Article

Unbound Uncles Balance Battery Management to Perfection at the FNB W2W Pinotage

Sponsored by FNB

Battery management was the main concern for the E-Bike racers heading of Stage 2 of the Pinotage event at FNB Wines2Whales. 6 kilometres longer than Stage 1, with 200 more metres of climbing, meant that anyone who finished on the edge of their battery life would be at risk on Stage 2. After 2 hours of fierce racing, conservative battery use and speed on the singletracks allowed Matt Lombardi and Jason Boulle to reel in and beat Joris Ryf and Sofia Wiedenroth, when the latter’s battery ran flat in the final 3 kilometres.

Tuesday’s Play Day on the trail of Oak Valley and Paul Clüver is a test of both E-Bikes and their pilots. The 67-kilometre stage is easily conquered with one battery if riders cruise rather than race. In previous editions, FNB Wines2Whales allowed for a battery swap for the racers, but now anyone who swaps in a charged battery, using the race’s official battery transfer service, is ineligible for a podium place. Therefore, the top teams must balance speed with efficiency, pedalling as much as possible.

2024 Mixed Category E-Bike race winner, Lukas Dennda, predicted that battery management would be key on Stage 2. “It’ll be interesting,” the Bergstrom Factory Racing star predicted. “Tactics will come into it. Yesterday, the Hellsend Uncles team switched batteries. For us, Santina [Malacarne] used more battery life, while I was able to conserve by turning my motor off when I was up to speed. Today’s 67 kilometres route and 200 metres extra of climbing will definitely affect how each team tries to strike the perfect balance…”

After the relatively fast and open first 15 kilometres, the trails flowed into one another, virtually back-to-back. This, combined with the fact that after the initial loop, there was hardly a 10-metre stretch of flat trail, ensured an action-packed day. “Sometimes we were going faster than the trails are built to accommodate, especially uphill,” Frankie du Toit noted. “On the Rietvlei switchback climb, we had to brake to avoid going off the trail, because you simply can’t turn sharp enough at that speed.”

The technology of the various E-Bike manufacturers also came into play. “The World Champs [Joris Ryf and Sofia Wiedenroth] and the Impact Foundation [Pieter Malan and Matt Venn] are on Specialized E-Bikes which can be tuned to a max speed of 45 kilometres per hour,” Matt Lombardi pointed out. “You can’t ride that speed without using more battery life, but it does allow them to ride away from us on the flat, where our Treks are governed to 32 kilometres per hour. It’s frustrating to see them ride away on the open roads, but we had to try to make up time on the singletrack climbs.”

The day played out as expected for the overnight leaders. With the top 25 E-Bike teams on the general classification, regardless of the category they are entered in, starting together, the Specialized Factory Racing team was able to utilise their superior power and higher top speed to establish an early advantage. Having endured mechanicals on Stage 1, Michard Meets and Freddie Visser were out of the general classification battle, but the Specialized Chaos team was equipped with the same machines as Ryf and Wiedenroth. This allowed them to escape off the front with the Mixed Category leaders and by the first water point, at the 29-kilometre mark, at the Paul Clüver Amphitheatre, the quartet lead Lombardi and Boulle by 2 minutes.

Having started the day 2 minutes and 6 seconds ahead of the Specialized Factory Racing team, the Unbound Uncles’ overall lead was at risk of being overturned. “I didn’t think we’d catch them!” Boulle confessed. “But we just kept pushing the singletracks and eventually began to reel them in.”

A technical which forced Ryf and Wiedenroth to stop briefly helped the South Africans close the gap on their second pass through the Paul Clüver Amphitheatre, for Water Point 3, 11 kilometres from the finish line. By then, Visser had been distanced, as he was unable to match the speed of the former E-MTB World Champions and the men who had raced on the Enduro World Series through the singletracks. With Meets waiting for Visser, it was a head-to-head shootout between the top Men’s team and the top Mixed team.

The open roads and non-technical trails in the final kilometres suited the Specialized Factory Racing pairing, but Wiedenroth’s earlier efforts had drained her battery dangerously low. With 5 kilometres left to race, Ryf was forced to sprint ahead and start removing his bike’s battery so that he could swap with his teammate to help her power through the finale. The tactical move came too late. The advantage Lombardi and Boulle gained while Ryf and Wiedenroth were stationary proved to be the difference between the two teams.

The Unbound Uncles’ stage-winning margin was just 120 seconds. Ryf and Wiedenroth were second, ahead of Meets and Visser on the all-comers podium. The Haibike / Thömus team of Kathrin Stirnemann and Anna Spielmann was fourth on the day. Stirnemann is a two-time Cross-Country Eliminator World Champion and silver medallist in the E-MTB World Championships. Her teammate, Spielmann, is the reigning E-MTB World Champion, having dethroned Wiedenroth in September 2025.

The day’s action did not result in any changes atop the category general classifications, though Matthew Grobler and Christoff van Heerden leapfrog Pieter Malan and Matt Venn into second in the Men’s category behind Lombardi and Boulle. The battles to watch on the final day are the renewal of hostilities between the Unbound Uncles and Specialized Factory Racing, as well as the fight for silver in the men’s race. 4 minutes and 5 seconds separate the Men’s and Mixed category leaders, while there is 1 minute and 54 seconds between the ACEPAK and Impact Foundation teams.

Stirnemann and Spielmann could also move up in the all-categories standings. Currently, the Haibike / Thömus combination is fourth overall, just 43 seconds behind Grobler and Van Heerden. If they are to do so there could be a Men’s, Mixed, and Women’s team on the final E-MTB podium of the Pinotage race, at FNB Wines2Whales.

The final stage is a 63-kilometre blast to Lourensford. The main talking point of the day is the mandatory portage down the Gantouw Pass. The trails to the pass are fast and relatively open, which should suit the Specialized Factory Racing team. Then, through Idiom and Vergelegen, the route trends downhill on dual-track, which does not offer either of the top two teams a significant advantage. In Lourensford, the trails become tighter and more twisty again, theoretically swinging the pendulum back in the Unbound Uncles’ favour.

Tune in to see if positions change in what is sure to be another electrically charged day of racing in the Pinotage. Follow @wines_2_whales on Instagram or like the Wines2Whales Facebook page for updates by professional mountain biker and social media star, Pieter du Toit, in the Instagram and Facebook stories. Later mountain biking fans can tune in to the Epic Series YouTube channel for daily highlights. For more information, please visit www.epic-series.com/races/wines2whales.