The conversion of Neil MacDonald and Waylon Woolcock (RE:CM) from the road to mountain biking is undoubtedly one of the success stories of South African cycling.
Hardly a weekend goes by without at least one of them finishing in the top ten somewhere in the veld. In fact their mountain biking CVs provide impressive reading.
Definite highlights are their victory in the Joburg2C and their second-place finish in the Sani2C, when they both managed to finish on the podium in each of the three stages.
Woolcock won the Karoo2Coast and MacDonald won a race in the Nissan series and he is in a position to finish in the top-three overall.
They also managed to finish on the podium in quite a few of the shorter mountain-bike races.
The DCM Cape Pioneer Trek, which starts on Monday (17 October) in Oudtshoorn, will be the next big challenge for the RE:CM team.
Despite the form the pair have shown this year, MacDonald admits that they are tempering their expectations for the upcoming tour.
“We have no idea of what to expect. The little information that I managed to get from other riders scares me. It sounds as if it will be six days of hard riding through loose sand and rocks, with some tough technical climbs and descents as well. In short, to me it feels like a mini version of the Cape Epic.
“But we are looking forward to it. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
According to MacDonald, it will be a realistic goal for them to try to win a stage or two.
Woolcock said that mountain biking has given them a new lease of life as professional cyclists.
“In the short period of time that we have been racing seriously as mountain bikers, we have achieved better results than we did during all the years that we had raced on the road.
“The problem with the local racing scene is that the races are too short and there is seldom a defining moment when a race is won or lost.
“Races finish in bunch sprints most of the time, which means that riders such as Neil and I usually end up doing the hard work to make sure that our sprinters are in a favourable position to win.
“This basically means that, when we were still racing on tar, we had forgotten how to win.
“Mountain biking, when we race for three hours or longer, suits us much better. I have to admit that I still battle somewhat when we have to race more than 90 kilometres. I still need to become much stronger and there will always be room for improvement as far as my technical skills are concerned.”