Charl Digs Deep, I lose 4 minutes on GC and we get a call from Canada ♥️ | Gravel Burn 2026 Stage 02
Stage 2 of the Nedbank Gravel Burn 2026: the Blaauwater loop, 105 km and 1,450 m of climbing around the Kompassberg (2,502 m, the Karoo’s Matterhorn), past Nieu-Bethesda and back to Burn Camp. Yesterday I won my category by four minutes. Today I felt the pressure of the jersey. I tried to go with the front group, blew up, and spent the day on the wheel of a Japanese Olympian… until Charl came flying past at 60 km and towed the whole group for 20 km. He cramped on the last climb, I got away, and I took another four minutes on him (8 minutes in total now). But the guy second in my age category clawed back more than four minutes on me: my lead in the M35–39 jersey is down from 4:20 to just 10 seconds. Up front, Matt Beers and Filippo Colombo went away on the first climb and stayed away for 100 km; Colombo won the sprint and Beers is in the leader’s jersey. Hayley Preen finally got her Gravel Burn stage win with an attack on the Tafelkop climb. At Burn Camp: bike washes, a Burn Pod, a 10-year-old called Logan who phoned from Canada (happy birthday for Thursday, Logan!), and the guys from Herotel who keep “150 up, 150 down” running in the middle of the Karoo.