With less than two weeks to go to the upcoming aQuellé Tour Durban, defending men’s champion’s Team Enza has committed to send their strongest possible team down to the KwaZulu-Natal East Coast for the road race on Sunday, 28 November.

It’s been a busy schedule for the team and that will continue through to the end of the year with the recent success at the Cape Town Cycle Tour and another dash to Cape Town for the Double Century before jetting to Durban for the Tour Durban the next day.

The team racing on 28 November will consist of David Maree, Clint Hendricks, multiple-times champion Nolan Hoffman and the current defending champion Steven van Heerden.

Photo : Tobias Ginsberg CTCT Media

Hoffman continued to wind back the years when he won his fourth Cape Town Cycle Tour last month and continues to race at the highest level regularly.

Maree says heading to Durban for the aQuellé Tour Durban was a very simple decision for the team.

“A number of us spent a lot of time racing in Durban and became very comfortable there and loved racing the Tour Durban,” Maree said. “We always saw ourselves as Durban boys and just loved racing there so we didn’t hesitate when making the decision to enter the Tour Durban.

“It’s always been one of the bigger races in South African with good coverage and support for the local elite teams so we are looking forward to coming back.”

Heading into the 2021 edition of the race, the team’s plans look well established and the tactics will be geared towards an decisive end sprint.

“We think that an end sprint will give us the best chance of winning the race because we have a strong team of sprinters so we need to try and make sure that we ride a race that will get us to the line.

“The other teams will know that we are looking for that end sprint so they will be hoping to avoid that which will make for an exciting race for sure.

“There are going to be a quite a few elite teams on the line and everyone has been training really hard through a busy period of racing so it should be a really exciting race,” Maree added.

This year’s event will see a race specifically for the elite riders to prevent them from sharing a road with the recreational riders. The race will be contested over 101km which is different to previous years, however for Maree and the team they are relishing whatever the route might be.

“The route has always been a really big part of why we come down and race the Tour Durban and we are expecting it to be really exciting even with the changes that we are expecting.

“We love travelling down to Durban and for Clint and I to be flying up from Cape Town the day before after we race shows the importance of the Tour Durban for us as a team,” he explained.