not wasting any time! Patty told me to hang onto his jersey pocket so he could help me up the long drags. We were able to keep our pace up that way, and it would give me a little time to recover. Patty and I ran out of our GU Roctane drink mix and decided to stop at the last water point to fill up. I gave him my empty bottles and carried on. He eventually caught up to me and we picked up the pace. We caught one of the womens teams, Bizhub, with about 20k to go. Still feeling great, pushing ourselves to keep up the pace. We were about 5k to the end and had to cheer each other on, because we were so exhausted! It was 3k to the finish and we could see a mixed team in front of us! Suddenly we both had a huge surge of energy. I grabbed onto Patty's jersey pocket once more and we charged passed them just before the finish line. Finishing 10 seconds ahead of them, we placed 2nd mixed team. Very happy with this performance we went on to clean our bikes, take showers, and prepare for the next day. The final stage.
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| Patty and I after coming second in stage 2. |
Stage 3- Final day of racing! A very cool idea the Sani2c organization had for the final day was to let all the slower heats of riders start first in the morning, then 2 hours gap, and then the A batch riders start at 11am. The idea was to make the finish that much sweeter, with more people watching as we come into the finish. So we had a very relaxed morning. Slept in till 8, had breakfast, and waited to head for the start. Alright here we go, the last hoorahh!! 85 kilometers of fast single track all the way down to the coast! Patty and I had a great start. Went right onto the wheels of the Kleinhans, RE-CM, who were 1st in the overall mixed teams. We were about a quarter of the way into the race, when the helicopter that was filming our race came a little too low. As we were passing through sugar cane fields, it blew some dried up sugar cane into the Kleinhans bikes. They had to stop for a while and dig out the sugar cane from their drive trains. Patty and I sat up to wait for them, showing good sportsmanship. It was just the right thing to do. They eventually caught up and we continued on with our race. A little ways down the road Patty got a stick or something caught in his rear rotor, and it was bent so badly, his rear brake was now useless. He had no torque tool with him, so he had to rip off his rotor and continue on with only a front brake. All the other mixed teams were in a group together and had passed us at this point. We caught onto the back of their group and took a breather. Patty and I decided it was time to go, we wanted to catch back to the Kleinhans. We attacked hard on the next hill and we could see the Kleinhans just up the road. We eventually caught back onto the wheels of the Kleinhans and successfully dropped all the other teams. Patty and I sat their wheels to recover from the exertion. We could see the other mixed teams getting closer and closer. They were chasing hard. We decided to sit and wait till they caught us and then attack into the next single track. The Kleinhans had the same idea. Both our teams flew into the single track and held a pace the other teams couldn't match. My word, we were moving!! We kept a sizable gap the whole rest of the race. As we were getting closer and closer to the finish we planned to attack right before the last challenge of the race, the floating bridge. We attacked and the Kleinhans gave no response, but sat behind us. We entered the floating bridge ahead of them. If you ever do Sani2c, the greatest feature of this race is the floating bridge at the end of the race. A lot of people fall off! The whole time you are riding it, it's moving in different directions like a big snake. It was the weirdest sensation I have ever experienced, but a very cool ending of a days racing. We crossed the line in 1st, taking the stage win! What a huge surprise to everyone, especially ourselves! We were so happy! Patty and I were all smiles! What a great way to end on a high note!
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