While we sit back in Johannesburg, we reminisce about our win at the Tour Durban.
Following a 4 day training camp, riders were excited to put their newly found strength into play at the race. Although there was a bright and early 6:00 o'clock start, the humidity that filled the Durban air was unrivalled to the hot afternoons of Johannesburg.
Tactics going into the race were quite simple; the team would keep comfortable and quiet for the first 15Km and from there they would begin their attacks. Team Aluwani, represented by the previous title holder for the tour, Nolan Hoffman, took control straight out of the starting chute displaying a constant comfortable pace as the peloton rode towards Umhlanga.
Once the riders had reached the roundabout, the racing was on with a few small attacks from multiple riders. Eventually an opportunity arose which saw our very own Nicholas James make a solo breakaway reaching a time gap of up to a minute for roughly 45Km until he was caught by the bunch just before the main climb of the day.
The M7 climb saw major casualties including our breakaway bandit Nicholas James.
It had seemed as though our luck had taken a slight turn for the worst when our rider Keanan Roodt experienced a technical issue with a broken spoke right before the crest of the climb, however the team managers were able to swap the back wheel and Keanan was able to rejoin the bunch before the finishing tactics came into play.
The team really began to work as a unit. "We knew that Nolan was still sitting safely within the bunch and that taking him to the line would be dangerous," so a decision was made to try and tire him out. Jaco Van Dyk took an early sprint in order to get some of the bigger names within the bunch to follow his wheel leaving the eventual race winner David Maree a free line to sprint to victory!
3rd place Flavio Venceslai, 2nd place Nolan Hoffman and first place David Maree
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