Provincial XCO #1 Gauteng - Joel Hieber

So it was race day, first race of the year, new team, new look and a new awesome Pinarello steed. So many things going through my head, didn’t really know what to expect from myself. None the less, was feeling super strong while sitting under the asg/Pinarello tents, I knew that it was going to be a tough race having such good competition in the form of Dylan Rebello, my team mate Nicholas Popich, and a few other talented juniors, but all this didn’t put me down, I knew the track, I knew my strategy and was psyched out ready to rock.  

Legs warmed up, High5 energy goo taken and waiting for the starting gun, as soon as the race started, I went into focus mode. Felt like nothing could stop me. The beginning of the lap is a difficult few kick-climbs where it took some real firepower to get up as fast as we did, a small group of 4 of us made it over the climb, and into the first few single track trails, I was lying 4^th. Dylan started riding a good tempo that Neil Robinson could not follow, I felt helpless sitting at the back of the group looking up at Dylan getting away from me, so I decided to make a break into the grass and around Nick Popich and Neil catching back up to Dylan. Neil could not hold the tempo I set to catch back up to Dylan, which is how Dylan and I got away.

 Amazing how smooth I felt through all the trails on the new Pinarello Dogma XC, truly a great bike helping me in the technical stuff. Race went on, Dylan and I continuing to increase our time gap over our competitors,  4^th lap comes fast, still feeling the hype I did in the first lap, so I decided to take the lead, Dylan behind me heading onto the 4^th lap and I was feeling powerful. A few minutes up the first climb and Dylan shouts to me that he has stomach issues, next moment he’s beside the track behind me, I stopped and asked if I could help, but there was nothing I could do. So I headed onwards by myself in 1^st position. The rest of the race was fun as I passed a few of my team mates, Edwill and Marcel who were racing in the u23 men category. Last straight came super quick and I finished in 1^st position. 

This race made me realize how privileged I am to be on such a great team with such great sponsors that are supplying the best products on the market to us, felt like such a VIP sitting under the tent with such amazing people round me. As a first race of the year, this really showed me that there are good things to come as I can still get much fitter.  Can’t wait for the first national in cape town this weekend. See you there for some crazy mtb action!

Joel