![\"ccs-62657-0-79087200-1428789121.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-79087200-1428789121.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Former national road champion Christoff van Heerden won the Emperors Palace Mountain Bike Classic in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, on Saturday. \/\/ Photo: Yolanda van der Stoep.<\/span>\n<\/div>\nVan Heerden, who won the Circuit Spectacular criterium at the same venue three years ago, blazed across the finish line to take the 40km mountain bike event in a time of 1:37:19.<\/p>\n
The Kitchen Bar rider was followed home by Peter-Lee Jefferies of Inter-Active Technologies in 1:41:04, with Jacques Greeff third for Team Kempston Group in 1:44:57.<\/p>\n
Van Heerden said he had cut his teeth on route designer Lee Stockenstrom\u2019s cross-country trails as a youngster, which had given him the edge over his competitors on the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cLee\u2019s courses are where I developed my skills, so I know the kind of trails he builds. He\u2019s is a master track builder who\u2019s made a cool route from this terrain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedfordview resident Van Heerden, who will soon be relocating to Cape Town, said his victory could possibly herald the start of a crossover career in off-road racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI rode the Cape Epic this year, which could be the start of a new journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bunch of guys have given me the opportunity to race again. It\u2019s nice to have a team backing you; with good support you can do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the women\u2019s event, triathlete Susan Sloan took a convincing win in 1:54:52, while Jana Jonker claimed the runner-up spot in 2:01:36 with Susan Gerber a further 32 seconds back.<\/p>\n
Sloan, 34, said the race had served well as part of her preparations for the Xterra world championships later in the year, where she would be eyeing a top-10 result after finishing 18th last year.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Xterra we tend to focus on the tough endurance riding but I enjoyed the singletrack with its twists and turns through the trees, which is good for my technical training.\u201d<\/p>\n The Benoni resident said she had been pleasantly surprised by the trails in the vicinity of OR Tambo International Airport.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone kept telling me I should ride the forest section by the airport and riding it today I realised I should come and do this more often.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 20km men\u2019s race, Heinrich Kanis (Epic Sports) of Centurion took his debut victory in 1:05:19, while Kempton Park local Lisa Venter notched up her second consecutive win in the women\u2019s section in 1:16:54.<\/p>\n For more information, visit www.facebook.com\/emperorsclassic<\/a> or follow @emperorsclassic<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former national road champion Christoff van Heerden, 30, showed his all-round racing ability when he claimed a surprise win in the Emperors Palace Mountain Bike Classic in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, on Saturday. Former national road champion Christoff van Heerden won the Emperors Palace Mountain Bike Classic in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, on Saturday. \/\/ Photo: Yolanda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4186,1457,4187],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-20196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-christoff-van-heerden","tag-emperors-palace-classic","tag-susan-sloan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20196","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=20196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20196"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=20196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>The winners at the Emperors Palace Mountain Bike Classic in Johannesburg on Saturday were, from left, Lisa Venter (women\u2019s 20km), Susan Sloan (women\u2019s 40km), Christoff van Heerden (men\u2019s 40km) and Heinrich Kanis (men\u2019s 20km). \/\/ Photo: Yolanda van der Stoep.<\/span><\/p>\n