The Chardonnay race in the trio of FNB Wines2Whales events gets the Switchback series underway on Friday, 5 November. It sees South Africa’s best mountain bikers take part in the women’s race, with the Cape-based teams headlining the field.

The end of the year and the FNB Wines2Whales is nearly upon South African mountain bikers and mountain biking fans. After its Covid-enforced hiatus in 2020, the three-event series returns with the Chardonnay, Pinotage and Shiraz races in November 2021. In a switchback of the usual route, the races will start in Onrus, near Hermanus, and trace the path from whales to wines, through the Elgin valley to Lourensford.

As is now customary the Elite women’s event is first on the schedule, with R252 000 being paid out to the women in the UCI category. A whopping R100 000 is up for grabs for the winning general classification team; this makes FNB Wines2Whales the most highly awarded stage race in South Africa, per day of racing.

The women’s field who will be contesting the 2021 Chardonnay Switchback includes the all-South African team of Mariske Strauss and Candice Lill (Faces Rola), 2019 champion Amy McDougall partnering Jennie Stenerhag (Fairtree), while Sarah Hill is joined by Barbara Benko’s fresh legs (Maloja-Liv Cycling).

Galileo Infiniti SPOT’s flag will be flown by Kim le Court and Mari Rabie. The future of South African cycling is represented by the youthful combination of Tiffany Keep and Courtney Webb (Valley Electrical Titan Racing), with #MBMladies’s Janice Venter and Courtney Liebenberg along with Wintergreen Barrier Breakers’ Elrika Harmzen-Pretorius and Leone Verster adding depth to the field.

The likely main protagonists should be the Faces Rola and Fairtree teams, however. With both combinations having raced together, and against each other just a few weeks ago, they are in sync, but how well they recovered between the 24th of October and the 5th of November could the key differentiator.

Jennie Stenerhag is, arguably, the most experienced rider in the FNB W2W Chardonnay event as she won three editions in succession from 2015 to 2017, and knows the FNB W2W route exceptionally well. She is enthusiastic about the change of direction in 2021. “I am really looking forward to the Switchback” Stenerhag enthused. “I’ve lost count of how many FNB W2W I’ve done; I think it’s at least 10. So, the Switchback will be something new and fresh. I don’t think it will impact the racing that much though; we kind of race the same way no matter the course. But to run down Gantouw pass on tired legs, on Stage 3, is something very different to running up it on fresh legs, on the traditional Stage 1!”

Mountain biking fans can tune in to the FNB Wines2Whales action from Friday, 5 November, on www.wines2whales.com. There they will find daily news features from the race, highlights videos and photo galleries from the trails of whales to wines.