Cranking it up with Lonehill resident for upcoming bike festival
LONEHILL – Local mountain biker will have to ride hard to retain the CrankChaos title.
CrankChaos Enduro women’s champion, Nikki Alvin believes she will have a tough time defending her title this year at the Afriski Mountain Resort, Lesotho.
The Lonehill resident told the Fourways Review that luck was the reason for her success at the four-day CrankChaos mountain biking festival last year, but come 26 to 29 October, she will have to work hard for a podium position, especially coming off a neck injury.
“There are a lot more girls going this year which is great and shows how quickly the sport is growing,” she said.
Alvin’s favourite mountain bike races are enduro and downhill races and CrankChaos will feature a three-stage enduro race as well as two downhill races. Of particular interest to Alvin is the Downhill Eliminator, which sees four riders race downhill at the same time, but separately on four tracks of equal distance.
“It’s not your normal downhill race. [Last year] I was lucky enough to pick one of the faster tracks out of the hat. It’s definitely not a very accurate way to race but it’s so much fun.”
Alvin finished second in this race last year, and first in the enduro.
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“I’d have to put [winning the enduro] down to a bit of luck. With Phia van der Meulen having a mechanical problem and me having a small crash it was an exciting race. At 3 300m it’s so hard to pedal and breathe, and with Larise Venter and Phia having done the XCO Equaliser race earlier that day, I’d imagine that’s what gave me the edge.”
Alvin has been riding bicycles her whole life, but only took mountain biking seriously from 2014.
“My favourite thing about mountain biking has to be the people and the outdoors. I have made so many friends through the sport.”
She said downhill races were the best because of the challenge they presented, and there was ‘always such a great feeling when you do something you thought you never could’.
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