There was a significant increase the number in competitors at the 25th edition of The Herald Volkswagen Cycle Tour held in Port Elizabeth recently.
In conjunction with the cycle tour was a mountain bike challenge, which took place on Saturday. The tour comprised 105km, 79km and 40km road races, as well as 85km, 65km and 30km mountain bike races.
There was a significant increase the number in competitors at the 25th edition of The Herald Volkswagen Cycle Tour held in Port Elizabeth recently.
In conjunction with the cycle tour was a mountain bike challenge, which took place on Saturday. The tour comprised 105km, 79km and 40km road races, as well as 85km, 65km and 30km mountain bike races.
In total 2715 entries were received for all the events, with 1949 in the road races and 766 in the mountain bike events.
The road races took place outside the Boardwalk in Port Elizabeth, while the mountain bike events took place at Addo.
A number of Grahamstown cyclists took part in the various events over the weekend. In the 105km feature race, Rhodes University student, Andrew Roberts, was among the top local finishers and one of only two to break the three hour mark with his time of 2:59:54.
The first local woman home was Candice Mullins, finishing in 3:09:44, who was third out of 20 in her age group.The overall winner of the 105km race was MTN Energade’s Juan Van Heerden who finished in a time of 2:35:35.
The women’s 105km winner was Ashley Moolman of Biogen Toyota finishing in a time of 3:03:50. There were 1 116 finishers in the 105km event. Twelve year old Taryn-Maie Willie and her father André were the second tandem to finish the 79km event.
Saturday’s mountain bike events, held at Addo National Elephant Park, were held in temperatures of around 40°C. Deon Boshoff finished the 65km in 3:19:53. Local finishers: Herald cycle tour 105km: 135. Stephen Penney 2:59:42 150.
Andrew Roberts 2:59:54 171. Colin Meyer 3:02:23 239. Dave Hanton 3:08:55 242. Johan Conradie 3:08:57 253. Candice Mullins 3:09:44
264.Hennie Bouwer 3:09:49 429. Glenn Koch 3:20:52 492. Kevin Barnard 3:25:02 566.Trevor Amos 3:33:47 Pete Britz 3:34 (unofficial time) Julie Walker 3:37 (unofficial time)
638. Nicole Craig 3:40:00 654. Mike Loewe 3:41:13 704. Keaton Johnson 3:46:11 921. Morné van Wyk 4:16:13 925. Keith Craig 4:17:00 948. Ian Sieborger 4:21:11 1045. Cynthia Koch 4:44:11 1053. Annerie Wolmarans 4:47:34 Herald cycle tour 79km: 28. Lindsay Johnson 2:44:33 44. Derrick Hagemann 2:59:59 55. Andre and Taryn-Maie Wille 3:04:40 (on tandem) Jonathan Spengler 3:08 (unofficial time)
58. Lawrence Ferreira 3:07:40 73. Len van der Merwe 3:16:15 96. Ben Ford 3:30:58 109. Neil Schoeman 3:40:50 110. Neels Heunis 3:40:51 111. Roy Grobler 3:42:51 Herald cycle tour 40km (unofficial times) Sheldon Johnson 1:40 Gwen Johnson 1:45 Alex Britx 2 hours Herald VW mountain bike 65km: 29. Deon Boshoff – 3:19:53
