MUCKERS South Africa Race 3 of 3. 09/05/23
Rouvy Route Used: Misty Cliffs | South Africa | 11.86 miles | 1135.17 ft climbing
Route 3 from the Tour de South Africa | EASY Challenge.
43 Registered | 34 Finishers | 2 DNF | 7 DNS
Final race of the superb South Africa challenge is now upon us. All three of these routes have been amazing. Misty Cliffs is a tough race though with a hill climb right at the start, then another one but longer near the end! But after that climb, a superb end with a long downhill that if you are in a pack of riders, you know you are going to stay together until that final sprint!
The top 2 finished this ride in under 30 minutes without even a second between them both. “Simon_hahnenbruch” just nudged out “hinsbergen” for the gold, with “adampel” just 8 seconds behind in 3rd place. Really nice to see these three back for another race as i know they are winding down there on line stuff now as the season and weather has changed.
A sprint next for 4th saw “paulsn” get the better of “gauv.syl” with just over a second between them. Really strong ride by these 2 for 4th and 5th place in this tough field of riders tonight.
Another close pack came next with English rider “robbiedoo” claiming 6th, The really strong Canadian Female rider “StephanieBriggs” in 7th, closely followed by the American rider “nelsonsnyder“.
10 seconds later came “ceff.io” in 9th with the final mention going to the ever strong “EdAlves” in a great 10th place!
Due to the number of finishers tonight, I would like to give a special mention also to the top 3 Muckers Worldwide team rider finishers! We had 11 Team riders join in tonight, with the top 3 finishing 13th, 14th and 15th with the order over the line bein: “denny44“, “kylofski” and “S.Ludford”
I’m absolutely blown away with the number of participants tonight on this. Thankyou so much for jumping on the race and I hope you had a great time!
P.S I’ve not said this for a while, so to those who might not know, if you’ve done one of my races and don’t have a team name, you are more than welcome to use “Muckers Worldwide” and we would be really happy to have you join us. Also we have a few riders on a WhatsApp group where we have a chat, banter and encourage each other, so if you think that is something you’d like to be a part of, just send me a message with your mobile number and I will get in touch.
cheers again guys.
| # | Cat. | User | Points | Team | Racetime | GAP | Av.mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Men |  S.Hahnenbruch | 50 | Cycling Team Rhein-Main | 0:29:56.3 | 23.76 | |
| 2 | Men |  hinsbergen | 48 | Team Adam-Chris | 0:29:56.4 | 0:00:00.1 | 23.76 |
| 3 | Men | adampel | 46 | Team Adam-Chris | 0:30:03.8 | 0:00:07.5 | 23.66 |
| 4 | Men | paulsn | 44 | 0:31:51.7 | 0:01:55.3 | 22.33 | |
| 5 | Men |  gauv.syl | 42 | 0:31:52.1 | 0:01:56.6 | 22.31 | |
| 6 | Men |  robbiedoo | 40 | Eastbourne Rovers CC | 0:32:59.3 | 0:03:02.1 | 21.56 |
| 7 | Women |  StephanieBriggs | 38 | Raceperre | 0:32:59.6 | 0:03:03.2 | 21.56 |
| 8 | Men |  nelsonsnyder | 36 | Raceperre | 0:32:59.7 | 0:03:03.4 | 21.56 |
| 9 | Men |  ceff.io | 34 | RAT Ride All Terrain | 0:33:14.3 | 0:03:17.1 | 21.4 |
| 10 | Men |  EdAlves | 32 | A. D. Grijó / AutoMarques | 0:33:25.3 | 0:03:28.1 | 21.28 |
| 11 | Men |  chorus | 30 | 0:33:27.4 | 0:03:31.3 | 21.26 | |
| 12 | Men | MikeHagen | 28 | 0:33:44.3 | 0:03:48.0 | 21.08 | |
| 13 | Men | denny44 | 26 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:34:38.5 | 0:04:42.2 | 20.53 |
| 14 | Men | kylofski | 24 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:34:43.9 | 0:04:47.6 | 20.48 |
| 15 | Men | S.Ludford | 22 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:34:46.5 | 0:04:50.2 | 20.46 |
| 16 | Men | Stefan793 | 20 | 0:34:59.3 | 0:05:03.1 | 20.33 | |
| 17 | Men |  Andy_UP | 18 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:34:59.5 | 0:05:03.2 | 20.33 |
| 18 | Men |  SeanMuzzy | 17 | www.matthias-heil.co.uk/rvy_racing | 0:35:52.5 | 0:05:56.2 | 19.83 |
| 19 | Men | Bikevans | 16 | Espaciobike_Endurillas | 0:35:52.7 | 0:05:56.3 | 19.83 |
| 20 | Men | isaaclopez_Gure | 15 | GURE | 0:35:52.1 | 0:05:56.6 | 19.82 |
| 21 | Men | kin_kwan | 14 | 0:36:29.9 | 0:06:33.6 | 19.49 | |
| 22 | Men | Rens_Piccavet | 13 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:36:43.6 | 0:06:47.2 | 19.37 |
| 23 | Men | rouvy1bryon | 12 | 0:36:48.6 | 0:06:52.3 | 19.32 | |
| 24 | Men | Shrek707 | 11 | Tendola Cycling & MuckersWorldwide | 0:37:09.2 | 0:07:12.7 | 19.15 |
| 25 | Men | KAY-G | 10 | 0:37:55.9 | 0:07:59.6 | 18.75 | |
| 26 | Men | Mucker1974 | 9 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:38:53.4 | 0:08:57.6 | 18.29 |
| 27 | Men | jeff65 | 8 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:38:54.1 | 0:08:57.8 | 18.29 |
| 28 | Men | UncleE64 | 7 | 0:38:54.5 | 0:08:58.2 | 18.28 | |
| 29 | Men | Puma76 | 6 | 0:39:19.4 | 0:09:23.9 | 18.09 | |
| 30 | Men | R_Castle | 5 | 0:39:19.5 | 0:09:23.1 | 18.09 | |
| 31 | Men | Mick_Michel | 4 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:43:38.4 | 0:13:41.7 | 16.3 |
| 32 | Men | Swifty | 3 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:49:59.5 | 0:20:03.1 | 14.23 |
| 33 | Men |  Blackrubber | 2 | 0:53:58.1 | 0:24:01.8 | 13.18 | |
| 34 | Men | fazzo34 | 1 | Muckers Worldwide | 0:54:00.2 | 0:24:03.7 | 13.17 |
| dnf | Men | Kobus1979 | 0 | dnf | – | ||
| dnf | Men | vanneste1 | 0 | dnf | – |
47 different riders took part in this three round championship. 6 riders did all 3 and 8 did just 2 of them. “denny44” won with 122 points from a possible 150, “Andy_UP” 2nd with 108 points from the 3 rounds and 3rd place went to “robbiedoo” with a nice 88 points from the 2 rounds he competed in! So did you get in the top 20? Have a look below and see. Thank you all for having a go at this and especially those who jumped on all three races.
| POSITION | RIDER NAME | TOTAL POINTS |
| 1 | DENNY44 | 122 |
| 2 | ANDY-UP | 108 |
| 3 | ROBBIEDOO | 88 |
| =4 | KIN-KWAN | 84 |
| =4 | NELSONSNYDER | 84 |
| 6 | EDALVES | 76 |
| 7 | CHORUS | 72 |
| =8 | MICK-MICHEL | 60 |
| =8 | KYLOFSKI | 60 |
| 10 | MUCKER974 | 55 |
| 11 | ROUVY1BRYON | 54 |
| =12 | TUDEN | 50 |
| =12 | S.HAHNENBRUCH | 50 |
| 14 | HINSBERGEN | 48 |
| 15 | SWIFTY | 47 |
| 16 | ADAMPEL | 46 |
| 17 | PAULSN | 44 |
| 18 | GAUL.SYL | 42 |
| =19 | ANNEFLEUR | 40 |
| =19 | ALFIOCRIST75 | 40 |
| =19 | JEFF65 | 40 |
I told the Muckers Worldwide team on WhatsApp while warming up, I was going to be in first within the first 100ft! That happened and I had my moment of glory. then I was able to watch as a steady stream of riders just pass me up the long first climb, not one of them checking to see if I was ok! 😂
After being happy that I wasn’t having a heart attack, I was able to get into a nice rhythm over the crest of the hill and off I went in 27th place. I was feeling OK till I saw Jeff65 catching me 😣 I can never pull away from this guy, but I kept a slight effort on, hoping by the time he caught me, he might actually be tired! Eventually he caught me at the start of that long last climb and then it was all I could do to stay with him, with ever increasing pressure from the 2 riders behind for good measure. We got to just before the very top of the climb and I just didn’t want Jeff to crest it and start to pull away down the other side as I knew I needed to be in the draft down the hill to stand any chance of bettering my position. The 2 guys behind had got to within 50 ft, so I cranked up 3 gears, stood up and just pedaled as hard as I could over the hill to give me some decent momentum down the other side. It worked and It was me Jeff and UncleE swapping about down the hill, trying to recover and wondering when to sprint! The pressure from behind was killed off over the crest earlier so at least that was taken care of.
3 way fast sprint came sooner than expected and I just went for it to stay with them but then noticed the gap decreasing so I put in some more and eventually came over the line the winner… yes ok, the winner of the little sprint and 26th over all, but I felt like a winner! What a superbly horrible challenge that was!
Great race, well done,you just had the measure of me today.Will get my revenge on a flatter route, hopefully? Many thanks for organising, so much fun racing against riders whose name you recognise
you always catch me up on flats!!! be interesting to see how we do on the tough climbing one on Thursday.
Tweaked my bike position slightly tonight and lifted the seat post 10mm in an effort to alleviate the glutes pain that has persisted since I started the indoor riding this winter. It seemed to be an improvement and potentially deliver a little more power too … time will tell. The Muckers discussed each others chances before the race (call it a WhatsApp team briefing) and it was suggested if a few of us attacked that first climb from the start a good position was possible, we also discussed everyone else’s chances and we knew a top 10 position was a very tall order. I attacked as planned (including a 1 minute power stat of 473w) hoping to stay ahead of fast approaching Muckers ‘denny44’ and ‘Andy_UP’ long enough to join them as we crested the top … I managed… JUST. I was almost dropped on the next short climb section having to dig super deep to catch my teammates, we were joined by Canadian MikeHagen who was taking the Lions share of the pulling and soon realised why when he rode away from us strongly. The 3 teammates then rode together well with me pulling on the flats and descents then tucking nicely behind the two others as they pulled me up the hills. I assumed the final climb would finish my chances (97kg currently) but surprisingly did OK. ‘Andy_UP’ seemed to have a couple of tech issues and dropped back while ‘denny44’ started to show his current good form and pull away. My next issue was ‘mountain goat’ teammate ‘kylofski’ climbing like a demon and eating into a 500ft gap at a rate of 1ft every 1ft of ascent, I made the calculation that he would bridge well before the top then wondered if my extra bulk would get him back on the long downhill – it wasn’t to be, he’d timed it perfect and I run out of downhill. Extremely pleased with performance tonight, fitness is still moving in right direction – a good route to level the heavyweights and lightweights.
Wow, that actually made me feel how hard that was for you by just reading it. love how you call the banter before the start a “team briefing” 😂😂😂
isn’t it great when you start to recognize all these other riders now and you know their strengths and weakness, then throw in a few new riders just to spice it up! This was an excellent race with a superb turn out.
cheers for commenting Steve.
That was very hard. I thought to stay with Stephanie and Nelson, but the first hill out of the start put paid to that. I can’t climb. On the first downhill, then, settled into a group with Steve, Andy, and denny44, but there was another group of three just ahead. I wanted to bridge up because that was the all-important 10th place to get a mention in Neil’s race report, but the others weren’t helping. Was it because they could barely hold on to my draft, or were they happy to let me do all the work? Steve’s comment above says it was the former. That’s all right then! So I took off. Almost caught ceff.io, EdAlves, and chorus, I could see their avatars, but the last part of the Red Hill climb finished me. Couldn’t make up ground on the downhill, I was spinning out. So 12th, and no mention. I guess I will need to join the Muckers so I can get a top-three mention that way?
superb comment 😂😁 we’d love to have you join the Team but please don’t do it just to get a mention as you are more than strong enough to get top 10 when the circumstances are in your favor!
Another great race!!! This is my best 30mins power in a long while. Just missed the podium for the South Africa challenge. 😣 Need to train harder for the next challenge.
As for the race goes, it’s super fast start as usual. Was able to ride alone with kylofshi, piccavet and 3 other riders after the first hill. Too bad we didn’t work well together to catch my fellow Canadian rider Bryon. kylofshi was riding up the second hill fast and long gone after 1/3 of the hill. Piccavet and I were riding side by side. I was able to distance him at the steep section. Get pass Bryon and ride solo downhill. Too much gap (500m+) from the group of 3 ahead. End up with #21.
thank you for commenting. sounds like a tough race which is what we all want isn’t it! well done Mucker!!
Hello everyone, nice race last night, I finally missed out on a mention by coming in 11th place.
Some riders started very strong on the first climb, I set my own pace and I caught some of them.
In the middle together with ceff.io and EdAlves we were collaborating until the long and last climb where ceff.io left us.
the descent was very fast and at the end of the sprint there was a connection failure and the next thing I saw was that EdAlves was already 25 m ahead. finally I finished in the top 20.
see you in the next race EdAlves JAJAJAJAJA
hi Chorus! Gracias for commenting! shame you just missed out on top 10 but in such a strong field, 11th is an amazing result even if it was down to a glitch! Hope to see you on another race soon and i have to ask, what’s the reason behind the name “chorus”?
Hi Neil, it’s because of the Campagnolo brand, on a bike I had years ago the components were Campagnolo Chorus, and some kids started calling me that 😉
interesting. cheers for explaining. .
Your races are by far ‘the best fun’ those days at Rouvy! Expecially if I can’t get it done to go outside and only manage to ride indoor for a moment. So many thanks again for organizing those events and having such a nice group of partipants!!
Personally I do enjoy to ‘battle’ with others that are on a similar level (at least on the indoor trainer) a lot and yesterday was a good short workout ;-).
As spring is there in Germany, I will be less and less on the stationary bike and enjoy riding outside as much as possible: So please continue with your races and I am very much looking forward joining from time to time and frequently again in autumn 🙂
Now resting for the next 2-3 days as Saturday is an important qualification race for me for the UCI Gravel Word Championship 🙂
Cheers!
Simon, I am always amazed by your performances in these races. I guess “UCI Gravel World Championship” explains the difference in performance between the two of us pretty well 🙂
It’s very cool that there are so many different riders here, with different ambitions and conditions. At the end of the day, they are all united by their joy of cycling. That’s great!
Good luck with your outdoor races!
Well done Simon and good luck on Saturday
Good Luck Simon. we will be routing for you!
This route was very nice. Beautiful views, beautiful descents and “beautiful” climbs. The latter probably requires either a change in physics – in particular gravity – or a reduction in my weight. 95 kilos doesn’t make climbing any easier, but it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one with this problem 😉
On top of that, for whatever reason, my legs were completely empty today. I just couldn’t ride at race pace. So I decided to take it easy. And in the end the physics/gravity reconciled me. 95 kg downhill is not so bad after all…. just rolling home 🙂
I skipped the second race. See you on Thursday in race mode again….
definitely could see you were struggling today as its not often that i leave you behind and have to wonder if i should slow down to drag you along, but you dropped back so quickly i thought that was a sign you were not up for it. Sometimes this happens and i am sure you will be back on the tough route on Thursday and smashing it! cheers for commenting considering you didn’t really feel this one.
It’s true what Denny said, I had battery issues again and had to close a gap to the group I was in 2 times. But it didn’t matter much. I have a little cold and couldn’t heart rate zone 7. I am happy with my average power output, this tells me the field was really strong today. I’m also happy with my second place in the championship, standing next to teammate Denny on the podium, that’s a picture I will frame and put on my wall! Next races are mountainous and will be zone 4 training rides for me. Race mode will be for next week I guess. Looking forward to it!
well done over the 3 races Mucker. strong in all 3. can’t wait to see what you do when 100%!
After two days of riding, one of them outdoors, with 50 miles and 4,000 ft of climbing, I was sure I’d be feeling it today. My strategy would be to climb as fast as I could, as I knew I would be caught on the flats and downhills. Off we went, passing Mucker1974, and then catching Rens, Kin, and Bikevans. We stayed together as a group until the last long climb. I slowly pulled away. I could see Andy_up and S Ludford in the distance. “Here is my chance to catch some of the Muckers’ top racers,” I thought. I gave it everything I had to catch Andy_up and passed him. Next was S Ludford, whom I also passed. Nearing the top of the hill was Denny44. Can I catch him? Nope, was the answer. On the three-mile downhill, I had to give it everything again to keep S Ludford from catching me. In the end, I finished 14th, but in my head, I finished second, as Denny44 was the only Mucker I couldn’t catch. Thanks, everyone, for making it a really good race. Just a side note, all these indoor races have improved my outdoor performance, as I am now getting personal bests on most of my outdoor climbs. Thanks, Muckers!
i just love watching your climbing stats once you hit a hill! if you are in my nearby list, i just see you moving up and up and up till you disappear off my screen! i can just hear those riders you are catching just blowing like mad trying to keep you at bay Mucker! Keep it up.
It was good to see so many riders at the start. It ist spring and most riders are riding outdoors. I started strong at the first climb and was in the red for most of the time untel reached the top. Put so much effort in this climb and wasn’t even top 10. At the flats and decents I tried to recover a bit. Sorry Mike I couldn’t support you. Was happy to stay at your wheel. The last climb was a tough one. I had Andy and Steven with me. Both are good climbers and we all went with a lot of spped in this climb. I gave everything and after a while both get dropped. But I had to fight because Kyle was coming up and stronger than me. Just before he reached me I arrived on the top and could stay ahead at the descent. Excellent racing as it always is at muckers races.
well done Daniel on the Mini championship! 3 rides with a win in one of them made sure you got top spot! Hope this little addition made it a bit more interesting for you and thanks for racing with us and commenting.