{"id":22079,"date":"2013-01-25T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2013\/01\/25\/van-heerden-quietly-confident-for-the-fast-one-r420\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T12:34:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T12:34:00","slug":"van-heerden-quietly-confident-for-the-fast-one-r420","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/van-heerden-quietly-confident-for-the-fast-one-r420\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Heerden quietly confident for the Fast One"},"content":{"rendered":"

After upstaging some of South Africa\u2019s biggest names to claim the title last year, Christoff van Heerden (Team Bonitas) is quietly confident ahead of Sunday\u2019s 2013 edition of the Value Logistics Fast One 106km road cycling race in Meyerton, south of Johannesburg.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And confident he should be. This past weekend he won the 2013 Gauteng Road Champs title in less than ideal conditions. He spent the last 65km of the 195km race out front on his own in steady rain to claim the win ahead of Bonitas teammates, Pieter Seyffert and Herman Fouche, who were second and third respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning the provincial champs title was a great way to start off the year. Our Bonitas team controlled the racing well. But that was over a long distance. This Sunday the route is short and fast, which opens it up a bit for more teams to be in contention,\u201d said Van Heerden.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s Fast One is the first major popular race of the year, which means a lot of new team combinations will be put to their first big test. Van Heerden says he\u2019s never felt such unity in a team before and is certain this will be an advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides putting in a lot of training mileage over the summer off-season, we have focussed on getting to know each other, both on and off the bike,\u201d explained Van Heerden. \u201cOur team manager, Barry Austin, put us through some useful team-building activities and that\u2019s really bonded the team. At 29, I am the oldest rider on the team, so what we lack in experience, we intend to make up for in cohesion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike last year\u2019s edition, when riding as an individual with no pressure, Van Heerden feels that he and his team will carry a lot of pressure on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Christoff van Heerden is quietly confident ahead of Sunday’s Value Logistics Fast One.<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo credit: Hendrik Steytler<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have eight riders on the start line and as the only UCI Continental team in the race, the other riders are likely to expect us to make the racing,\u201d said Van Heerden. \u201cThat\u2019s fine with us because we have so many strong options. I\u2019m very impressed with this group of young riders and I believe there\u2019s a lot of hunger for success. But it\u2019s not selfish hunger, but rather shared hunger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two objectives in 2013 \u2013 to dominate the domestic racing and to grow internationally. We don\u2019t have any big-name riders this year, opting to go for younger guys that are on their way up. So there\u2019s a new team dynamic and energy, which is refreshing. I like the team cohesion that Barry has instilled in the team and I believe that will be our key to success this year,\u201d said Malcolm Lange of Lange Sports, the company that owns Team Bonitas.<\/p>\n

The Team Bonitas line-up for Sunday is: Christoff van Heerden, Herman Fouche, Luthando Kaka, HB Kruger, Hanco Kachelhoffer, Pieter Seyffert, Clint Hendricks and Willie Smit. Follow the team’s race progress on twitter: @Team_Bonitas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After upstaging some of South Africa\u2019s biggest names to claim the title last year, Christoff van Heerden (Team Bonitas) is quietly confident ahead of Sunday\u2019s 2013 edition of the Value Logistics Fast One 106km road cycling race in Meyerton, south of Johannesburg. And confident he should be. This past weekend he won the 2013 Gauteng […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-22079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22079","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22079"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=22079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}