Panorama Tour - Stage 2

Day 2 of the Panorama tour was, in the words of the organisers, the flattest Mpumalanga could offer. We were hoping that the shorter route would be kinder to our legs, tired out by the long climbs of the previous day. However things didn’t go well right from the beginning as we were now in starting group D, and arrived there just in time for the race, and were the last in our group. Basically, we were starting just in front of group E! The Music came on, and cyclists started shuffling forward trying to get out of the starting pen and onto the road, this time turning left and down into White River on a rather sharp descent (my favourite!) and through the side streets to emerge on the Sabie Road, then left after a few km’s towards Brondal. The road surface on the Brondal section was starting to break up and the early descents played havoc with my rear wheel (and confidence), already shaken by the long Spitskop downhill. I was still getting used to my new carbon bike, which alternated between incredible rigidity and uncontrollable wobbling on less than perfect asphalt.. I was confused. More than that, I was at the end of the pack, and climbing furiously to catch up with Carlos. On today’s race our incompatibilities, him with a sprinter’s cassette and me with my descending heeby jeebies, worked to our advantage as I raced up the hills, and he caught up with me on the descents. Again we made good time after our (my) initial bad start and started catching cyclists. The flatter sections meant that we had to find a good pace-group in order to maintain our speed.. hard to do when most of the good cyclists were up ahead. We did manage though to find a few that pulled us through the long and windy straights. We used this tactic and hopped onto groups up ahead, or got dropped and were caught by faster riders behind us, and managed to make up some time and keep a good pace. Eventually we found some young riders who were content at pushing at a lazy 30km’s.. It was either going with them or facing the oncoming wind alone, so we chose wisely.. We’d need our legs for the last third of the race, a constant climb past KMIA (Kruger Airport) and onto the Numbi Gate road leading to White river. We were now on the Kanyamanze road which runs parallel to the N4, and eventually a pair of young riders in our group shot to the front and upped the pace, right until the left turn and the start of the hills. I made my move and started pushing up the hill, with Carlos close behind. We were now going mostly uphill, with a few flat sections and descents which gave Carlos a chance to rejoin. Now it was a constant slog, with just a quick stop at the waterpoint and a interview with the camera-man, and we were off again. By now we had worked out the colour-codes on the rider’s numbers and knew which ones we had to beat. We managed to close in on veteran after veteran and slowly pull ahead. We were feeling good, but the long grinding hill and our sprints on the flats meant that our legs had little more to give, and eventually a road-train of cyclists caught us on one of the descents, and to our dismay they were mostly vets! We clambered aboard and spun our legs like crazy barely keeping up, as the descent gave way to a painful wall of tarmac. We’ve now only a few more km’s to go, and some sharp up and down sections, which split up the road train. We are about in the middle of the split and were straining and pushing on the pedals, getting ourselves up the last long uphill, then down another long descent and a left hook onto the Numbi Gate road. A gentle rise but we are inching along, trying to catch one last vet group, that have been following us for the last 10 km’s. They are the AutoTec team, and we realise that we’ve been closely pacing them over the last two days. However we don’t catch them. We are finished.. and there, just in front of us is the finish line. Flattest day of the race?! What a load of bull! Today was worse than day one. We'll find out if day three can better it though.. Stay tuned.