2012 news!!!!

I will be riding for BMC Racing South Africa in 2012. After a successful 2011, where I became South African XCM Youth champion and came 4th in the Cross Country Championship I am very excited to join BMC! In 2011 I rode for team Wsquared Cycling/BMC and achieved all my goals I had set out.

I will be partnering up with 3 time South African Cross Country champ Alan Hatherly, and with Carlo Marzoppi, Candice Neethling, Simone Vosloo, Savannah Vosloo, Saffron Vosloo and Ashleigh Parker-Moffatt. All of the listed riders above have done great in 2011 and having them as my team mates in 2012 will be so much fun. The thing I like about our team is that we are all very good friends and love each other so much. We are all equal, but obviously not on the fitness side but the friendship status. Carlo and Alan is going to be a mean team when they race together in the Youth category next year. Candice is going to be boss next year and like a "cycling-mother" to Simone and Ashleigh as they move up to u23 age category. Candice has been in u23 category for one year already and knows how hard it is to race against other girls 5 years old than her. We all will learn a lot from her as the team moves on through the year. Savannah will be at the top of the Junior age category and with all her experiences from this year she'll be a force to be reconed with. Her younger sister Saffron will be in her last year of Sub-Junior and she has gotten so much experience from her two sisters and has all the potential to become SA Champ! I will be entering the Junior category and hoping to get top 3 at SA Half Marathon Champs which is my preferred discipline.

All of us will be riding BMC Fourstrokes and the are by far the best full suspension mountain bikes in the world and also is the bike with the most podiums at races in South Africa!
Good luck to all my Team Mates and have fun in 2012.

style passion precision - BMC

Holidays have arrived...

So end of the year exams are finished and the best time of the year has arrived. I started my holidays on a very high note, I went to my good friend and team mate Alan Hatherly for 6 days for some chilling time and lots of riding. I didn't ride a lot during my exam time and thought that staying at Alan's house would be the best way to get my fitness up again. Not only did he kill me but also helped me surf, which I still can't do... Training was very hard, he pushed me to the limits and then rewarded me with a Monster Energy drink afterwards. Trust me, after a interval session with this young fast guy you'll die for a Monster. So the next few days I got myself motivated just for that monster and that's how i managed to do my intervals. After a wonderful week of relaxing, going to the beach and training I had to say bye and spend some time with my real family. It was such a kiff week and wont forget how i started my 2011 December holidays!

Back home now things aren't so chilled, even though it is holidays. 2 of my other team mates, Savannah Vosloo and Simone Vosloo are here for a week of training and chilling, so I have to spend time with them too and my family at home, while I ride my bicycle and hang out at other friends. The bike shop is also very busy with new 2012 BMC bicycles arriving and filling up the shop fast. Not only are they filling it up but also flying out the doors and getting ridden a lot. So for now its very busy at home.


Great news to come soon...

A Little Rest Time

In cycling as a sport you also have a rest period, of which I just had mine these past few days. It wasn't fun being off of the bike for 10 days, but it's all part of cycling and the experience. It gave me a lot of extra time in which of course I studied a bit for the upcoming exams in November. When I got to the 5th day of not being on my bike, my legs started asking me why I am not pedalling? Literally - They started moving up and down as if they were on the bike when I was sitting in class trying to do some maths. I decided to give them what they were asking for and went for a nice group ride in Howick with my dad, mechanic- Bjorn, my coach and some friends. It is always a privilege to ride in such wonderful mountain bike single tracks and I just love it when I am riding there; from very technical stuff to smooth flowing-forever tracks on every type of terrain. I ended up doing a 3 hour ride and 50km's which I didn't plan and in the middle of my resting period it was super good. I must say, to me riding a bicycle sets me free and there's nothing to hold you back, it's just you, the bicycle and nature at its best!

Overall the rest did me good, gave me a lot of time to sort out problems, to sit back and also relax. I also read a few books in this time: Heaven is For Real -Todd Burpo, Every Second Counts-Lance Armstrong, The Elephant Whisperer-Lawrence Anthony and I'm currently reading LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS-Nick Vujicic. All of these books have inspired me in my sport and also in my faith. The Elephant Whisperer is really an amazing book of how a wild herd of elephants gets saved and rehabilitated in a game reserve in Kwa-Zulu Natal. I never knew that elephants communicate with their stomachs by making rumbling noises- its so amazing!  Every Second Counts really explains a lot about riding in the Tour de France and all the dificulties that a professional cyclist has when being married and also having kids and moving around the world. Heaven Is For Real is a blessing of a book. This book is the real life story of a boy, aged four, who had a heavenly experience and his father tells what the boy saw and experienced! After reading this book I really felt inspired and motivated.

My last race of the 2011 season was on the 16th of October, the Amashova Durban Classic. A road race and also my first ever road race. There are a lot of distances, but the main one is the 106km race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. I took part in the u/16 road race and our distance was 76km's. It was a whole different experience to a mountain bike race, the big bunches of groups were fascinating and getting caught up in one of those was such an adrenaline rush! I finished in the top 10 of the u/16 age group. It was also very wet and slippery that day and I saw how dangerous the white lines could be around a corner when riding over them when a fellow competitor slipped and somehow managed to save himself from falling! I would go back and do the race anytime even if its just for the riding on a highway where we normally ride with our cars..

Well now it's exam time again, I guess it is part of growing up, haha! In this time I have met another great friend, Anna-Marie Maartens! I'm truely blessed with my friends!
Catch you riding up the next pass.....
Till next time.

Hilton Dirt Fest (Hilton 50Miler)

Being a mechanic on the go..

Preperation for the Hilton Dirt Fest all started on Tuesday, but it came down to a nap on Saturday afternoon before I helped a friend(Catherine Colyn) build up her bike for the race. She flew down from Cape Town in the morning just to come and race the next day. Catherine is 15 years old and currently lying 2nd in the youth category for the Advendurance Half Marathon Series, so I had to build her bike and have everything at perfect angles and tight and not to tight. I was under a little bit of stress from this lady. We went out for dinner to a little restaurant in Pietermaritzburg for some pasta and a lots of water. The pasta was very nice and super filling, perfect for the next day. We had such a
kiff evening and we were really both looking
forward to the race.

Race day...excitment for some and stress for others. For me it was however very exciting and fantastic to be in my hometown. I have been batteling with my weight keeping it consistent and close to 60kg, but on the morning I weighed perfect weight, which boosted my mind! Registration went smooth and fast. I met up with Catherine and we went for our warm up ride, I showed her where some of the route went. As we got to the start line we could see a lot of our fellow compettitors lining up and getting ready. It was great seeing such a great turn out of people at the race and also having a sunny day.

30s...10s...go! The race started with a sharp left turn about 30meters from the start line. As soon as we were of the tarr and onto die dirt the racing started with an attack from Patrick Belton(Team Jeep) up a little climb to split up the huge bunch. I didnt respond and had to guys with me and we rode together and kept the front riders in our sight. The front group had 5 riders and at about 15kms into the race I broke away and tried to catch up to the front group. I only coaght up at 25kms and by then the group only had 4 riders, because one of the riders had a mechanical. Patrick and his team mate Werner van Heerden split the group with Lourens Luus up a little hill and dropped me and Dylan Rebello. I decided that I didn't ride myself into the top 5 for nothing... so I put the hammer down on my BMC Fourstroke and caught up to Werner who couldnt stay with the front 2 riders. I went into the last bit of single track infront of Werner and pulled a little gap. When i saw the tar road to the finish line I gave it all and to my suprise I finished 2nd overall in the 43km race. Lourens had just pulled out at the finish line, because he left the race for the Juniors and Youth Catergories. Dankie

I thank Lourens for being a great sportman and also to all my friends and Supporters.

training ride - a very long one

Its been a long while since I published a post... Things have really been busy, not only in my cycling, but school also! For example, last week I had 6 tests in a 5 days. I wrote a test everyday and on Thursday I wrote 2 tests. But I guess why school is there for us, to make it tough so that we can survive in life after school. Cycling is a very tough sport and to succeed in it you need to train really hard and give it your best(always).
School and cycling to me is almost based on the same principals... You need to study very hard and concentrate a lot too, time management is one of the key factors for us as cyclists still in school, because school starts at about 7:30 and finishes at 2:30 and then you have to still be on the bicycle for 3 hours or even more. In cycling you also need to train very hard and concentrate very hard. Riding technical rock gardens or roots for example has to be riden a lot and practised to perfect your line, and in the race you have to focus on hiting that line at the right angle and speed.

On Sunday 18 September I had a very long training ride to get some hours in the saddle. It was me, my dad, team mate Savanna Vosloo and my coach that started the ride together. I was very excited to ride my BMC Fourstroke for more than the usual hours and also being out there with my dad who has never riden that far in his life on a bicycle. I decided that I would ride with a camelback, so I loaded it up with tons of food. Jungle oats bars, energelies, bilton, vooma gels and even a nice sandwich with some peanutbutter. As we left the cycling shop I thought that I might need to use a jacket, but after 10minutes of riding it was super hot. The places we rode through were really beautiful. It was a real tough ride and the temperature also climbed very high.. The ride just made me realize how amazing MTBiking is and what you get out of it. After 6hrs and 39 minutes in the saddle I was really tired. I took an afternoon nap and felt like a human again.

At 6o'clock my family and i went to an evening service at church and it was such an amazing experience. Also the best way to end off my busy day.

Thats all for now
Jaco

Tour de Krantz

This past weekend it was the Tour de Krantz MTB Race. It was my 3rd time taking part in this event and as usual it was fantastic! The course was amazing, even though I was racing I still had time to look at the superb views. The race is definately one I will always come back to because of the views and the course is for everyone. My mother went with this time and she enjoyed it just as much as us that cycled because of the markets they had there. It was a pure German experience(with bicycles).

As for my bike(BMC Fourstroke) it handled superbly and it was without a doubt the best bike on that course. I received my new RockShox xx fork from Motion Cycles on Friday. I know all the stories about changing bicycle components the day before a race, but this fork is truely amazing! I pumped it up and took it for a ride and wow did it surprise me! I couldn't thank my dad enough, so to thank him, I gave him a good race result. My bike felt so smooth on the uphills and the single tracks, the fourstroke and rockshox combination definately equals a fantastic ride.

I had a super afternoon eating some of the nice German sausages, the Metwurst is definately my favourite.

I came 10th overall and 1st in Youth cat. in the 45km.

Till next time

new to blogging...

So now that I have a blog, it really made me think what it is really all about... In my blog I hope to bring you the story of what's happening in my life and all around me. Not just a boring old race update after race update.

On to blogging.  I never thought that a week with out my mom at home would be so busy, hard and lonely. It is amazing what your mom does for you in your life, for example just getting dropped off at school and being picked up is quite a challenge when she is not here to do it. I have to phone friends and ask for lifts, as we stay in Hilton and go to school in Pietermaritzburg it's hard, becuase not a lot of people that go to school in PMB live in Hilton. I am so used to asking my mom to drop my bike at the bike shop and now I know how it is when all that pressure is on you to take your own bike to the shop and still buy groceries and to remeber to pick us up from school and pick up the bike...At least the bike shop is 3kms away from my home so it wasn't a long walk. Conclusion: I can't manage without my mom, neither my dad nor my sister. Love your mom and thank her for everything.(especially for the support she gives you, because without it I bet you won't be where you are now.)

Going into this next week I am going to set it as one of my goals to appreciate everything she does for me.
Till next time.

Please any comments would be appreciated