Rossouw set to defend MTB title
2005-03-17
MOUNTAIN bikers in this year’s Cape Epic race should know they’re up for a fight, because Jacques Rossouw is hungry to make the title his.
Paarlite Rossouw was crowned the SA Cross Country Champion last year and also took the honours in the Mazda Drifter Series.
The Cape Epic is a mountain bike race which starts in Knysna and finishes at Spier in Stellenbosch stretching over eight days with two-man teams taking part.
Rossouw and his partner finished third in last year’s race. This year however he has teamed up with Mannie Heymans who has won the race twice before and also won the gruelling TransAlp Challenge (also over eight days) in Switzerland last year.
“Six of the overseas teams who have entered this year feature a world MTB bike champion in some category of the sport.
“I think there are about 20 teams in the more than 250 who have entered, who could win the Epic this year,” he adds.
Rossouw is charged to defend both his titles this year and with the first SA MTB event coming up at the end of March, he is training like mad.
Part of this training is done on a road bike. Rossouw competed in the Giro del Capo race last week and also did his bit in the Cape Argus Tour.
He has adapted his road racing to ensure he gets his money’s worth of training.
“I’m not used to riding in a bunch. In the Giro and Argus I fell back and rode on my own to make it as hard on myself as possible. It sort of worked for me. However, I finished the Argus five minutes behind the leading bunch, carrying a little bunch of my own,” Rossouw says jokingly.
On the mountain biking side, Rossouw is currently training to maintain a consistent speed during races, be it along the climbing sections, downhills or the straights.
“That’s how the riders race overseas. Riders here in SA usually climb hard and rest during the downhills.
“I might have some trouble with riders over here who’ll stay in my slip stream and ride along to the finish, but the overseas routes are much tougher which encourages this style of riding and ultimately that is where I want to make my mark,” says Rossouw.
Rossouw finished second in the Argus MTB Challenge that was held last Sunday.
“It was quite a tough route. I lost all my water bottles along the first single track section and river crossing.
“Things got even worse when I fell and my jockey gear broke. Consequently I could only make use of two gears, the fastest and the slowest.”
Two more falls, due to a lack of warning boards along the route, also left a fairly stiff Rossouw to cross the finish line after the winner of the 55km race, Mannie Heymans.
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