Knox and Zahnd return to the winners circle

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Max Knox and Thomas Zahnd resumed business as usual on stage four of the 2010 DCM Cape Pioneer Trek winning the 110 kilometre stage from De Rust to Prince Albert on Thursday in South Africa.

They finished ahead of Christoph Sauser and Silvio Bundi, who appear to be hitting their straps after winning the previous day’s stage. They joined Knox and Zahnd for much of the day and finished within half a minute of the stage winners and overall leaders. However, it could have been even closer had Bundi not crashed with two kilometres to go.

“I am not so sure whether we would have been able to outsprint the DCM Team,” admitted Bundi after the stage. “Suzi already killed me with the pace he was setting.”

More telling was the gap that was opened up to Kevin Evans and Adrien Niyonshuti. They finished in third, two minutes back on the Sauser/Bundi combination. Niyonshunti suffered the misfortune of a broken chain, but the strength of the two pairs in front meant he and Evans faced a tough chase to limit their losses.

With an 18 minute lead on the overall, Knox and Zahnd are edging closer to winning the 2010 race. But Knox was at pains to point out how quickly the situation could change.

“We had an easy week without any mechanical problems while everyone else had bad luck. When somebody has mechanical problems and lose time it is not the best way to win, but this is mountain-biking where anything can happen at any time,” he said. “When an opportunity arises you must make the most of it, because you never know when it is your turn to crash or fix a mechanical problem.

“I can just hope that our luck holds until Saturday.”