The recent Burger MTB attracted a large number of CT cyclists, both practised MTBers and Roadies alike. Here, Luke Hardiman, a member of our Sub-Vets Roads team tells us of his FIRST ever MTB race.

"Neville Cragg, Rob Cragg and I did the 60km with our mate Carel Bezuidenhoud. It was my first MTB race having bought Christo Botha's old Stevens hardtail a couple months ago. Well I found the race pretty tough - the contstant bumps and jolts gave me backache pretty quickly and launched my race bottle out the cage like a missile after only 5km of riding. A k or two later I had my first of several minor crashes. I went the wrong way at one point and my rear brake discs died about half way leaving me to corner with the front brake, which led to one more crash which took out my arm warmers and gave me a few roasty souvenirs.

All in all it was a fun race though, if somewhat painful. No opportunity for draughting definitely makes for some hard riding. Nev and Carel did well. Neville had forgotten to put sealant in his rear tyre and punctured around the 20k mark losing about 7-8 minutes. He managed to ride back to me and Rob though, and overtake us to finish in 8th place overall. I came in about 7 minutes behind them (17th) with Rob (20th) a minute behind me."

Well done Luke on a brilliant entry into MTB riding!!!