2013 Coronation Double Century

Team Pure Savage 2013 Coronation Double Century

For 2013 the team saw only a few changes in the team from the prior year. The team had new distinctly savage kit made up by Craft for the 2013 DC. The team’s accommodation was also a great improvement from the prior year, this year the team stayed in the Chalets at Bontebok Park in Swellendam. 

Savage rolled out of Swellendam at 6:40 ready for awesome day of racing. On the first bump out of Swellendam, Delano’s bottle cage snapped and he lost one of his bottles before even getting to the N2! This mishap may have cost Delano later in the race. On the flat towards Tradouw the team constantly had to remind each other not to over cook it too early on in the race. 

Going up Tradouw pass the pace was pretty intense and we distanced Travis. We were making progress and had set a pace with the team in front of us. On the way to Op Tradouw we started to pass a lot of the other teams. The remaining 9 were feeling strong. 

Our tactics were to send two strong riders up op Tradouw and fetch bottles for the team. So off Conrad and Nardus went to fetch the team bottles as we made our way up at a constant pace. However once we had reached the top we were unable to tell if the two had gone past already or not. A decision was made to push on and see if we could catch them. We would never catch them as they turned out to be behind us. 

This was a double blow for Savage, our two strongest riders had to do a 60km individual time trial in the middle of a 200km race and the team did not pick up any water at the top of Op Tradouw. In true Savage fashion as the team hammered towards the half way point our fearless leader demanded water from the teams sitting on our wheels. When teams to part with their precious resource the order was given to drop the hammer and drop the wheel suckers and bridge the gap to the team in front. 

Once we arrived in Ashton at the half way stop the support crew were very shocked to only 6 members of Team Pure Savage roll in. The next 27minutes past very quickly as the rest of the team rolled in. Tensions were pretty high as our stuff up was discussed. Once we had awarded the appropriate fines for the fine evening we got our heads back in the game for the second half of the ride. 

Each person has there own thing they do at the half way point. Szymon breaks out some KFC and then lathers himself with sun screen. Delano had found a crack on his bottom bracket and his handle bars needed adjusting after hitting a pot hole earlier in the day. Simon ate his apple for the day and then went about picking up and litter the other teams had dropped. Brendon was taking photos of The team for the “fans” on social media. Joe got the most attention from our support crew as they tried to massage life back into his legs. Nardus came in and understandably shouted at us for leaving him at the top of Op Tradouw, the only problem was that he did this in Afrikaans, so only Chris and Travis could understand all the words he used to describe us. Travis followed his tried and tested technique of eating as many roctanes humanly possible without being sick. Bernard spent the break checking his timelines and looking down the road for the triathlon team. 

As the clock wound down for us to get going again extra weight, saddle bags and medical aid cards were ditched and put into the support vehicle. With 11 riders together again the team left the half way stop.

With the team back together and working well together we were able to keep up with some of the faster teams that had caught up to us. Even with our “slight” miscommunication we were still on track to rock up a sub 6 time, so the boys pushed on. 

As we made our way back to Swellendam the pace was at times too high as we worked our way past teams. When we reached 165km we were down to 7 riders. The last three hills were taking their toll on our legs by then. Simon sat on the front of the group and powered away in his big ring up into the wind while Conrad kept everyone motivated behind him. 

With 15km to go we had worked out we were cutting it very fine for time, there was another team with us also going for sub 6 and we worked together hammering the approach road to the final kick to the finish. Once we had reached the final kicked the boys dug real deep and climbed what felt like a mountain to the finish. At the line one of the other teams tried to sprint for the line and came up short and ended up going down across the timing mats. Team Pure Savage powered across the line stopping the clock at 6:00:41. The rest of the team all came over the line within the next 15 minutes. The team ended up coming 24th overall out of the 222 teams. 

The team had taken 24 minutes off its previous time and were very happy with the result. The team stayed at the Bontebok Park just outside Swellendam so after the race we headed off for some R&R (Rant and Rave) at the chalets. The boys learned a lot and have already got plans for next years Double century.