{"id":19905,"date":"2015-06-01T13:35:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T12:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2015\/06\/01\/kunene-gears-up-for-second-sappi-howick-classic-r2672\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T10:52:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T10:52:24","slug":"kunene-gears-up-for-second-sappi-howick-classic-r2672","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/kunene-gears-up-for-second-sappi-howick-classic-r2672\/","title":{"rendered":"Kunene gears up for second Sappi Howick Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of passionate mountain bikers will take to the popular trail network around the Howick region this Sunday, 7 June when they tackle the 2015 Sappi Howick Classic, amongst them will be local Thami Kunene, fired up to better his 2014 time.<\/p>\n

Based in Lidgetton, just 15km away from the race\u2019s host town of Howick, Kunene developed an interest in cycling after seeing a friend riding near his home.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-38714900-1433165697.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sappi-supported Thami Kunene hopes to utilise his cycling improvement and increased experience to improve on his finish time of 2014 when he tackles Sunday’s Sappi Howick MTB Classic. \/\/ Anthony Grote\/ Gameplan Media.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through the support of some key role players in the region\u2019s cycling community as well as forestry giant Sappi, Kunene has successfully conquered the Sappi Karkloof MTB Festival 40km aQuell\u00e9 Half Marathon in both 2014 and 2015 and will now look to take on the Howick event\u2019s 40km challenge for the second time this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been training hard and racing a little bit and I hope I can break my time from last year\u2019s Howick race this weekend!\u201d explains Kunene.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Sappi\u2019s help I will be taking part in this year\u2019s Howick race and I\u2019m going faster than I was before so hopefully I will achieve my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kunene\u2019s cycling interest recently saw him branch out from mountain biking to road racing and the 23 year-old has enjoyed the fresh challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have done two road races so far and they were cool even though I wasn\u2019t quite ready for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am riding on the road as part of my training and to try help with my endurance; I\u2019ll try to learn anything that will help my cycling.<\/p>\n

\u201cRiding on the road has definitely helped my mountain biking so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kunene believes that his increased experience since last year\u2019s Sappi Howick Classic stands him in good stead ahead of this year\u2019s challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have now done the Howick race before and this year\u2019s Karkloof race will also help me in this year\u2019s Howick race because I now know what to expect and I know some of the trails.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am also going to have a look at this year\u2019s route with (Sappi Howick Classic course steward) Gavin Ryan this week before Sunday\u2019s race which will also help a lot because previously I\u2019ve had to ride without knowing the route, which is very difficult,\u201d says Kunene.<\/p>\n

While the growth of mountain biking in his community remains slow, Kunene is confident his interest in the sport will help improve this in the near future.<\/p>\n

The 2015 Sappi Howick MTB Race takes place from Howick High School on Sunday 7 June with participants able to choose from the 10km Family Ride, 19km Sappi Intermediate Ride and the 40km Sappi Howick Classic. Entries can be submitted online via www.roag.co.za <\/a> by 3 June and more information can be found at www.howickmountainbiking.co.za<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of passionate mountain bikers will take to the popular trail network around the Howick region this Sunday, 7 June when they tackle the 2015 Sappi Howick Classic, amongst them will be local Thami Kunene, fired up to better his 2014 time. Based in Lidgetton, just 15km away from the race\u2019s host town of Howick, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":47810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3959,3958,3957],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-19905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-howick-classic","tag-sappi-howick-classic","tag-thami-kunene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19905","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=19905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19905"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=19905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}