By Michel Haoses.
The Rock and Rut Mountain Bike Club concurrently held their 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) and the 2024 Rock and Rut XC Series prize-giving ceremony at the Nedbank Campus in Windhoek last week.
Nedbank in the statement issued revealed that elite male and female cyclists, Kevin Lowe and Jean-Marie Mostert were crowned as the series champions in the elite categories after accumulating the most points throughout the series.
Rock and Rut Mountain Bike Club Chairman, Hanso Diehl, lauded the series run as successful and said the just-ended season saw the club host ten successful races in 2024.
According to Diehl, the 2024 Rock and Rut Series introduced new venues namely Farm Bergquell and Farm Towerbos, which made the series interesting and challenging for the riders as they provided different types of trails and terrain from the traditional IJG Trails at Farm Windhoek in Kleine Kuppe. They also introduced the Enduro Mountain Bike series, to attract a different segment of mountain bike riders.
Diehl said as a club, they are happy with the performance of Vera Looser, Rodger Suren, Alex Miller, Delsia Janse van Vuuren, and a host of other riders who won or finished on the podium in various international mountain bike champions, such as the XCM World Cup, where Looser and Miller received honours. In a recent top-quality event in South Africa, Miller, Piet Swiegers, and Frank Snyman dominated their age categories, with Miller in particular showing excellent form.
He also paid tribute to Nedbank Namibia for sponsoring the XC series, which kicked off in April with the Nedbank Namibia XC1 Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and UCI Junior Series XC1 races at the IJG Trails.
The XC0 National Cross-Country Championships took place in April, with the XC2 series taking place in June at the same venue.
The XC3 at Farm Bergquell followed, before the final race of the 2024 Nedbank Rock and Rut XC Series, which took place at Towerbos Trails.
Nedbank Executive Head for Marketing and Communications, Gernot de Klerk, commended the team’s dedication to growing mountain biking in the country, and their commitment to innovation through new venues and challenging courses that push the riders to new heights.
He also congratulated the Club for a successful season and added, “Since we began this journey with the Rock and Rut, we have seen an uptick in participants over the years which tells us that the series’ popularity has contributed to the growth of mountain bike races in the country. With the 2024 series now done and dusted, we await Africa’s ultimate mountain biking race, the Nedbank Desert Dash.”
Nedbank noted that the 2025 Rock and Rut XC Series season is scheduled to kick off on 5 April at a venue to be announced.