![\"14834_Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1503260668_14834_Photo1sani2c2021day2.ffbfe1ce9503e2394a65a14570ebccd1.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
\n<\/p>\n\n\tAnother exciting finish in the men\u2019s race at stage 2 of the KAP sani2c, but PYGA Euro Steel\u2019s Matthys Beukes and Gert Heyns managed to extend their overall lead by nearly 4 minutes as they charged across the line in a time of 03:24:32 (GC 06:14:45).\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\n<\/p>\n
\n\tPhilip Buys (right) and Marco Joubert in view (photo Anthony Grote)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe second PYGA Euro Steel team Philip Buys and Pieter du Toit maintained their second place in 03:28:02 (GC:06:18:17). Umbuko Giant\u2019s Marco Joubert and Rudi Koen secured a solid third place in 03:28:03 (GC 06:24:50) ahead of TypeDev NanoTime\u2019s Matt Beers and Wessel Botha who finished in 03:30:43 (GC 06:21:02).\n<\/p>\n \n\tRiders left Mackenzie Club near Ixopo at 6.30am to ride down the famous \u201cUmko Drop\u201d, a descent into the Umkomaas Valley, followed by the \u201cIconic Climb\u201d, an ascent that can be the deciding factor of the race. Stage 2 is a 97km route ascending 1185m, with a total descent of 1855m, and it finishes at Jolivet Farm near Umzinto. The race finishes at Scottburgh tomorrow.\n<\/p>\n \n\tBeukes says: \u201cIt went very well for us. Our gameplan was to hit the Valley Climb really hard and we did that and managed to get a gap quite early on. We then just had to maintain and steadily build on our gap. It was a solid day for us.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tHeyns says: \u201cMatthys was very strong and did the pacing and luckily we now have a good gap ahead of tomorrow.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tBeukes says about the plan for tomorrow: \u201cWe have some time to play with now but anything can still happen so we have to be on it. In most cases the best defence is offence so we may as well send it again for Sunday.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tSlipping from third into fourth for the day, Beers says: \u201cWessel had a crash around 35kms after the first water point and hurt his hip quite badly, and his bike was a bit banged up. We had to chase back and rejoin and Wessel was struggling to pedal at full power. We just had to try and make sure Rudi and Marco didn\u2019t get too far ahead. We still have a few minutes ahead of them going into tomorrow so hoping to go for the podium spot.\u201d The pair maintain their third place in the general classification.<\/p>\n \t \n\tMatthys Beukes (left) and Gert Heyns (photo Maryann Shaw)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\tJoubert and Koen were happy with the day\u2019s performance: \u201cRudi had a bad day yesterday, so today was all about managing the effort and seeing how hard we can go, and I think we paced ourselves pretty well. Towards the end, we could have possibly tried for second, but tomorrow is a long hard day so we hope to reap the reward of saving a bit at the end.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tKoen says: \u201cI felt much better than yesterday, and I really enjoyed the trails and views we had today. Ready for tomorrow.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe Absolute Motion team of Henry Liebenberg and Brendan van Eeden claimed the fifth spot in the stage in 03:40:42 (GC 06:40:46).\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tInsect Science Pro Cycling\u2019s Arno du Toit and Keagan Bontekoning, who were fourth yesterday and had hoped to gain on the lead group today to secure a stage win, had their hopes dashed by technical issues and finished in 04:15:49 (GC 07:09:36).\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe young Tristan Nortje from Imbuko Giant was the first solo man across the line and fourth across the line for the stage, in a time of 03:24:54 (GC 06:21:41).\n<\/p>\n \n\tAnother strong day for Motorlease Perigon<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n\tRobyn de Groot (dormakaba) and Amy McDougall for team Motorlease Perigon, again dominated and finished in 04:05:39 (GC 07:29:43), over 13 minutes ahead of Galileo Risk Infiniti SPOT\u2019s Theresa Ralph and Kim le Court who finished in 04:19:52 (GC 07:51:53).<\/p>\n \t \n\tRobyn de Groot (left) and Amy McDougall (photo Anthony Grote)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tDe Groot says: \u201cWe had a successful second day, pretty much trouble free. Unexpectedly we landed up in a fantastic position with a gap at the start, and we just kept going expecting people to catch us from behind, and nobody came. We were pretty much by ourselves for most of the day.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tMc Dougall says: \u201cI\u2019ve never had a bad day 2 at sani2c, and I\u2019ve done it about 7 times now.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a monster of a day but such as awesome ride.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tRalph: \u201cWe had technical issues with Kim\u2019s seat and then my chain dropped. That didn\u2019t slow us down too much, and Kim just absolutely went up Iconic. We are happy with the day.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tLe Court: \u201cI found the Umko drop was a bit scary for me today, I couldn\u2019t see the road ahead because of the sunrise and I almost fell very hard, so I was a bit nervous and I think we lost a bit of time there as I went quite slow, but I found my legs at Iconic.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tDanielle Strydom and Janice Venter were third in a time of \u00a004:44:32 (GC 08:39:28). Says Strydom: \u201cIt was a good day for us, the first bit of the race we were lying quite well, but somewhere on the single track Theresa and Kim dropped us and we got stuck behind some of the riders. Then they had a technical and we caught up with them, but they were just stronger than us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tSTAGE 2 RESULTS<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n\tMen<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n\tPYGA Euro Steel 1 (Matthys Beukes\/Gert Heyns) 03:24:32 \n\tWomen<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n\tMotorlease Perigon (Amy McDougall\/Robyn de Groot) 04:05:39 \n\tMixed teams<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n\tTeam Garmin MTB (Ben Melt Swanepoel\/Yolandi du Toit) 04:26:09\u00a0 Another exciting finish in the men\u2019s race at stage 2 of the KAP sani2c, but PYGA Euro Steel\u2019s Matthys Beukes and Gert Heyns managed to extend their overall lead by nearly 4 minutes as they charged across the line in a time of 03:24:32 (GC 06:14:45). Philip Buys (right) and Marco Joubert in view (photo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[53],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-14431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-sani2c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14431"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=14431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"14834_Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1607180859_14834_Photo4sani2c2021day2.b3893fced6c54ad4b79f56ed410c5472.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
\n<\/p>\n![\"14834_Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/739209112_14834_Photo2sani2c2021day2.5b0d029fa17a25c1493319a92b24cb97.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
\n<\/p>\n
\n\tDe Groot and McDougall are now nearly 22 minutes ahead in the general classification and only a serious complication could alter the final result.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n![\"14834_Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1951180171_14834_Photo3sani2c2021day2.05cd4c0fadabcbd1b8cf496e7a727742.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
\n\tAmy McDougall (left) and Robyn de Groot (photo Maryann Shaw)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n
\n\tPYGA Euro Steel 2 (Pieter du Toit\/Philip Buys) 03:28:02
\n\tImbuko Giant Pro Team (Marco Joubert\/Rudi Koen) 03:28:03
\n\tTypeDev Nanotime (Matt Beers\/Wessel Botha) 03:30:43\u00a0
\n\tAbsolute Motion Men (Henry Liebenberg\/Brendan van Eeden) 03:40:42\n<\/p>\n
\n\tGalileo Risk Infiniti SPOT (Theresa Ralph\/Kim le Court) 04:19:52
\n\tInsect Science (Danielle Strydom\/Janice Venter ) 03:24:54\n<\/p>\n
\n\t#MBM(Mannie Heymans\/Courtney Liebenberg) 04:50:18
\n\tAlpha Betas (Ben Garret\/Olivia Read) 04:47:49<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"