After being postponed due to lockdown regulations in May, the much-anticipated annual Sabie Xperience took place at Floreat Riverside Lodge this past weekend seeing more than 178 riders competing.

The three-day event started with stage one on Friday and concluded on Sunday. Fifty riders took on the Solo Challenge over the three days, conquering distances of 65, 78 and 37 kilometres totalling 182 kilometres – the longest race of the competition. Despite not winning a stage, the defending champion, Alan Gordon, took the spoils in a total time of 07:20,29 followed by teammate CP van Wyk.
In the first stage, Andreas Kuhn narrowly beat him with two seconds, and in stage three by more than three minutes, but it was Kuhn’s time in stage two of 03:32,23 that brought his total time to 7:25,49 to put him in fourth place.

In stage two it was Keagan Bontekoning who took the spoils 23 seconds ahead of Gordon.

The overall ladies’ winner was Sarah Hill whose Team Galileo Risk partner, Teresa Ralph, came in second. Samantha Sanders of Team Dorma Karba finished in third.

The Solo Lite Challenge saw Gerhard Booysen finish first among 50 riders who took part over the three days. Katrin Ladwig was the overall first female.

In the Team Lite challenge consisting of 48 teams, it was the duo of Richard Beswick and Grant Watson of Fourways Biogen Boets who won. Melicia and Yolandi Labusccagne of Liqui Molly were the female winners in this category.

> Nadine Linington/NvN Photography.