It’s SA Champs time in Mankele
It’s that time of the year again where we usher out the 2012 National mountain bike season and ending it off with a championship race. Mankele mountainbike park plays host to the 2012 SA National mountainbike championships just outside Nelspruit in Mpumalanga…
Mankele is a highly coveted venue for hosting major competitions in South Africa due to the wonderful work put into the trails by Mark and the rest of the team and also the fact that the climate and terrain is conducive to all year round riding for both XC and DHI. After chatting to some of the locals who are competing at the event the overall feedback was good. Not too many changes have been made to the DH course with the only major addition being a new entry line into the rock garden near the finish line that crosses through underneath the XC course.
This new section means that you approach the XC bridge much faster than you used to via the chicane like right-left entry line from years past. The inherent danger is that you are shot into the rock garden section faster than normal and the potential of being bounced around those trees preceding the rock garden is much greater. The old line in is now the chicken run and if you are looking to shave off precious seconds off your time the straighter faster new approach is definitely the way to go. We wish all those riders competing the best of luck and with some of our top riders like, Pottie, Needles and Tim not present at the event it would be very interesting to see who is crowned 2012 DH National Champion.
Tags: 2012 MTB Championships, Mankele mountain bike park, Mankele national 2012, SA Champs
