![\"ccs-58780-0-71774600-1480426840.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-58780-0-71774600-1480426840.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>South African cycling ace An-Li Kachelhoffer will take up a one-year contract with Team Bestmed, starting in January.<\/span><\/p>\nThe 29-year-old allrounder, who represented the country in the Olympic Games road race in Rio, said she was keen to target stage races after announcing this week she would be linking up with Team Bestmed-ASG from January.<\/p>\n
The five-day Tour of Good Hope, which takes riders over a testing 490km course through the Cape Winelands from March 6, will be her first opportunity to start ticking stage race boxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tour of Good Hope is one of the biggest tours in South Africa,\u201d said Kachelhoffer, who finished third in 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a rider, I haven\u2019t really focused on tours in the past, but having ticked off my goals this year, this event has my full attention next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to give it my best shot. I\u2019m an allrounder and for 2017 I would like to bank something local.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kachelhoffer was also looking forward to working with Team Bestmed-ASG, re-igniting a relationship which started in 2013 before she pursued other avenues.<\/p>\n
With her husband, Hanco, having taken a position with ASG Sports in Paarl, the team\u2019s equipment sponsors, Kachelhoffer said it made sense to re-join the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be involved on the events side, running the ASG Bike Club in 2017. It felt like a natural move seeing that I\u2019m already highly involved with the brand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kachelhoffer felt being part of the team would allow her to focus more on her riding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the team has got something completely different going on for next year and a system that I will also be comfortable in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is extremely important to work as a unit, from the management structure through to the riders. For me the heartbeat of a team is the riders and happy riders usually perform well.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added they would be doing intensive training in preparation for the Tour of Good Hope, which is presented by the City of Drakenstein and Scicon.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the girls will be based in the vicinity of Paarl and we will all be training together.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus will be on building a bunch of young cyclists to a level where they understand the life of a professional.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, you train flat out one day and then you have to learn how to recover, because tomorrow you must do it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said it was the perfect training ground to demonstrate what riders could expect in Europe, where there was much greater focus on stage racing.<\/p>\n
Team Bestmed-ASG manager Owen Botha viewed Kachelhoffer\u2019s return to the outfit with excitement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn-Li will bring a wealth of knowledge to the team which bodes well for the younger riders. There is massive respect for her in the cycling community.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has a fantastic work ethic and I\u2019m sure that will rub off on the team as they train and ride with her on a daily basis. It\u2019s a huge coup for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entries for the Tour of Good Hope close on November 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As she moves into a new phase of her cycling career, Cape Town Cycle Tour and national road champion An-Li Kachelhoffer has set her sights squarely on conquering the Bestmed Tour of Good Hope in March. South African cycling ace An-Li Kachelhoffer will take up a one-year contract with Team Bestmed, starting in January. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1619,1622,450],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-17320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-an-li-kachelhoffer","tag-bestmed-tour-of-good-hope","tag-tour-of-good-hope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17320","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=17320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17320"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=17320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}