Francois rides Rhodes

Over this past long weekend, Francois travelled down to the Eastern Cape to ride the Rhodes Mountain Bike Challenge. "The Rhodes MTB Challenge could arguably be considered the ARGUS of mountain bike racing. It is also perhaps the grandfather of mountain biking races, being one of the very first MTB races and now 15 years later still going strong," says an article on CycleLab's wesbsite.

The race, now known as Rhodes Extreme, has evolved over the years to become a multiday event. The new 2009 format makes Rhodes the highest MTB stage race in South Africa and it includes:


• ‘Thin Air’ - 40km, mainly single track
• ‘Night-light’ night ride - 15km, festival ride around the village
• ‘The Grandfather’ (previously the Rhodes Cycle Challenge) - 85km, extreme alpine ascent

2010 will see the introduction of a 75km single track stage...


The race format requires paired-team entries.

"The first stage of 40km I really struggled," says Francois. "I couldn’t get going; but luckily my team mate had a great day and we came second, only losing about three minutes after he pulled me up all the mountains."


The second stage, of 15km, is held at night. "I had a bad tumble, broke all my lights and damaged my bike a bit. We struggled to get in," Francois explains. "I think we lost just more than 15 minutes and finished third."

After two disappointing stages [I think their results are excellent; they wanted to win!], Francois and his teammate gave it everything on the final 85km stage. "This last stage was the hardest race I’ve ever done," says Francois. "We finished in just over 5 hours, which is extremely slow for this distance. I think we climbed more than 4000m at an altitude of 9000ft. We had to make up nearly 20 minutes on the first placed team and eight minutes on second."

Francois and his teammate overtook the leaders on the last climb, winning this final stage. "We gave it our all to have a chance to win the overall title but the time we lost on my fall the previous night was too much and we finished third overall, only one minute behind second and four minutes behind first. It was a close race. I’ll definitely go again next year."

"I think winning the last stage was one of my proudest achievements ever," Francois adds. "We buried ourselves over the last 35km, even riding through cramps, justto finish first. I had goosebumps when we crossed the line."

Well done Francois.