"Not too sure how the legs would react to a hard 85km race after having recently completing the Cape Pioneer" said Catherine. "I'm also busy doing a sightseeing tour with my husband who's out in South Africa for the next month.
Therefore we planned our trip with a race on each weekend as Wine2wales is coming up in the next couple of weeks"
"I just rode around the front of the group and found the pace quite steady" continued Catherine. "We soon split up on the first climb and I found myself in a group with three or four other guys. They didn’t contest me for the QOM as long as I lead them out for the finish that I thought was fair enough! After that climb came a steep one, wet from recent rain and pretty unridable.
The views from the top over the Elephant Park were amazing though there wasn't an elephant in sight. I stopped looking at the scenery on the descent. We were told to walk the first section, which I happily did and watched a guy go straight over the handlebars. After that I was alone unable to hang onto the guys on the tricky single-track descent. There were so many 'Cautious' signs, which I took too literally and at the bottom it took me an age to catch back up to the guys.
Feeling quite strong by then I followed a guy on a 29er down hill, I couldn't have planned that better if I'd tried!!. We then caught a rider I'd be racing the Double Century with and we rode together quite nicely through the lion reserve.
Having dropped the 29er and later a young development rider who wasn't working with us, me and my DC 'team mate' worked our way to 4th and 5th overall. We had caught one other guy up and I was happy to let them fight for 3rd place, happy that I was comfortably the first woman and was also one of the very few riders that didn't go through a packet of bombs!
Riding into the finish funnel I found myself only a few places behind my husband Rob who had completed and loved the 65km despite losing 45 minutes fixing punctures". Six bombs down, two tubes and four pretty knackered tyres later Catherine left Addo for the next part of her trip down the Garden route.
Next weekend she will be participating at the Wine2wales three day stage race together with her partner Ischen Stopforth.
