nickcoyne.com

Another Argus Cycle Tour has come and gone. This time I rode on the tandem with Uwe, my first time on a tandem in the Argus.

I know that I’m not at my best fitness, and Uwe isn’t the best climber in the world, so I thought that we’d struggle on the hills against some of the other tandems with 2 good climbers aboard. And I wasn’t wrong - we got dropped on Edinburgh drive, and chased back by Kendal Road. We got dropped on Smitswinkel, not by much though. We then surprisingly got dropped on Ocean View, and chased all the way until the Kommetjie township. Chappies saw us off the back again, but we managed to regain the bunch by the foot of Suikerbossie.

By now though, the leading bunch was wittled down to only 14 tandems, including us. Naturally we got dropped on Suikerbossie again, but we had another tandem for company, and we set about chasing again. We didn’t get much help from the other guys. We caught up with another tandem who just sucked wheel the whole way. We chased hard, with us doing most of the work, and we ended just 100m behind the front group of 11. Then the other 2 tandems jumped us, so we got 14th place, coming in a few seconds over 2:49.

Not bad considering our state of fitness. In fact I’m pretty happy

Rode another tandem league event with Uwe yesterday. There were only 3 male tandems, and only 1 other with us after the first climb of Tiekiedraai. We worked pretty well together until the tree-lined road back to Melkbos when Francois & partner punctured. We had about 300m on the chasing A-group, and we were determined to take time out of them now.

So we put our heads down and went into serious TT mode. Obviously we got our 1st place for the tandem race, but we’re hoping that we scored 1st overall as well. The results haven’t come out yet, but it should be close.

Both Uwe and I are starting to feel stronger on the bike. Uwe managed 2nd place in his Vet’s race on Saturday, after getting away in a small break near the end of the race. I snuck into a top 10 place in the sprint of my Sub-Vets race, and had a serious go at staying with the front 4 on the main climb of the day (without any luck unfortunately - I can only do 98% MHR for so long, unfortunately not long enough!)

My lack of riding caught up with me today. I’ve hardly ridden the whole week and even riding with Tony yesterday I was feeling really groggy.

So today at the foot of Hels, Tiaan Kannemeyer puts in a huge attack and the bunch shatters. I went flying out the back. Even with my HR up at 98% I wasn’t even close. Very depressing :(, but I suppose I can’t expect to keep up in a race if I haven’t been training. (note to self: start training again)

I was planning to write a nice detailed description of the race, but have just been so hectic with moving offices.

So, in short, we were aiming for around 6 hours, and we managed 6:00:40, which we were very pleased with. That got us 8th position overall.

We started with 10 riders and managed to keep 6 together till the end. I was off the back at one stage, but managed to get back to the front 6 just before the main climb of the day. Then we lost someone else on that climb and so I was part of the final 6. Once the climb was done I was feeling pretty strong and I managed the last 40kms just fine. I was rather surprised considering how little riding I’ve been doing.

Another league race this morning. The plan was to ride from the front to stop any breaks from going away before Helshoogte. After that Robby would look after himself. So Pieter, Francois and myself buried ourselves on the front all the way to the start of Helshoogte proper. Mission accomplished - no-one got away. In fact there were only 2 attempts and they had no chance.

Unfortunately the plan didn’t work out quite the way we hoped. I was toast by the time the climb started and went flying out the back, so it really was Robby on his own. Unfortunately it ended up that he was with about 20 others, including quite a few Richard Kane and Virgin riders. It wasn’t going to be easy and in the end Dave Garrett from Virgin got the win, and the yellow jersey.

Only 2 more league events so we’re going to have to come up with a plan to wrestle the jersey off him.

2nd League event of the season. A fast flat one up the West Coast Road to Atlantis and back to Table View. Despite only managing about 5 hours of training per week for the last few weeks I wasn’t feeling too bad and didn’t have any problems with the pace. I tried to stay up front to keep out of trouble in case of any splits.

But it ended up staying together the whole way. Then about 500m from the finish a truck turned right into the sprinting bunch. How no-one went down is a mystery. Robby unfortunately didn’t get good position into the finale and finished a few places down.

Another Tandem League event today. Only 5 racing tandems at the start and we shelled Patrick Gaertner and son Nick within 25kms. Robby and Peter were clearly the strong ones, and they put in repeated attacks of which we countered all.

Something had to give somewhere, since Robby & Peter and ourselves were the ones doing the most work. Eventually the other 2 tandems couldn’t match the pace on a hill, and the two BikeMax tandems went clear. Then through a slip of concentration we let them get the jump on us, and we couldn’t close the gap.

So Robby & Peter took 1st, with myself and Uwe at 45 seconds. Hard work, but I seem to be getting used to the position on the bike, as I’m definitely less sore after this one than 2 weeks ago.

The 2nd tandem league road of the season, and we had a bit more competition this time. Here’s an (edited) race report from Robby:

The Male Tandem race this weekend saw a record number of 9 male teams at the start line. The biggest surprise of the day was the couple of Adrian Enthoven and Shan Wilson from Team Bowmans.

It was a very tentative start as all the big guns were watching each other which allowed Francois Esterhuizen and Andrew Gouws of Team Vineyard BikeMax to slip off the front. They were soon followed by Adrian and Shan from Team Bowmans, Uwe Schmidt and Nick Coyne also from Team Vineyard BikeMax and lastly Patrick Gaertner and Chad Gordon of Team Microsoft 100/ Virgin Active. This made it 4 tandems up the road with Team Vineyard BikeMax having the upper hand. This left it up to Gary Marescia and Tim Carter of Cycle Lab/ Virgin Active to chase with the rest of us getting a free ride.

Once we turned left after the klapmuts hotel onto the R44 Gary and Tim put the hammer down to get across to the 4 tandems up the road. Only Robby Rodrigues and Peter Wright from Team Vineyard BikeMax managed to hang on and get a free ride across to the break as they had 2 tandem teams up the road. This made the break now 6 tandems but Robby and Peter obviously fresh after getting a tow across immediately attacked as they got on to the back of the group. The others were caught by surprise and were slow to react but it eventually came all back together again. On the last roller on the R44 Robby and Peter put the hammer down again and this time only Adrian and Shan were able to go with. The 2 tandems formed an alliance on the road and worked together to hold off the chasers. Once the gap was big enough the cat and mouse games began with Robby and Peter applying all the pressure on the big rollers on the Paardeberg circuit but they were not strong enough to get away from Adrian and Shan. The 2 tandems up front stopped attacking each other which slowed the pace down and the chasers were starting too close the gap.

In the last 2km the 2 BikeMax Tandems bridged across which set it up for a nail biting finish with BikeMax having 3 teams present. Uwe and Nick led the sprint out with Robby and Peter on their right shoulder. As traffic blocked the way Adrian and Shan jumped past the left hand side and got into the last turn to the finish first, with Robby and Peter accelerating past them after the turn to take the win and the best time of the day at a healthy 44km/h. Adrian and Shan finshed second with Uwe and Nick in third.

“Definately the most exciting tandem race I have ever been in” said Robby Rodrigues afterwards.