About Me
- Ashleigh Moffatt
- It all happened to me when I jumped on the seat and became one with my bike. Nothing else around you matters at that time as you are in a world of your own. I share a passion for cycling and encourage you to join me on my journey in 2012, riding in colours of BMC. its going to be a very exciting year!!
Facebook Badge
Thursday, 26 July 2012
South African XCO Championships (Mankele)
This last weekend the South African XCO (cross-country) Championships took place in Nelspruit at a wonderful place called Mankele.
I was excited to see everyone back on the racing scene again and catch up with the all the athletes. I’ve heard that Mankele is a great venue to hold a cycling race and I haven’t been there before, so I was pretty keen to check out the course and venue. We of course had fantastic accommodation at Misty Valley Lodge, it might have been a bit further away from the race venue but it was worth it!
It was a cool course testing each riders abilities, both climbing and technically. The course was about 5.5km with 120m ascent with some fun bridges, drop-offs and tight corners in the single track. The two drop-offs along the xco course added some exciting action during the races. The terrain of the track was quite loose and sandy, which meant one (rider) had to stay focused throughout the race. It was good as it tested each riders skills as the course changed with each rider riding it.
It was great to see how many competitors and athletes showed up for the championships, making it a bigger field in each age group for the riders to battle it out. It’s fantastic to see so many more people riding and wanting to take part in the sport. There was a top field in the women’s race making it quite a buzz of excitement for the riders and the spectators.
I had a truly great race over the weekend coming in 2nd U23 and 5th overall; I felt great on the bike and was in a positive mind set throughout the race. I stuck out my tongue and gave a big smile every time I came through the tech/feed zone to start the next lap and trust me you cannot fake a smile if you are not happy and in a positive mind setJ. That shift of mind set truly helps you have good time on the race and enjoy the race, even if you do have pain in your legs you are able to bypass that pain and carry on. Well done to all the riders that raced on the weekend downhill and cross-country, it was great weekend of racing. Thank you to all the support out there it really does make a difference to the rider when racingJ. A big congratulations to all my BMC-SA Teammates some fantastic racing by all, getting quite a few podiums. Good luck to Candice Neethling in her journey a head, we are so proud of you and will be supporting you all the way!!
Until next time.
Thanx for reading.
Xxx
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment