{"id":3623,"date":"2016-11-21T10:58:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T08:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/?p=3623"},"modified":"2016-11-21T10:58:50","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T08:58:50","slug":"kachelhoffer-seyffert-triumph-in-sanlam-mtb-invitational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/more-sport\/kachelhoffer-seyffert-triumph-in-sanlam-mtb-invitational\/","title":{"rendered":"Kachelhoffer, Seyffert triumph in Sanlam MTB Invitational"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hanco Kachelhoffer and Pieter Seyffert ended a three-year partnership on a high note when they won the Sanlam MTB Invitational two-stage mountain bike race at Rhebokskloof near Paarl today.<\/p>\n

The ASG duo won the 60km opening stage on Saturday to take a comfortable lead of just under six minutes into the second day.<\/p>\n

The buffer allowed them to control the racing and they eventually finished the punchy 40km final stage in second, just five seconds behind ASG’s Bennie Viljoen and Jaco Davel.<\/p>\n

Kachelhoffer and Seyffert took the title in an overall time of 4:37:33, followed by Viljoen and Davel in 4:43:16 and Flandria’s Linus and Leonardo van Onselen in 4:50:18.<\/p>\n

Kachelhoffer, who is moving into the retail side of the sport, said it was a special moment to end their partnership on a winning note.<\/p>\n

“This was our last race together as regular team-mates so it was great to win it overall,” said the 31-year-old, who lived in Johannesburg and George before moving to Paarl last month.<\/p>\n

\"ASG's<\/a>
ASG’s Hanco Kachelhoffer (left) and Pieter Seyffert took overall honours in the Sanlam MTB Invitational two-stage race near Paarl this weekend. Photo: Warren Elsom\/Capcha<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“It’s nice to start a new chapter with a good result and to finish the year with a win.”<\/p>\n

Kachelhoffer said although their partnership had officially ended, he and the 30-year-old Seyffert would still be teaming up in some of the country’s top endurance races next year.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on today’s stage, he said their lead of 5:48 allowed a more relaxed approach early on with the idea of putting them in a good position for the more testing single-track that followed.<\/p>\n

“Today was quite short and we took control of the race early on by setting the tempo on the first climb,” said Kachelhoffer.<\/p>\n

“We have learnt our lessons over the years. It is the best strategy to relax a bit when you have a lead, because you want to be as fresh as possible for the technical sections and downhills.<\/p>\n

“In mountain biking you never know what can happen. You can easily make a mistake going around a corner and fall out of contention.”<\/p>\n

He said Davel and Viljoen stayed with them and ultimately took the lead going into the decisive single-track section.<\/p>\n

“It takes you from about 10km out all the way to the finish and you can’t really pass, so we just stayed on their wheel and finished a few seconds behind.”<\/p>\n

Kachelhoffer said going into the race, which is presented by ASG Events, their aim was to finish on the podium and to “possibly win”.<\/p>\n

“Pieter is a fulltime professional so he was here for only one reason and that was to win. I had to try to hold on and just managed to do that.”<\/p>\n

He said he had found the route of the Sanlam MTB Invitational, which evolved from a one-day event, quite challenging.<\/p>\n

“Today’s stage was new and there was a long climb at the start which caused Pieter to say \u2018what’s going on’,” he laughed.<\/p>\n

“And they have really done a good job with the new single-track right on the edge of that cliff. I thought at the time that if I had a fear of heights this might be a little intimidating, but we never complain about too much single-track so overall it was a great challenge.”<\/p>\n

The women’s race was won by Girls On Bikes’s Karla Groenewald and Sylma Jordaan in 6:44:38, with the mixed category going to Enduro Hub’s Tiaan Pretorius and Jenny Close in 5:26:05.<\/p>\n

The general classification results were:<\/p>\n

Men<\/p>\n

1. Hanco Kachelhoffer and Pieter Seyffert (ASG) 4:37:33
\n2. Bennie Viljoen and Jaco Davel (ASG) 4:43:16
\n3. Linus and Leonardo van Onselen (Father and Son Flandria) 4:50:18<\/p>\n

Women<\/p>\n

1. Karla Groenewald and Sylma Jordaan (Girls On Bikes) 6:44:38
\n2. Tania Rossouw and Estelle van Schalkwyk Morland (Tulbagh Street) 7:01:57<\/p>\n

Mixed<\/p>\n

1. Jenny Close and Tiaan Pretorius (Enduro Hub) 5:26:05
\n2. Anja van Zyl and Erik Knoetze (Almost There) 5:44:10
\n3. Ilse Viljoen and Constant Viljoen (Viljoens) 6:04:25<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hanco Kachelhoffer and Pieter Seyffert ended a three-year partnership on a high note when they won the Sanlam MTB Invitational two-stage mountain bike race at Rhebokskloof near Paarl today. The ASG duo won the 60km opening stage on Saturday to take a comfortable lead of just under six minutes into the second day. The buffer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1743,1788,2119,2137,1944,2115,1757,1815,30,1741,2120,1742,2138],"class_list":["post-3623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-asg-events","tag-cycling-news","tag-hanco-kachelhoffer","tag-karla-groenewald","tag-mountain-bike","tag-mountain-bike-news","tag-mountain-biking","tag-mtb-news","tag-news","tag-paarl-news","tag-pieter-seyffert","tag-sanlam-mtb-invitational","tag-sylma-jordaan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}