Having at the eleventh hour finally agreed about who would ride at the back of the tandem, we soon found ourselves sizing up the competition in the starting lineup, hoping at least to be competitive. Sure enough there were plenty of well defined athletes with impressive kit and rigs and as was to be expected, an appetite for attacking on the hills which duly happened on the first M7 climb.Going over the top we had lost about 150 meters to 2-other tandems but encouragingly enough after a heart busting effort for the next 3 KM we caught them and were then far ahead of the chasers. The M19 downhill was really fast - 96KM/hour and by the bottom of it we had dropped the third “lighter” tandem, as well as the chasing Elite riders.
We worked really well thereafter with our younger opponents (from Gauteng I think) and possibly by a stroke of good fortune, with cramp, came into the finishing straight tight on their wheel, and duly overtook them with about 300 meters to go and went on to win. We had taken quite a lot of rugby flak in the line up so this was sweet as was the podium.
Dean Mason and Gavin Castleman
