Mountain bike riders pedal throughout the night in Boys High’s 24-hour challenge
Pretoria Boys High School's 24-hour mountain bike challenge gave participants the opportunity to compete through a unique concept in various categories.
The school grounds of Pretoria Boys High School (PBHS) was a hive of activities during the past weekend with the school’s 24-hour mountain bike challenge that captivated the imagination of many lovers of this popular sport.
Mountain bike riders competed in five different categories during the event. Champions were crowned in categories for men’s teams, women’s teams, mixed teams, solo riders and school’s teams.
The winners in the men’s category were Hansie Joubert, Jaco Ferreira, Markus Haasbroek, Stefan Booyens, Wayne Forrester and Wyatt du Plessis, a six-rider team representing law firm Savage Jooste & Adams. They completed a massive 95 laps to earn the title of 2018 PBHS 24 Hour MTB Relay Challenge champions.
This means that the winning team has completed a distance of 570km – which is similar to the distance between Johannesburg and Durban – within 24 hours on the 6km route.
In the women’s team category there was no stopping the seven women of the ‘MFV PainCave Ladies’-team. Aleida Stoltz, Bonny Swanepoel, Kathy Rees, Maretha Bezuidenhout, Nadine Visagie, Nontobeko Beauty Ngobese and Odette Guy circumnavigated the 6km long course 65 times.
The first placed mixed team also completed 65 laps, handing Jacek Zawada, John Bevington, Melissa Koetje, Ryan Louw and brothers, Richard and Robert Wright the title.
The real heroes of the PBHS 24 Hour MTB Relay Challenge were the riders brave enough to take on the full 24-hour event as solo competitors. Most noteworthy of those were the men’s and women’s champions Andre Gibhard and Jolene Matthysen, who completed 57 and 42 laps respectively.
Declan Hohls is also due a special mention, as he won the solo category in the schools’ competition, racing through 17 laps.
Rounding out the 24-hour event’s victory roll was the winning schools’ side, Hotwheels. Having completed 32 laps, Kaelin Chetty, Nathan Moolman, Nicholas Botha and Ross Barnard will boast the bragging rights among the scholars until the 2019 race.
The event also included a six-hour race for those who could not participate in the all-night race. The event was fiercely contested and just a single lap separated the first two teams in the men’s race, while a furious battle also prevailed in all other categories.
One of the surprises of the event was the victory of two girls, Kayla Hodgman and Lourene Dreyer, in the school’s category of the six-hour race. They beat several boy’s teams to walk away with the honours.
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