Hi All

I am selling my GT Series one road bike.

The frame is brand new, I received it last week from Omnico. It is size medium.

Components:

Durac Ace Crank Set
Dura Ace Brakes
Dura Ace Front Deraileur

Ultegra Rear Deraileur

105 Shifters/STI’s

Fizik Saddle

FSA Stem
Elite Oversize Handle bar
Ritchey Pro Carbon Seat Post

I have also fitted a brand new BB. The bike has just come from a service where all the cables were replaced, new brake shoes were put in and new tyres will be put on.

I would like to sell the bike with the Rolf Vector Wheels in the second picture for R8250 negotiable but am willing to negotiate to sell the bike with both sets of wheels too.

Please drop me a mail on chriswolhuter[at]live.co.za if you are interested.

Having raced the previous day at the Willow Creek Mountain Bike race the legs were a bit tired, combined with a tough week of training. We decided to ride to the start of the one and a half hour criterium race which was some 30km away. This was a good warm up and I felt I was ready to go again.

The format of the race was to be a criterium race with a handicap where the cat 2 riders would start 5 minutes ahead of us.

A small group set off with the Smith and Associate/O-Bike Maties guys doing most of the work in the first half an hour. I didn’t feel the pace was hard enough though and I didn’t think we would catch the Cat 2 guys if we carried on like that so I decided to attack and see what would come of it. I managed to stay away on my own for a lap but no one was chasing to bridge the gap so I sat up and went back to the bunch.

Image Credit: Marie Cronje

Half a lap later Jan Hendrik Verdoes (Maties) and Raymond Cox (Intellibus) attacked and knowing they were both quite strong I went across to join them. We built up a bit of a lead and slowly chipped away at the gap the cat 2 riders had.

With 3 laps to go, I decided to test the legs and attacked on the climb on the lap dis lodging Jan Hendrik with Raymond coming across to work with me again. We worked together until unexpectedly Christiaan kriek came across to us with two laps to go and attacked straight away. We closed the gap again and worked together.

Image Credit: Marie Cronje

On the last lap I attacked again on the climb and got a gap but Christiaan’s counter was too strong and I couldn’t hold on.

Raymond again caught me and we set to catch Christiaan. We managed to get the gap down to 10-15seconds until we started thinking about the sprint in the last km. I attacked a bit early and Cox came around me on the line and took 2nd place by half a wheel.

Christiaan finished 20seconds behind three cat 2 guys so actually finished 4th, Cox 5th and myself 6th. I was happy with the race and happy how I rode, maybe not the smartest race but aggressive nonetheless which is what I wanted for the days workout.

Winter has arrived in the cape and we felt it on Saturday morning with a chilly start to the Willow Creek/Computer Mania mountain bike classic which was held just outside Worcester. When it’s warmer to stand at the start line rather than warm up, then it’s pretty cold in my books.

A fairly strong field lined up including Christiaan Kriek, Craig Boyes, Stefan Ihlenfeldt and Lieuwa Boonstra all wanting to win a lap top which was up for grabs for the top 3 places.

We set off at a steady pace before a couple of acceleration s whittled the group down to 5 of us including myself and the four mentioned above.

Unfortunately for me my time at the front soon came to an end. Riding up a slight uphill, jeep track into the rising sun we were a bit blinded and when switching across to the other side of the jeep track I failed to notice a ditch which opened up in front of me. This swallowed my front wheel and I came down fairly hard hurting my wrist and knee a bit. I calmly collected my bottles and got going again now in 5th.

I managed to ride back to Stefan who was in 4th eventually until he dropped me on one of the sharp climbs. The terrain was mostly jeep tack surrounded by thick karoo fynbos and rocky roads. Bar a missed turn due to a confusing sign board things went a bit better for me from here in.

I passed Stefan some kilometres later as he had a puncture and gave him my tube and then carried on to finish in a slightly disappointing 4th place. Christiaan took a convincing win with Craig in 2nd and Lieuwa rounding up the podium in 3rd.

I received my 2011 race and social kit a few weeks ago. It has a few small changes from last year which I really like. I’ve done a couple of races in it already which you may have noticed from the pictures on my blog over the last few weeks. Thanks very much to Sean for organising it all.

Race shirt – front

Race shirt – back

 Shorts

Social Shirt

(sorry about the creases mom 🙂 )

Cap

The friendly city of Port Elizabeth, was the host of the second round of the national XCO cup series.
An awesome course had been set up in Baakens Valley within the city itself. It consisted of; good flowing single track, a few technical rock garden sections, three punchy steep climbs and a couple of bridges. I really enjoyed the course after practising and was looking forward to racing on it the next day.

After keeping an eye on the weather charts in the days leading up to the race, overcast and drizzly conditions greeted us on the start line. The favourites for the day were no doubt the Garmin pairing of Phillip Buys and Marc Bassingthwaite.

A fairly fast start set us off and I was happy to follow, settling into my own rhythm about half way through the lap. I rode on my own through the most of the race from there on as the field split up. This makes it particularly challenging to keep on pushing yourself as you don’t know how far ahead the next guy is in front or how far behind the one chasing you is.

Photo Credit: Marc Sing Key

Nonetheless I felt quite good, flowing through the technical stuff and finishing in 6th position in the elite men category which I was particularly pleased with.

Hopefully that will translate into a couple of UCI points and bump me up a few places in the rankings.
Phillip took the win in the elites followed by Marc and then Matthys Beukes with James Reid having a very solid ride to win the U23 category.

A big thank you to the Bowrens for hosting me for the weekend, your hospitality is great and I always enjoy staying with you guys in PE.

Just a quick one on the Momentum Health Short Course Series XCO race I did in Hilcrest just over two weeks ago.

As the name suggests it was a pretty short course being only 2.6km with a very urban feel to it in and around Kearsney School with not much climbing at all with about 40m of vertical ascent a lap.

The course was kind of fun but I didnt feel like it suited me two well with lots of short burts but nowhere to hold your power up on the course for a while.

I finished in 5th position, a bit disappointing but well done to James Reid on a good win and Patrick Belton taking 2nd.

Cedara Agricultural College played host to the 2011 Subaru Mountain Bike Classic. The race would take place in the Hilton forests which border on Cedara College and is the home to countless kilometres of fast flowing single track.

A good sized field took off from the sports field under misty skies.

On the first significant climb Rourke Croeser(Orange Monkey/Cannondale) pushed the pace and a group of 6 riders went clear including myself, Tyronne White, Patrick Belton, Brendon Davids(Jeep) and Evan van der Spuy(Jeep). We stayed together until a short sharp rise where Rourke got away on his own, followed by Tyronne and Brendon and then myself, Evan and Patrick. Travis Walker soon joined the 3 of us and we worked well together in pursuit of Tyronne and Brendon.

Unfortunately a few kilometres later I was losing quite a bit of air from my rear wheel and with carbon rims I was not willing to take a chance on it so had to stop and bomb it however this meant that I lost the group I was with and got caught behind a number of riders who had passed whilst I had stopped just before a section of single track; this made passing difficult.

Going hard up the main climb trying to make back lost time.

Image Compliments: Brian Smith

I pushed hard to catch back up but could only make it back up to 7^th overall and 4^th elite before the kilometres ran out and the finish line approached. I was a bit disappointed as I felt I could have done better, nonetheless it was a good race and the legs felt better. Course designer Chris Brand did an awesome job and the course was one of the best I have ridden this year so far.