Ride, the beloved country
The South Coast can be proud if its cyclists.
COUSINS Darryn Purtell (23) and Hayley Smith (19) are no strangers to success on a bike, but up until recently haven’t competed as a team.
This changed at the recent Joberg2c where, as the youngest team in the race, they almost secured a podium place after nine days of gruelling cycling.
Darryn is the son of Gary and Renee, while Hayley is the daughter of Nicky and Bev. (Renee and Nicky are sister and brother).
The race, mostly off-road, took riders from Heidelberg to Scottburgh, and the cousins took up the challenge, without having really had much experience in these kinds of events.
However, their performance, where they started slowly and finished strongly (it’s usually the opposite in this event) has attracted attention and they could well be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
The first few days took the riders through flat, open farmland in the Free State, but once they dropped down into KZN, the real racing started and the talented cousins were able to show off their technical skills.
The pair took three podium places over the nine days and finished just shy of the podium, in fourth place overall.
Hayley will now be applying her mind to the Sani2C which starts today (Thursday).
In other cycling news, Candice Neethling won the women’s race at the 2014 Sappi Karkloof Classic last weekend.
It was a fairly one-sided thing, with the Time Freight VELOlife rider’s single track skills proving to be the difference as she opened up a fairly substantial gap over defending champion USN/Hi-TEC’s Jeannie Dreyer.
“I am really stoked, it was one of the best routes I have done! It was quite a lot harder than I thought with all the climbing and I was suffering on the last one called ‘The Pressure Cooker’ but the single track in between that made it so enjoyable,” Candice said happily.
Candice put her victory down to a superior ability on the single track as she used her skills from cross-country riding to gain a lead over Jeannie who was always a threat on the climbs.
“The single track skill is what set us apart I think, I was actually behind her on the first climb and I could see her going up ‘Lebanon’ and I was just hoping that there would be more single track! It helps to have that skill, it’s free speed and I used it.”
