{"id":20275,"date":"2015-03-26T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2015\/03\/26\/cyclocross-offers-variety-at-tour-durban-r2283\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T11:08:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T11:08:09","slug":"cyclocross-offers-variety-at-tour-durban-r2283","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/cyclocross-offers-variety-at-tour-durban-r2283\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyclocross offers variety at Tour Durban"},"content":{"rendered":"

While \u2018roadies\u2019 get their share of aQuell\u00e9 Tour Durban presented by Sunday Tribune action on Sunday 26 April via the 105km Road Race and 45km Fun Ride, off-road cycling junkies can look forward to their fix as well at the exciting 55km Cyclocross event that incorporates the smooth newly-tarred M4 with some thrilling mountain biking trails.<\/p>\n

KwaZulu-Natal\u2019s mountain biking community is an ever increasing one and the inclusion of the 55km mixed surface challenge received an instant, rapturous response in its introductory year in 2013 and has gone on to become extremely popular.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cyclocross event has always drawn good numbers,\u201d said the event\u2019s Route Manager, Andrew van Rensburg. \u201cWe have a very large MTB community in Durban and the surrounding areas so we thought that it would be great if we created an event that catered for that market as well and now that the cyclocross attracts such a large numbers, it is important that we keep it going annually.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-09309100-1427371068.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

TIB Insurances Andrew Hill will be back at the 55km Cyclocross event at the 2015 aQuell\u00e9 Tour Durban presented by Sunday Tribune as he looks for a third straight win at the event when it gets underway on Sunday, 26 April at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRiders have generally really enjoyed the route in the past so we have tried to keep it as similar as possible for this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

A cyclocross event is unique in that it is not an out-and-out mountain bike event but instead sees riders tackle large sections of road racing while the course is littered with bursts of off-road track as well, something van Rensburg believes adds to the appeal of the event as \u2018weekend warriors\u2019 and regular mountain bikers are catered for alike.<\/p>\n

The race initially follows the 45km Fun Ride course but offers riders 10km of off-road riding, an appealing factor to infrequent mountain bikers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cyclocross event adds a different dimension to the aQuell\u00e9 Tour Durban presented by Sunday Tribune and that is where the appeal lies. With a mixture of road and off-road riding, your occasional rider is drawn to the event as it doesn\u2019t just involve technical single track and so becomes quite manageable for most.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also enjoy seeing a bit of interaction between the road cycling and mountain biking communities on the day. The two groups often stick to themselves but with all our events taking place on the same day, we are hoping that there will be a bit of interaction between the two.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made sense for us to add the cyclocross event to the schedule in 2013 and it has worked well since we have had it on the calendar,\u201d he mentioned.<\/p>\n

Despite the focus of the day being on the road races, that are again set to attract large numbers from all over the country, the 55km cyclocross event is likely to garner great interest once again.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-07292400-1427371065.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Event organisers are hoping to have another top class field at the 2015 55km Cyclocross event at the aQuell\u00e9 Tour Durban presented by Sunday Tribune when the event gets underway at the iconic Moses Mabhida Stadium on Sunday 26 April.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two-time defending champion Andrew Hill (TIB Insurance) is expected to be back again in 2015 and Van Rensburg is expecting a number of other top riders to be present as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am fairly sure that Andrew (Hill) will be back this year; he really enjoys the race and has won it two years in a row so I am sure that we will see him back this year!<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had Tyron Bird and a number of other top riders with us for last year\u2019s event and they were impressed with the course so we are expecting them back to add to the spice of the event again this year which we\u2019re very grateful for as big name riders always add to the appeal of the event,\u201d a confident Van Rensburg explained.<\/p>\n

More information can be found at www.tourdurban.co.za<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While \u2018roadies\u2019 get their share of aQuell\u00e9 Tour Durban presented by Sunday Tribune action on Sunday 26 April via the 105km Road Race and 45km Fun Ride, off-road cycling junkies can look forward to their fix as well at the exciting 55km Cyclocross event that incorporates the smooth newly-tarred M4 with some thrilling mountain biking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[476,1440,507,429],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-20275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-andrew-hill","tag-aquelle-tour-durban","tag-cyclocross","tag-tour-durban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20275","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=20275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20275"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=20275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}