{"id":20098,"date":"2015-04-24T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2015\/04\/24\/zulus-dominate-opening-stage-of-joberg2c-r2461\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T11:00:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T11:00:47","slug":"zulus-dominate-opening-stage-of-joberg2c-r2461","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/zulus-dominate-opening-stage-of-joberg2c-r2461\/","title":{"rendered":"Zulus dominate opening stage of joBerg2c"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Development riders Mboneni Ngcobo and Sthembiso Masango showed the pro field a thing or two as they drove the pace on the 116km neutral opening stage of the nine-day Old Mutual joBerg2c mountain bike race on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The muddied but unbeaten RMB Change a Life Academy duo set a solid tempo as the field of 800 left Heidelberg on the outskirts of Johannesburg and headed towards the Free State border.<\/p>\n<p>Ngcobo and Masango were first onto the floating bridge crossing of the Vaal Dam and maintained that position across the finish line at Wilgerivier High School in Frankfort.<\/p>\n<p>Although the first stage is officially untimed, the pair, who hail from the Valley of a Thousand Hills near Pietermaritzburg, clocked a time of 4:40:22.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image\" href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-72380200-1429889279.jpg\" data-fileid=\"521627\" data-fileext=\"jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-fileid=\"521627\" class=\"ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed\" alt=\"ccs-62657-0-72380200-1429889279.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-72380200-1429889279.jpg\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"italic text-sm text-slate-500 block mt-1 mb-4\">RMB Change a Life Academy riders Sthembiso Masango and Mboneni Ngcobo celebrate as they cross the finish line at Frankfort on the neutral opening stage of the nine-day Old Mutual joBerg2c on Saturday. \/\/ Photo: Full Stop Communications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>They were followed home by Avis Van Rental\u2019s Andrew Hill and Tyronne White, with the Altech Autopage Karan Beef team of Pieter Seyffert and Hanco Kachelhoffer third in 4:40:51.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday it was our plan to take the stage win because we know the following days are going to be hard! We won\u2019t get a chance like this again,\u201d said Masango.<\/p>\n<p>Ngcobo said they had their sights set on an overall podium after losing out on a top-10 finish due to mechanical problems last year.<\/p>\n<p>Defending champions Johann Rabie and Gawie Combrinck of EAI Cycling played their cards close to their chests as they finished safely within the bunch.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"w-full aspect-video\">\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"200\" height=\"113\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wMKOShCT9ek?feature=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThere are two or three teams we\u2019ve got our eye on for the overall but it\u2019s still a long way to go,\u201d said Rabie.<\/p>\n<p>In the women\u2019s and mixed categories, the SasolRacing teams paced together to dominate on the day.<\/p>\n<p>Two-time women\u2019s race champion Catherine Williamson looks set for another strong showing alongside new partner and former mixed category winner Yolande de Villiers after the pair took the stage in 4:55:24.<\/p>\n<p>Their teammates Johan Labuschagne and Leana de Jager followed a second later to take their category win.<\/p>\n<p>Williamson said the stage had been far tougher than expected after heavy overnight rain on the course.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday was a difficult one. It\u2019s a non-race day but you still have to work quite hard, as it\u2019s quite muddy out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, the race continues southwards through the Free State with a 93km stage that finishes at the Reitz Showgrounds.<\/p>\n<p>To see more results and highlights from the stage, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joberg2c.co.za\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.joberg2c.co.za<\/a>. For updates, follow <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/joberg2c_journo\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@joberg2c_journo<\/a> or find the race on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Development riders Mboneni Ngcobo and Sthembiso Masango showed the pro field a thing or two as they drove the pace on the 116km neutral opening stage of the nine-day Old Mutual joBerg2c mountain bike race on Friday. The muddied but unbeaten RMB Change a Life Academy duo set a solid tempo as the field of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[286,4105,1305,2367,4106],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-20098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-joberg2c","tag-mboneni-ngcobo","tag-old-mutual-joberg2c","tag-rmb-change-a-life-academy","tag-sthembiso-masango"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20098","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=20098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20098"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=20098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}