{"id":8262,"date":"2017-07-18T21:17:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T19:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/?p=8262"},"modified":"2017-07-18T21:17:07","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T19:17:07","slug":"varsity-mountain-bike-race-venue-fit-for-connoisseurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/more-sport\/varsity-mountain-bike-race-venue-fit-for-connoisseurs\/","title":{"rendered":"Varsity mountain bike race venue fit for connoisseurs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Participants in the second Varsity MTB Challenge can expect a connoisseur experience when Nederburg Wines host the two-day race at their estate in Paarl later this year.<\/p>\n<p>ASG Events&#8217; operations manager Darren Herbst said Nederburg&#8217;s continued involvement added much value to what they were promoting as the ultimate alumni challenge from September 30.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not only are they one of the premier wine farms in the world, they also have a strong link to cycling through a number of projects, so this is a good fit for them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The winery is really something special and the facilities are amazing,&#8221; he said, adding that the venue was close to the start of the routes that led into the Drakenstein mountains and towards Wellington.<\/p>\n<p>Herbst said that apart from the existing infrastructure they would set up a &#8220;premium tented race village&#8221; to cater for the alumni, student and public teams of two riders each.<\/p>\n<p>The Varsity MTB Challenge, sponsored by First National Bank, incorporated the Varsity Sports race in which teams from six universities competed in official varsity colours, he explained.<\/p>\n<p>Nederburg global brand development manager Robyn Bradshaw said they appreciated the growing popularity of mountain biking and saw this interaction as another opportunity to engage with the cycling community.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Like winemaking, cycling demands high levels of talent, connoisseurship, resilience and discipline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At Nederburg, we can identify with that, having built a reputation of excellence through impeccable quality credentials and a team that continually explore ways to better their best efforts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She said their link with the varsity race tied in with their commitment to the sport in a number of other areas and most notably their involvement with Africa&#8217;s only World Tour team.<\/p>\n<p>The latter compete in events such as the Tour de France to raise awareness and funds for the non-profit organisation Qhubeka, who contribute to socio-economic upliftment through the distribution of bicycles to needy South Africans.<\/p>\n<p>Bradshaw said Nederburg housed one of only two Qhubeka bicycle assembly facilities in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Off the bike attractions such as the Red Table restaurant and a cellar in the historic manor house were perfectly blended with pure country hospitality and a tranquil yet uplifting atmosphere, she said.<\/p>\n<p>FNB and RMB Private Bank cardholders who enter online qualify for a 10 per cent discount.<\/p>\n<p>Visit www.varsitymtbchallenge.co.za to enter or for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Participants in the second Varsity MTB Challenge can expect a connoisseur experience when Nederburg Wines host the two-day race at their estate in Paarl later this year. ASG Events&#8217; operations manager Darren Herbst said Nederburg&#8217;s continued involvement added much value to what they were promoting as the ultimate alumni challenge from September 30. &#8220;Not only [&hellip;]<\/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":[1743,1745,2778,2776,1944,2115,1945,1757,1747,1815,2373,2770,2749,2777,2746,2747],"class_list":["post-8262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-asg-events","tag-cycling","tag-cycling-community","tag-first-national-bank","tag-mountain-bike","tag-mountain-bike-news","tag-mountain-bike-race","tag-mountain-biking","tag-mtb","tag-mtb-news","tag-mtb-race","tag-nederburg-wine-far","tag-nederburg-wines","tag-robyn-bradshaw","tag-varsity-mtb-challenge","tag-varsity-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262","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=8262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}