![\"ccs-62657-0-68558500-1461249696.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-68558500-1461249696.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>RMB Change a Life MTB Academy members Sipho Kupiso (front) and Ndumiso Dontso (background), together with Sthembiso Masango and Mazwi Smimango, were taken out of the comfort zone their usual Valley of a Thousand Hills surrounds bring and tasked with the gruelling 361km, non-stop 36ONE MTB Challenge last weekend, a task they passed with flying colours. Anthony Grote\/ Gameplan Media<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThis was such a big learning curve for all four of them with none of them having ever done anything like this before!<\/p>\n
\u201cPreviously the furthest they\u2019d ridden non-stop in a race was the 100km Hill2Hill, let alone ridding in the dark of night and through the tough, dry Karoo environment,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Masango and Smimango\u2019s tenth and 21st respectively in the favoured men\u2019s solo category were notable individual efforts while Dontso and Kupiso continued their remarkable pairing, racing to second place in the two man team category.<\/p>\n
Just as pleasing for Dreyer though was the exposure to something very different to what his charges are used to and their desire to now push themselves further.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was just such a great challenge for our guys that tested their boundaries and pushed them mentally more than they\u2019d ever been before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re now all so excited to try follow in John Ntuli\u2019s footsteps and take on The Munga later in the year, so this was the perfect stepping stone towards that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first the task seemed a daunting one but with three water points \u2013 each with a self-packed box of personal items. \u2013 and nine water points along the way, it became about just focusing on one section at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuch like the saying, \u2018How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time\u2019, this became a case of \u2018How do you do the 36ONE MTB Challenge? One water point at a time\u2019.\u201d explained Dreyer.<\/p>\n
The warm Eastern Cape hospitality of the race organisers also meant the determined quintet were well looked after and felt at home throughout their eye-opening adventure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people from the 36ONE MTB Challenge welcomed us with open arms \u2013 looking after our entry, food, accommodation, etc. \u2013 and just seemed so pleased to have us there; it was wonderful!<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was also such a well presented event and is something completely different to the usual marathons or stage races than many people are now so used to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll definitely be back again in the future!\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ntuli \u2013 now riding as a sponsored professional athlete for Merchants, a Dimension Data company \u2013 the Old Mutual joBerg2c represents his next challenge as he takes on the highly competitive men\u2019s solo field while for the remainder of Dreyer\u2019s RMB Change a Life MTB Academy, the Pietermaritzburg MTB Festival is next on the horizon before four CAL teams tackle the iconic KAP sani2c in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four athletes from Martin Dreyer\u2019s RMB Change a Life MTB Academy came away from the 36ONE MTB Challenge in Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape on the weekend with a superb set of set of results, but more importantly the young men grew significantly as individuals on the tough outing. The 361km, non-stop mountain biking event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,1259,2837],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-18291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-36one-mtb-challenge","tag-change-a-life","tag-change-a-life-mtb-academy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18291","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=18291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18291"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=18291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}