Congratulations to our U/23 and Junior team on their outstanding performances at this year's TRAC cycle tour!

Junior TRAC tour:

Last week saw for some good racing from the a[s]g team. Not getting any high placings on the General classification, but surely some good stage results.

Day one turned out to be a race for riders who could fight the cold rainy and hilly elements. The junior field was spread out all over the route in no time. It was our rider Wesley Eslic that showed that he had it in him to end in 3rd position and thus being 3rd on General Classification.

Day two the weather cleared up, but the route being even more hilly did not scare Rohan du Plooy who showed his class by riding away halfway through the stage and managing to win with a 2’45’’ margin over the rest of the field.

Day three was divided in 2 stages, the time trail in the morning and the criterium in the evening.  At this stage the pressure was on for Wesley as there was only a 9sec difference between him and the 1st rider Nicolaas Thiart. At the end of the day it was Thiart that was just a bit stronger and put another 8 sec into Wesley.

The criterium in the evening was probably one of the hardest circuits that I have seen in a long time and I think with Wesley giving his all in the stages to try and get the yellow jersey he just didn’t have the legs to stay with the front riders and lost some time.

Final day saw the guys doing a 102km and going over the climb of Boulders. There it was Ryan Felgate that showed his class to climb with the front best riders and managed to get a 2nd place in the last stage after having a stomach bug the whole week.

All and all the riders rode exceptionally well and never gave up as they fought to the bitter end.

U/23 TRAC Tour:

The U/23 Team being mostly 1st years in this category showed some real fighting spirit and proved that in a year or two they will be the main contenders in the U/23 category.

For me it was more a case of them having to listen to my instructions and learn from that. They were always putting the pressure on in the tour and giving the older riders a really hard time.

To ride against riders by the likes of Louise Meintjies and Paul van Zweel that has been riding abroad many years was never going to be easy, but they gave it their very best.

I sent riders in brakes every day to apply some pressure and also to get the depth of getting in the long brakes. They followed my instructions every day and that in itself shows that the team is really coming together and riding for each other.

Most of the stages was won by Meintjies, but the a[s]g U/23 were not far off.  James Fourie finished 3’40” sec behind in 7th position, Kevin Patten finished 4’37” behind in 8th position and Dustin Kilpatrick in 10th position which puts 3 a[s]g riders in the top 10