![\"ccs-62657-0-32587000-1425913054.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-32587000-1425913054.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nPhoto: Supplied.<\/span><\/p>\n Following on from the well-established aQuelle Tour Durban (Sunday 26 April) the first of the UCI Cat 1.2 events is the brand new Freedom Day Classic, which takes place on South Africa\u2019s national holiday Freedom Day on Monday 27 April. The Freedom Day Classic, categorised 1.2 for both Elite\/U23 men and women, will start and finish in Pietermartizburg\u2019s Alexandra Park and traverse the surrounding areas of Pietermaritzburg.<\/p>\n The next UCI Cat 1.2 event is the Maritzburg Margate Mayday Classic, which starts in Pietermaritzburg and finishes in Margate via Ixopo, on South Africa\u2019s national holiday Worker\u2019s Day (Friday 1 May). The distance is 203km and will be open to Elite Men\/U23 only. Participants will enjoy rolling road closure along the route.<\/p>\n The next UCI Cat 1.2 event is the Maritzburg Margate Mayday Classic, which starts in Pietermaritzburg and finishes in Margate via Ixopo, on South Africa\u2019s national holiday Worker\u2019s Day – Friday 1 May. The distance is 203km and will be open to Elite Men\/U23 only. Participants will enjoy rolling road closure along the route.<\/p>\n The southern coast town of Margate will welcome road cyclists for the third and final event of the KZN Autumn Series, the Hibiscus Coast Cycle Challenge. This will also comprise UCI cat 1.2 events for both Elite\/U23 men and women. Race organiser, Kelvin du Sart, is pleased to announce that the race will receive full road closure and will take place along sections of the toll route.<\/p>\n In between the 1st and 3rd May, and part of the KZN Autumn Series, the veteran, junior and youth categories will be able to compete in their own event on Saturday 2 May in Margate, which will also benefit from the full road closure.<\/p>\n KwaZulu-Natal Sports and Recreation are funding this remarkable project to bring more top-class cycle racing and cycle-related events to the province. Plans are in place to host a commissaire\u2019s training camp over the duration of the road cycling events.<\/p>\n Cycling South Africa\u2019s General Manager, Mike Bradley, says, \u201cWe have been missing some UCI category road races for quite some time and Cycling SA has been working hard to bring the prestige back to some one-day events in South Africa. With KZN Sport and Recreation\u2019s funding towards these cycling projects, we are in a position to host prestigious racing events for our Elite and U23 cyclists, which will help them to earn UCI points whilst racing in SA without the burden of traveling overseas to compete. These 1.2 races will bring international riders to SA shores.<\/p>\n \u201cPlacing all the races together over the same week gives our national teams the chance to utilise their full team in high-ranked road cycling events in one province, within the space of one week.\u201d<\/p>\n Along with hosting a UCI-ranked event comes financial obligations, like prize money amongst others, which is part of the stipulated conditions in hosting a UCI event. With KZN Sport and Recreation\u2019s financial input, these obligations can be met.<\/p>\n \u201cHosting these events helps us with development in many aspects of our sport, over and above the racing,\u201d continued Bradley. \u201cAdd-on projects such as the Coaching Courses and Commissaire\u2019s Training Camps further develop these components of cycling. It also boosts the tourism sector and the economy in general.\u201d<\/p>\n The three new UCI-rated road cycling events further entrench Pietermaritzburg as UCI\u2019s Africa Bike City with the continuous ensemble of high-quality UCI cycling events being hosted in the capital city since 2009.<\/p>\n Pietermaritzburg will play host to the African Cycling Forum in August this year, where representatives from all the cycling federations in Africa will participate.<\/p>\n In September, Pietermaritzburg will host the UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup, with the world\u2019s top cyclists scheduled to compete, as it is their last Paralympic qualifier for Rio 2016. The duel between current World Champion, Ernst van Dyk, and Italian ex-Formula 1 racing car driver and current Paralympic Champion Alexander Zanardi, is set to continue on home soil for Ernst this year!<\/p>\n On the development side, the rural development programme that is currently in place and being run by KZN Cycling Development Officer Tyrone Johns, is set to continue through 2015, with plans in place to also teach those at the schools how to host their own events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Preparations for three brand new road cycling events are well underway in KwaZulu-Natal during one week at the end of April and early May, each of them carrying a UCI Category 1.2 rating for our Elite and U23 Men and Elite Women categories, and will form the KZN Autumn Series. The string of top-quality road […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":49343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[231,4033,4077],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-20384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-cycling-south-africa","tag-kwazulu-natal","tag-kzn-autumn-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20384","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=20384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20384"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=20384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}