Today was something of a bitter-sweet day for Jeff and me. Again I had those feather legs from yesterday, and Jeff was feeling better too; today was not as hot as yesterday, and he was better acclimatised. Our tactics seemed to work well again, and we found ourselves towards the end of the stage with […]
OSTC 2012 St 2 – reshuffle behind the leaders
There was a bit of a change amongst the top five at the Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge today, but not the spot that matters – Yannick Lincoln and Ben Melt Swanepoel of the GreenField Team still hold a comfortable lead. There were some reshuffles behind them though; the Subaru-MarathonMTB.com team of Jeff Bossler and Will […]
OSTC 2012 – jour sans or jour avec?
For Subaru-MarathonMTB.com’s team at the Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge, of Jeff Bossler and Will Hayter, today was a reminder of how much challenge is added to a race by running it as a two-man team event. I had one of those rare, 1 in 100, days where really good legs arrive on race day. Every […]
OSTC 2012 – St 1 – GreenField convincing winners
Today’s first full stage of the Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge 2012 was a true proverbial game of two halves. It took in a 65km loop around the southern part of the island, through some truly beautiful scenery. The first half of the stage, though, was a bit of a phony war. All the climbing in […]
OSTC 2012 – Prologue
Day one of the 2012 Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge was a nice short sharp intro – a 6km prologue round the estate of the Domaine de Lagrave, an area of forest near the self-explanatorily named village of Bananes, in the Midlands. Further from my home Midlands of glamorous Leicester, Dudley and Rugby you could not […]
OSTC 2012 – exploring Mauritius
The Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge is now one day away from kicking off in Mauritius. With that has come the chance to do some exploring, while doing a few days of acclimatisation. And that acclimatisation is pretty necessary, having left behind rain and 5 degrees in London, to arrive to 30 degrees, (mostly) sunshine and fairly […]
ABSA Cape Epic in Privateer magazine
Related Event: ABSA Cape Epic
The current edition of premium mountain bike magazine, Privateer, includes a 20-page feature on this year’s ABSA Cape Epic, in which Subaru-MarathonMTB.com riders Mike Blewitt and Will Hayter attempted to put to rights their abortive race from 2011, with mixed results. There’s some great photography in there as well from the Sportzpics team, led by […]
Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge 2012 – not long to go
It’s now less than three weeks to go until one of the final stage races of 2012 – the Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge. When you think of MTB racing heartlands, you think of the Alps, perhaps the Rockies, the Dolomites, etc. But marathon mountain biking is becoming an increasingly global sport, and it’s now made […]
Jack of all trades…
… master of none? A very nicely calculated saying, that. And I suspect sums up quite neatly how 2012 has been for me on the racing front. My targets for the year were: win a road race, top 30 at the ABSA Cape Epic, podium at Mayhem 24hr solo, and qualify for the marathon worlds. […]
Buchli and Nuessli take the O-Tour
Local boy Lukas Buchli of the BiXS-IXS Pro Team has won the final round of the UCI marathon series, the O-Tour Bike Marathon, in Alpnach in Switzerland. Part-local, but actually British champion, Jane Nuessli from Fischer-BMC, took the women’s race. An absolutely beautiful day greeted the 900 or so riders that had made the trip […]