Bryanston cyclist claims gold at the Gauteng Provincial Trial championships | Sandton Chronicle

Bryanston lifelong cyclist and Bryanston Primary School teacher Martin Pieterse (43) proved that high-performance sport is not reserved for full-time professionals.

Pieterse recently competed in the Gauteng Provincial Trial championships and claimed first-place in the men’s 40-49 category and was awarded the gold medal.

The championships featured an 18.8km Individual Time Trial where Pieterse delivered a dominant ride, stopping the clock at 24 minutes and 15 seconds at an average speed of 46km/h.

Read more: Bryanston lifelong cyclist claims Provincial Time Trial title

Pieterse’s cycling journey began at the age of 14. “I used to go to world championships already as a junior and competed in a lot of races and podiums. It has been a long journey; I did stop for a couple of years, though. But for the past 12 years, I’ve been riding competitively again as a veteran, not as a professional.”

Unlike his early racing days, Pieterse now balances cycling with full time teaching career, saying balancing the two has been his biggest challenge.

“As an adult, it’s difficult to squeeze in training time while you have a full-time job. It obviously takes a lot of dedication and time to spend on the bicycle, but I was prepared at an early age for this.”

Building up to the day of the competition, Pieterse focused on training blocks, workouts and his pacing.

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“I trained blocks of 20-minute efforts so that I could know my sustainable effort, and then did some workouts. There’s a little bit of science and calculation involved, knowing how to pace yourself and knowing where to push harder.”

With the course being flat, Pieterse knew sustained power and aerodynamics would play a big role in his finish time.

“Knowing that it was the flat course, I knew what sustained power. Therefore, I had to push to have a reasonable finish time and obviously, your position and aerodynamics make a huge difference in a time trial.”

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