GEORGE NEWS - The 2018 mountain biking season gets underway on Saturday 20 January with the traditional season opener, the Momentum Health Attakwas Extreme.
The Attakwas Extreme this year boasts the event's largest ever start list with 1 400 intrepid riders who have signed up to take on "The Hell of the South," as this infamously tough ultra-marathon has been dubbed.
The 121 kilometre route - from Chandelier near Oudtshoorn to Pine Creek in Great Brak River - has once again attracted a field of world-class elite riders.
The elite men's field has a distinctly international feel to it with 2016 joint champions and Team Bulls teammates, Karl Platt and Tim Böhme, leading the line-up.
The German bike brand's riders were joint first in 2016, while in 2014 Platt finished second behind his stage race partner, Urs Huber, when Huber shattered the course record.
Huber's record of four hours, forty seven minutes and forty six seconds was two minutes faster than the 2017 winning time and in order for a record breaking attempt to be made this year, the weather and racing conditions have to be perfect from the outset.
South Africa's hopes will rest on the shoulders of the pyga EuroSteel duo of Matthys Beukes and Philip Buys.
The pair were the most successful South African stage racing combination in 2017 and will be looking to continue their run of great results into the new year.
Beukes, who hails from George and recently became a father, also has an Attakwas Extreme race win on his palmarès. In fact, his victory in 2012 was the last by a South African man in the event.
Beukes told the George Herald he has a strong affinity for the Attakwas and has therefore put in some serious appropriate training.
"I've spent, on average, five hours per day on my bike in December and early January for this rough and proper challenge."
He said the first 80km through the rough Attakwaskloof is the "easier" part but it's the last 60km or so on the open gravel road that poses the biggest challenge.
South Africa's hopes of a win in the Momentum Health Attakwas Extreme this year will rest of the shoulders of the pyga EuroSteel duo Matthys Beukes (left) and Philip Buys. The pair were the most successful South African stage racing combination in 2017 and will be looking to continue their run of great results into the new year.
"It's this last part of the race that is mentally even more difficult because we mostly ride into the headwind. The wind's definitely going to play a big role in separating the men from the boys."
They will be joined by the dark horse French contender, Antonin Marecaille. Marecaille is a marathon specialist and raced to second position in the French XCM Championships in 2017, though just how his European pedigree will convert to African racing results on his first racing visit to the continent remains to be seen.
Joining Beukes and Buys in the bid to become the first local winner in six years are Erik Kleinhans, Gert Heyns and the young guns Dylan Rebello and Marco Joubert. Kleinhans needs no reminding of what it takes to complete the Attakwas Extreme, having earned his status as a Ratel - a title earned upon the completion of one's fifth Momentum Health Attakwas Extreme.
In the UCI women's field the Swiss national, but South African resident, Ariane Lüthi will be looking to return to winning ways at an event she has won on five previous occasions.
Lüthi's main rivals are set to be Jennie Stenerhag, Robyn de Groot, Sabine Spitz, Carmen Buchacher, Amy McDougall and Candice Lill. De Groot had a difficult season last year as she battled a lingering injury but the Ascendis Health rider is a previous Attakwas Extreme winner and as a Southern Cape resident trains on the notoriously tough rolling roads towards Great Brak River regularly.
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