Evans and George win stage 4

Image 1 of 12

All the other pre-race favourites had stories to tell of how things went wrong for them at crucial moments. It cost them valuable minutes.

The day's biggest losers were undoubtedly Christoph Sauser (Songo-info) , Switzerland's world champion in the marathon discipline, and Max Knox (Ghost). They finished an hour and a half behind Team Nedbank 360Life.

The moment a rock sliced through one of Sauser's tyres, everything started to go wrong for them. Fixing the tyre was no problem, but in their haste to catch up with the leaders, they began to take risks.

Their worst mistake was to race right through a thorn bush. Five kilometres further on, they were really in trouble when the tyres on both mountain bikes were flat. Knox said they could not fix them because they did not have enough spare tubes with them.

"We tried to pull out as many thorns as we could and then rode on. The problem was that the tyres kept on going flat and we had to stop and pump every time before we could continue.

"We soon realized that we were fighting a losing battle and decided to settle into a nice comfortable rhythm until the finish."

Stage winner George said it was high time that "Lady Luck" sided with them again.

"We had only one puncture, and it was probably a blessing in disguise because, while we were fixing it, two teams raced past us," said George.

Neil MacDonald (RE:CM), in one of these teams, said he thought that for once they were in the pound seats. "I was the first to race into a technical section. Unfortunately I misjudged one of the corners and my bike began to slide. While I was battling to stay upright, I missed one of the route markers and took a wrong turn."

Ben-Melt Swanepoel and Nico Bell (Team Need Sponsor) blindly followed them.

In the meantime, Evans and George made sure that they stayed on track and, slowly but surely, they increased their lead.

The next small drama happened when Teams MTN-Qhubeka, RE:CM and Team Need Sponsor sprinted for the second position.

One of the route marshals was caught napping, and he pointed Adrien Niyonshuti, who was leading and racing at nearly 60kph at the time, in the wrong direction.

As a result of this, Niyonshuti, MacDonald, Waylon Woolcock, Swanepoel and Bell crossed the road in which they were supposed to turn off.

This enabled Jacques Janse van Rensburg, who was behind and saw what was happening, to make the correct turn and win the bunch sprint.

Unfortunately, Niyonshuti was the slowest to turn around to resume his sprint to the line. This meant that Swanepoel and Bell were the second team to finish and MacDonald and Woolcock the third.

Only six seconds separated these three teams.

The winning time of Evans and George for the 98km stage from Albertinia to Mossel Bay was three hours, 57 minutes and 53 seconds.

Erik and Ariane Kleinhans (Contego/Giant/Sludge) were the first mixed team to finish, whereas Ischen Stopforth and Catherine Williamson (Bizhub) were the winning women's team.

What made yesterday's stage remarkable was that the riders had to ride through the Gondwana Game Reserve which boasts with the Big 5 and freely roaming lions.

Luckily none of the lions were interested in the "meals on wheels" that were on offer.

Full Results