BSG Energade Big Bay

The final of the BSG Energade Series was held in Cape town, to be exact Big Bay. It was always going to be an unforeseen, hard race with the elements working against us, the cold sea and usually the very strong wind.

I arrived in Cape Town at 11:30, but … my bicycle was still in Johannesburg. The airport personnel promised to deliver my bike within 2 hours in Big Bay, as it was on the next flight. Needless to say, that promise wasn’t kept … my bike only arrived at 22:00. Yes, I did to panic, but luckily all worked out perfect.

I woke up on Sunday morning and the wind seemed calm, but only until I cycled to the venue about 2km from our guest house. The wind was pumping… I was playing with the thought whether I should do a swim warm-up (actually cool down in the freezing Atlantic ocean). Wian managed to talk me into a warm-up. It seemed as if my face was on fire for the first 4 min, I thought I was going to lose my nose - haha.

When the race started, the cold water didn’t affect me as much as I was swimming as fast as I could - not only to keep up with the rest, but also to get out of the water as soon as possible. I managed to catch a wave on the way out … yes, fun in racing as well.


Theo, Rudolf, Erhardt

 On the cycle we were one big pack of about 12 athletes, but a split came at about 4km with 3 athletes going down the road. We chased them down, and once we caught them everybody was lazy and sat up ..… all waiting for the run.

I had a good T2 and was out 6th, I felt good on the run and in the beginning went hard to see what will happen, but at the 2km mark 3 guys came flying past me, they had better legs on the day than I did. But luckily I caught one of them and ended 7th overall.

It was a good and long series, but I had fun and made some new friends. I managed to win the overall Junior Series. Thank you to all my sponsors (TUKS, ORCA, NIKE, CycleOps, FELT, WHASP) for supporting me during the series.

Junior Series podium

Thank you BSG, Energade and Spectrum Sport for organising and sponsoring the events. It was GREAT!!!

Congrats to all the competitors – from first to last – you did a great job.

Till I write again … Cheers
Rudolf