What is Hills & Waves?
The Hills and Waves Road Cycling Series presented by MD24 will be made up of different road cycling events in KZN. Should circumstances allow, additional events will be included in future.
The clear purpose of the series is to promote road cycling in KZN and incentivise riders to take part in a series of quality road races throughout the province and thus raise the profile of road cycling in KZN.
Each event in the series will keep its own identity and will be responsible for all aspects of event organisation, but the Hills and Waves Road Cycling Series will be the umbrella brand that will draw all the events together.
The series will also be a vehicle to provide incentives for riders to enter different events via lucky prizes for all riders, while racing snakes can earn bragging rights via a simple log and earn entry into the new aQuellé Tour Durban invitation race.
The projected events identified to form part of the inaugural series in 2025/26 are follows:
- Brink Karkloof Road Classic (Karkloof / Howick) – 14th September 2025
- Biggarsberg Road Challenge (Dundee) – 19th October 2025
- South Coast Cycle Tour (Scottburgh / Port Edward) – 7th December 2025
- Durban M13 Cycle Challenge (Durban) – 25th January 2026
- Richards Bay Cycle Challenge (Richards Bay) – March 2026
- aQuellé Tour Durban (Durban) – 19th April 2026
The final event of the series will be the aQuellé Tour Durban, and each entry in any event in the series will be included in a lucky draw with a prize pool of at least R20 000 to be drawn at the Tour Durban. Riders who take part in more than one event will be exponentially rewarded with entries into the draw (see below). To qualify for the lucky draw, riders must participate in the aQuellé Tour Durban.
The breakdown of lucky draw prizes are as follows:
- 1st: R7 500
- 2nd: R5 000
- 3rd: R4 000
- 4th: R2 500
- 5th: R1 000
The more events that the riders take part in apart from the aQuellé Tour Durban, the more entries they will receive in the lucky draw competition in an escalated manner, with the breakdown being as follows:
- 1x event = 1 entry
- 2x events = 3 entries
- 3x events = 6 entries
- 4x events = 10 entries
- 5x events = 15 entries
Those riders that have taken part in events in the series will have more chance of being included in the group that will form part of the invitation racing group at the aQuellé Tour Durban.
Those that do all five events before Tour Durban will receive a bespoke participation medal, and there will be a series “roll of honour” board on the series website and social media pages to acknowledge those people that have taken part in three or more events in the series.