King Joshua conquers Berg and Bush

Celebrating a decade of dirt, this year’s two-day Berg and Bush mountain bike race flung its shrewdest punches at Ballito’s Joshua Nelson and partner Reinhard Zellhuber from Kokstad, but the dynamo-duo showed the race who is boss, crushing their nearest rivals by about five minutes.

“It was a terrible, terrible race that ended well,” said an elated Nelson after two days of racing through some of the most scenic and exposed routes the country has to offer.

Nelson said the drama started before he even got out of Ballito when he realised shortly before departure for Winterton that his bike needed new brake pads.

Brake pads replaced, and ready to leave Emseni Camp for stage one early on October 17, he discovered that his brakes were binding. With no time to tend to the problem, he had to ride with the added challenge of brake pads rubbing against brake dics, slowing him down.

“It is like riding with your brakes on all the time.”

With day one taking riders through the Spioenkop nature reserve, down Bone Rattler descent, up the arduous Spioenkop climb with its notorious 14 speed bumps all the way up to the Anglo-Boer war monument, followed by an adrenaline pumping 13 kilometre single track descent, this was no route for technical issues.

As if the stage was not tough enough, Nelson also picked up two flats and a cracked saddle before finishing the 60 kilometre day back at Emseni Camp in a sprint finish which saw Nelson and Zellhuber finish a close second.

“It was extremely difficult to compete against strong riders with all those technical difficulties slowing us down. It was a nightmare stage.”

With the Berg behind them, day two was a fast and flat 47 kilometre single track adventure through the bushveld, along the mighty Tugela River and included a suspended bridge crossing over the Tugela, descents down Puff Adder Pass and Aloe Avenue and a floating bridge crossing to take riders back to Emseni camp.

“Our tactic was to attack from the start and we immediately opened a 300 metre gap. We basically time trialed the stage, averaging 36 kilometres per hour in the first 20 kilometres.”

Although they were racing well, the Berg and Bush was not done testing Nelson and with eight kilometres to go, his right handle bar hit a tree and he dislocated his pinky.

“I had so much adrenaline running through me that I did not realise how bad the finger was and only felt the pain an hour after finishing the race.”

Nelson’s next big race is in Mauritius at the end of November where he will be navigating very rocky volcanic rock terrain against some of the best riders in the world. This includes world number two, former world champion and widely regarded as the greatest of all time cross-country mountain biker, Julien Absalon from France.

“There will be a lot of French riders and we will be going for the young leader’s jersey (similar to the white, best young rider jersey in the Tour de France).

Nelson thanked his family, friends and sponsors for their support during, before and after the Berg and Bush.