![\"ccs-62657-0-79154400-1464120728.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-79154400-1464120728.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Merchants’ Jeannie Dreyer is looking forward to a rare chance to challenge for a third 60km Sappi Karkloof Marathon crown when the feature race of the 2016 Sappi Karkloof Classic Trail Festival takes place on Sunday, 5 June. Anthony Grote\/ Gameplan Media<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThere is always great hype in the weeks leading up to Karkloof and such a great field turns up every year so it\u2019s definitely one of the calendar\u2019s great races,\u201d says Dreyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little guilty of not actually riding the Karkloof trails often enough, even though they\u2019re right on our doorstep, but that does also mean that it\u2019s always something new and exciting when I do get to give them a go so I\u2019m looking forward to this year\u2019s Karkloof Classic,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
The vastly experienced all-round athlete recently completed the four day 4 Islands MTB Race in Croatia in April with her husband, Martin, before earning a hard-fought, determined victory in the Expedition Africa adventure race despite suffering a badly rolled ankle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been really busy recently and just seem to be going form event to event without any downtime in between at all, or much training for that matter,\u201d laughs Dreyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe racing is exactly what gets me going though, it\u2019s what I love and the ankle shouldn\u2019t affect me too much on the bike at all; we\u2019ll just have to see how the legs respond though,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
Despite having shifted her focus away from the local KZN marathon circuit in recent months, Dreyer is still keen to put in a strong showing at this year\u2019s Sappi Karkloof contest with a recent partnership with Merchants \u2013 a Dimension Data company \u2013 providing an added source of motivation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great to sign with Merchants alongside John Ntuli a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith everything that\u2019s been going on though, Karkloof will in fact be my first solo mountain bike race for them so it would be great to get things going on a positive note.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would obviously be lekker to win again but I\u2019ll have to hold thumbs and cross fingers to do that as I\u2019m sure there are going to be some really hot ladies cyclists at Karkloof!<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Candice Neethling \u2013 who grew up in the area \u2013 is there, together with Kargo\u2019s Frankie du Toit and Hayley Smith, it will be great; the stronger the ladies field the better!\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2016 Sappi Karkloof Classic Trail Festival takes place at Karkloof Country Club on Saturday, 4 and Sunday, 5 June. The event offers 21km, 10km and 5km trail running races, 60km, 40km, 20km and 10km mountain bikes events as well as an Enduro. Entries can be submitted via www.roag.co.za<\/a> while more information can be found at www.karkloofmtb.co.za<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two-time 60km Sappi Karkloof Marathon winner, Jeannie Dreyer is looking forward to enjoying the region\u2019s renowned trails as well as the chance to challenge for a rare third race crown when the 2016 Sappi Karkloof Classic Trail Festival takes place at the Karkloof Country Club on 4 and 5 June. Victories in 2013 and 2015 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42404,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1459,263,421,1318,2689],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-18121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-jeannie-dreyer","tag-karkloof","tag-karkloof-classic","tag-sappi-karkloof-classic","tag-sappi-karkloof-marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18121","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=18121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18121"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=18121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}