![\"ccs-62657-0-19787400-1509369680.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-19787400-1509369680.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Team ACE Lesotho\u2019s Leonhard Lukoschek leading the field during Stage One of the FNB Wines2Whales MTB Ride. Photo Credit: Tobias Ginsberg<\/span><\/p>\nOlympian Phetetso Monese (Lesotho) and Leonhard Lukoschek (Germany) of Team ACE Lesotho applied pressure from the start. \u201cThis is my third W2W,\u201d says Monese. \u201cLast year I finished first in the men\u2019s race. I really want to defend my title. So we went fast from the start. Stage One featured some great riding. I was a little worried when I heard that Leonhard was a roadie, but after today I\u2019m no longer worried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monese became the first Olympic cyclist from Lesotho when he qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a visiting student from Germany,\u201d says Lukoschek. \u201cI don\u2019t have a mountain biking background. I\u2019m actually a triathlete that\u2019s more of a runner. I\u2019ve heard that W2W is well organized and that the views are beautiful, so I expected to see stunning landscapes. It\u2019s definitely lived up to its reputation. I\u2019ve also heard that the event is one big party, so I\u2019m really looking forward to tonight.\u201d Team ACE Lesotho crossed the finish line in 03 hours 21 minutes 59 seconds. Team Transporters\u2019 Steven Bark and Fabian Valsechi came in second, with Team Tallboys\u2019 Michael Van Niekerk and Trevor Baptiste finishing third.<\/p>\n
With the competitive streak clearly running in the family, brother and sister duo Mariske and Stephan Strauss of Team Oak Racing obliterated the field in the mixed team race claiming the stage victory in 03 hours 40 minutes 09 seconds. \u201cThis is my 4th or 5th W2W. The event just doesn\u2019t get old,\u201d says Mariske. \u201cThe trails are awesome. I must admit the forest section was absolute heaven. It\u2019s getting hot out there. My brother was a machine. We said we\u2019d take it easy, but you know how it goes, you always find challengers on route to dice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time that we ride together,\u201d says Stephan. \u201cFor the past four years I\u2019ve focused on work. It\u2019s really nice to be back on the bike again. We\u2019re definitely here to have fun. After today I can confirm now already that we\u2019ll be back next year.\u201d Team Giant Durbanville\u2019s Julien Louw and Colleen De Oliveira came in second, while Haaskat\u2019s Russell Lund and Anneke Hanekom finished third.<\/p>\n
Defending champions Ilse Viljoen and Jana Kruger of Team Defenders took the Stage One victory in 04 hours 26 minutes 06 seconds. \u201cWe had a good ride,\u201d says Viljoen. \u201cWe started well, but it got hot quickly out there. We had to stop at water point two for a drink. We are really looking forward to Play Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Kruger, Stage One was phenomenal. \u201cThe single tracks were superb. It was even more enjoyable than last year. To sum up Stage One, it was tough fun.\u201d Team Pace of Mind\u2019s Halcyone Muller and Heidi Nieuwoudt came in second, while Team Pool Nurse\u2019s Alta Kriegler and Sunette Beyers finished third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a warm start to Stage One of the 2017 FNB Wines2Whales Mountain Bike (MTB) Ride at the picturesque Lourensford Wine Estate on Monday, 30 October 2017. The first of two destination stages, Stage One saw riders having to complete a 64km route that featured a 1650m ascent before crossing the finish line at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[404,15],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-16337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-w2w","tag-wines2whales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16337","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=16337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16337"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=16337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}