The third round of the Madibaz MTB XCO Series will present riders with an opportunity to try their hand at a challenging new course at the Nelson Mandela University in George on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Race director Jan Venter said the track, used in the opposite direction last year, was one that would allow participants to test their skills to the limit.<\/p>\n
“The race is going to take place in and around the surrounding plantations, so there’s going to be a lot of single-track,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said there were lots of exposed roots in the forested areas, which would make it difficult to build momentum.<\/p>\n
“It means the riders will have to work continuously,” said Venter, who explained they also needed to contend with tight corners, drop-offs and a gap jump.<\/p>\n
“It’s a track we’ve used in past years, but this time we’re running it in reverse,” he said. “It might make it a little bit tougher.”<\/p>\n
He described it as a “tricky” course that could lead to exciting racing as the top contenders looked to gain an edge over their competition.<\/p>\n
Poor weather during the second round of the series in June means riders who want to challenge for overall series honours have to compete in the final two events.<\/p>\n
“It put a spanner in the works because we could only race the nippers and sprogs,” said Venter. “The older groups will now have to take part in both of the last two races to qualify for series honours.”<\/p>\n
Fewer rounds also meant that the competition would be closer and he felt that most of the categories would go down to the wire.<\/p>\n
The series opener in April attracted more than 100 entries and, with promising weather in the offing, Venter expected another good turnout this weekend.<\/p>\n
“The first event went well, we had lots of riders. The weather looks great for this weekend so I think we’ll be on track again.”<\/p>\n
Registration starts at 7am with racing getting under way at 9am.<\/p>\n
The final round of the series will take place on October 29.<\/p>\n
Series leaders:<\/p>\n
Nippers – Roy Fraser-Mackenzie and Gita Hildebrand
\nSprogs – Neil Erasmus and Mienke Boshoff
\nJunior boys and girls – Julian Bunge and Sorina Venter
\nYouth – Tristan Nortje and Charlissa Schultz
\nJunior men and women – Adriaan Venter and Britney Wilmans
\nU23 – Brandon Williams and Jean-Mari\u00e9 Roelofse
\nElite women – Robyn de Groot
\nSeniors – Luke Cocksedge and Rose Bailey
\nSub vets – Nico Kruger and Anel Strampe
\nVets men – Gerrie Beukes
\nGrandmaster men – Roy Kruger<\/p>\n
Go to www.madibazmtb.co.za for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The third round of the Madibaz MTB XCO Series will present riders with an opportunity to try their hand at a challenging new course at the Nelson Mandela University in George on Sunday. Race director Jan Venter said the track, used in the opposite direction last year, was one that would allow participants to test […]<\/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":[2131,2008,2450,2881,1809,1944,2115,1945,1747,1815,2373,2800],"class_list":["post-9743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-george","tag-george-news","tag-jan-venter","tag-madibaz-mtb-xco-series","tag-madibaz-sport","tag-mountain-bike","tag-mountain-bike-news","tag-mountain-bike-race","tag-mtb","tag-mtb-news","tag-mtb-race","tag-nelson-mandela-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9743","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=9743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}