{"id":17659,"date":"2013-01-30T12:40:48","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T10:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/evans-shows-true-colours-in-addo\/"},"modified":"2013-01-30T12:40:48","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T10:40:48","slug":"evans-shows-true-colours-in-addo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/evans-shows-true-colours-in-addo\/","title":{"rendered":"Evans shows true colours in Addo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t \"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A mud-spattered Kevin Evans crosses the line to take the 80km Extreme mountain bike challenge, which forms part of The Herald VW Cycle Tour, in Addo last year. Photo: Coetzee Gouws\/Fullstop<\/p>\n

Multiple former winner Kevin Evans will be in a different outfit when he defends his title in The Herald VW Cycle Tour\u2019s 80km Extreme mountain bike challenge at Addo on Saturday, February 2.<\/p>\n

Evans, who started his mountain biking career in Port Elizabeth, has joined FedGroup-Itec Connect in the wake of the much-publicised demise of his former team and will bring teammates Brandon Stewart, who won in 2011, and Bridgette Minnaar-Stewart along for the ride.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very early in the season for us but it will be great preparation for the racing to come later in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Plettenberg Bay-based rider said his training was going well despite recovering from abdominal surgery in early December. \u201cI\u2019m about a month behind but should be back to full strength by mid-February.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he was looking forward to competing on the uncharted territory of the new course, after torrential downpours forced a last-minute route change last year. \u201cIt will be nice to race over some new terrain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four-time national marathon champion said he was expecting strong opposition from the likes of Team Blend Properties\u2019 Charles Keey and possibly former Tour de France rider John-Lee Augustyn, who has made a return to racing following an extended injury-induced layoff.<\/p>\n

He will also be facing ex-teammate James Reid, former national road champion Darren Lill and cross-country racer Oliver Munnik.<\/p>\n

Evans will also take part in the 106km Classic road race in PE on the Sunday, which will put the 34-year-old in contention for the newly introduced Ultimate Quest category, which rewards riders with the shortest combined time across both events.<\/p>\n

Evans, who finished fifth in the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour last year, said the super-category gave mountain bikers like himself and Stewart a distinct advantage over their road counterparts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will most certainly favour the mountain bikers, as the time gaps are always much bigger off-road than on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans said he was looking forward to a fresh start after his former Nedbank 360Life partner David George tested positive for the banned substance EPO late last year.<\/p>\n

In 2012, the two won the African jersey at the Absa Cape Epic, the Old Mutual joBerg2c and Nedbank sani2c.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially I was concerned (about public perceptions), but I moved on from worrying about what other people think. My consistent history should prove itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s race will be strengthened by the presence of British national road rider and recent mountain bike convert Catherine Williamson.<\/p>\n

The multi-talented Williamson, who finished second in both the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour in March and the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge in November last year, will be the woman to beat for the Ultimate Quest title.<\/p>\n

She will vie against the likes of Mariske Strauss and Candice Neethling.<\/p>\n

Join the conversation at @heraldcycletour<\/a> or on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A mud-spattered Kevin Evans crosses the line to take the 80km Extreme mountain bike challenge, which forms part of The Herald VW Cycle Tour, in Addo last year. Photo: Coetzee Gouws\/Fullstop Multiple former winner Kevin Evans will be in a different outfit when he defends his title in The Herald VW Cycle Tour\u2019s 80km Extreme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-17659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}