Zimmermann and Tom Weinmayr put together a highly technical loop using some of the best trails in the locality . Designed to give the riders one last test of their trail skills , included a succession of fantastic hill climbs and descents on tracks that challenged the riders with a labyrinth of super-deep rain channels , ruts , steps and cambers . Between the hills came a succession of river crossings . The water level might have been low , but the banks and rocky riverbeds were still a challenge .
Once back at base camp it was time to prepare for the afternoon ’ s super test , the final throw of the dice . Running along the length of the beach was a fully taped course that was part enduro , part trial . The riders started from the bike compound and initially had to fight their way through a series of zig-zags between the trees on the shoreline , in deep sand . Then followed a blast up and down the beach itself , first on the sand , then over sea-weathered rocks where the waterline had narrowed the course to barely a bike width . Super-tricky , and as a few riders found , one mistake here and you were in the water ! The test concluded with a super-tight ‘ garage ’ section under a pergola where the riders needed to execute repeated full lock turns on sand and over more rocks , before hopping down onto the beach again for another blast in the deep sand before returning to the bike compound .
The women teams rode the super test first and possibly had the harder time of it as they wore-in the lines . The heat and humidity on the beach were high , too , it was double-hard going , yet all the female teams completed the course . Here , the surprise of the day , for the onlookers , was when Team South Africa ’ s diminutive Christelle Van Der Meulen having buried her R 1250 GS in a deep rut somehow singlehandedly lifted the rear wheel clean out unaided .
Van Der Meulen ’ s effort proved pivotal as the South African ’ s made the best run of the female teams , ahead of Germany and Latin America . In the male teams , frontrunners Team South Africa put in a solid , conservative ride to place third , leaving the door open for Latin America to take the full haul of double points , ahead of Mexico . Significantly , South Africa ’ s nearest challengers , Teams UK and Germany placed fourth and fifth , respectively .
The days results came in for the photo and video challenges too . During the week , the teams were challenged to submit their most creative photo and one-minute video based on their week of adventure .
NEWS MAGAZINE
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