‘Race to the sun’

It’s great that everything is slowly getting back to normal after the lockdown, and this includes the mountain bike racing calendar. Quite a number of Vryheid cyclists did the ‘Race to the Sun’ 100-mile (160km) event over the weekend, cycling from Hartbeespoort to Sun City, while others did the Barberton XC event as well. Congratulations to each and every cyclist for completing these two gruelling events. Vlam Lourens de Beer did exceptionally well in the ‘Race to the Sun’ and completed the distance in a time of 4:54 to earn himself a gold medal. The following three athletes won silver medals: Mlungise Zulu, Thabani Xaba and Martin Schoeman, all completing the event in less than six hours. Andrea de Beer, Everette Haywood, and Riaan and Lize Swanepoel completed the ride in just over six hours to earn themselves bronze medals. Well done for keeping the Vryheid flag flying high on an extremely fast but also difficult route. The cyclists reported an excellent route on the district roads, except for the ‘corrugation’ and thick sand that sometimes made navigation difficult. Ernest Franzen and Hannes van Staden finished the 77km Barberton race, also in excellent times, Ernest did very well on a difficult route with a 1900m vertical gain, coming 10th overall in a time of 03:36. (All the photos were supplied by the Vryheid Mountain Bike Club)

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