May 09: Noon - Moon, Luke Smith in SA

If you are a Whyte racer you can win all over the world! Luke Smith took his carbon 19 to South Africa and rode for a team in a 10 hour race helping them win the event by a staggering six laps. This is Luke's report.

Noon – Moon 10 hour MTB event. Bloemfontein, South Africa.

"Whyte Racing UK Victorious in South Africa

The race was of a similar format to the Dusk til Dawn event which the Whyte Team regularly dominate. For the event I had been asked by Heine & Pieter Lategan if I would join their team to create a three-man squad.

Both Heine and Pieter are very experienced cyclists, regulars in the Cape Epic and can often be found ripping it up in the front group with Burry Stander and Christoph Sauser.

Their best result to date was 13th overall, this year they were on a good ride when unfortunately Pieter crashed and broke his shoulder. They also hold the tandem title for the Cape Argus - the world’s largest cycling event. Pieter also used to box so I wasn’t going to argue with him when he asked me to join them for the race!!

We arrived and quickly checked out the course, which was approximately 6km long but very rocky and technical with a couple of short climbs - there was certainly no place to rest!

The race briefing was conducted in Afrikaans and I didn’t have a clue what the rules and regulations were but what I did know was: when it was my time to ride I needed to ride hard!

The plan was for us to start with one lap efforts and try to open up a gap! Heine went off first and completed his first lap in around 14:30 mins and by the end of his lap we already had a lead of nearly 1 minute.

I was up next, I really went out hard not knowing what to expect and held nothing back. The course was hard especially on your upper body (maybe more time in the gym required?) but I enjoyed it all the same. My first lap and I already faced the task of overtaking back markers! I completed the lap in a similar time to Heine and at this point we had opened up our gap to around 3.30 mins!! From this point on there was no looking back!!

We tore round all day long. My Whyte 19 once again attracted a lot of attention (maybe we should get the brand out here?) To be honest the circuit was so rough it would have ideally suited an e120 but the carbon rear end on my Whyte 19 still did its job and the light weight of the bike enabled me to fly up the climbs each and every lap.

We rode superbly as a team, with each rider doing their fair share of laps, in fact Heine clocked a few more than both Pieter and I so all credit to him for that. At one point we were riding 4 laps each to provide more rest time off the bike for each other.

At the end of the day we finished 6 laps ahead of the second place team!

As the winning team we took home a tidy sum of prize money which was partly spent on a McDonalds and some cider at the hotel bar! Some things are the same all around the world - ride hard, play hard!!

The following morning I woke and met my friends in the morning and asked them did they sleep well, as you do, and all of them replied: no not really. I asked them why and they explained that the lions roaring in the early hours of the morning kept them up!! How amazing is that!?

I was on the other side of the hotel so I didn’t hear anything; they thought I was mad when I said I would have loved to be kept up listening to the roar of lions.

I would like to say a huge thank you to the guys’ wives, Dina and Natasha, for proving refreshments and support throughout the day. We couldn’t have done it with out you!"

Luke Smith, Whyte Racing