Ballito boys start Crit series with a bang

Three of Ballito’s best cyclists pushed their bodies to the limit in the the first of four races of the Raceday Criterium Series, held at Curro Mount Richmore on Sunday.

The cyclists had to race around a three kilometre circuit for 45 minutes, which road cyclist, Deno van Heerden, said required a lot of skill.

“Racing against time around such a technical circuit, with a lot of tight corners, makes it challenging for the riders and entertaining for the spectators,” said Van Heerden, who managed to break away from the batch of about 45 cyclists early on.

“It felt really good that the break away worked. Three of us (Tyrone White and Joshua Nelson included) managed to get away at about the fifth lap, maintaining a 25 second time gap between us and the chasing bunch. We were able to keep this gap pretty consistent until the end of the race, which I won in the sprint finish.”

While Tyrone White and Joshua Nelson are predominantly mountain bike riders, they could not resist trying out this series in their hometown.

“Racing on the road on those skinny wheels is something very different to mountain biking, especially when it comes to the fast corners. It was really fun, the course was awesome, the racing was tough and the guys were strong,” said White.

He said as soon as they got their break, they knew they had to work hard to keep the front.

“Deno was very strong, which was great for keeping the gap. I am used to sitting on the saddle for hours at a time over a couple of days. This was very fast paced and it was really nice to get the heart rate up and to push so hard, although I was happy when the bell went for the final lap!”

Joshua Nelson, who is coached by White, was very excited to be able to break away with the the two, top guys, although he dropped back after a couple of laps.

“It was a very close race, with extremely high speeds and a lot of accelerating out of corners, which was good for Ty and me, as we are used to that kind of riding from single track mountain biking.”

Nelson came third and managed to get a fifth place overall.

The next race will be on July 17.

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