Today was the Queen stage at the Absa Cape Epic for 2013. A mere 146km from Citrusdal to Saronsberg wine estate in Tulbagh, with 2350m of climbing. It was billed as something of a ‘roadie’ stage; and indeed there was a decent amount of tar and dirt road. Despite the length, this was almost certainly a refreshing change for most of the riders, after yesterday’s sandy brutality.
The lead group on the first climb – look four back from Hermida for somone punching well above his weight.
Photo by Dan Mazilu of www.dirtbike.ro
There was a sting in the tail though – while the last 16km were predominantly downhill, before that riders had to tackle first a fairly technical rocky climb, then a very steep, loose 1km number. This was painful to say the least, with 130km already in the legs.
The stage had an interesting profile – steady 18km climb at the start, gaining 900m, up onto the Koue Bokkeveld, which is known for its spectacular sandstone formations. It stayed up at that height, hitting the highest point of the entire race midway through, at 1,150m, until that last 16km downhill, which included a long stretch of exhilarating, rocky singletrack, zigzagging its way down onto the plain below to find Saronsberg.
A real highlight of the course was a lengthy piece of singletrack during the stage, built by the Hanekom brothers (who are also riding the race) through some of those amazing sandstone formations.
Roadie stage or not, it provided the basis for some big changes to the general classifications in two categories. In Men, Team Bulls (Platt and Huber) won the day, and also took the yellow jerseys away from Merida Multivan (Hermida and van Houts). The gap to the yellow jerseys was 12 minutes. Now lying second are Bulls 2 – an amazing performance from the squad – after Dietsch and Boehme finished second today. Kulhavy and Sauser of Burry Stander – Songo were third, nine minutes back.
Urs Huber and Karl Platt of the Bulls celebrate after winning stage 2 during stage 2 of the 2013 Absa Cape Epic
Photo by Karin Schermbrucker/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
The other dramatic change was in the Ladies event, where team Energas (Yolande Speedy and Cath Williamson) took the win, 36 minutes ahead of second place; previous leaders Ester Suess and Jane Nuessli were, like a number of riders, hit by illness overnight, and struggled, losing 1:22 to today’s winners. They had a 33 minute lead overnight, so are now around 50 minutes behind; not an insurmountable disadvantage given their strength, but certainly a major setback.
during stage 2 of the 2013 Absa Cape Epic
Photo by Sam Clark/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
The other three categories – Mixed, Masters and Grand Masters – were all unchanged, with their respective leaders taking the stage wins.
Team Subaru-MarathonMTB.com’s day
Talking of setbacks…
This race has not been kind to Mike and Will of Subaru-MarathonMTB.com. After a broken collarbone in 2011, and a busted knee in 2012, 2013 was meant to be third time lucky. But it wasn’t to be. I was surprised not to find Mike at breakfast; when I enquired, it turned out that his supper had been ejecting itself from his body since 2:30 this morning. The poor chap was a shadow of his former self. We entertained brief thoughts of him carrying on, but with a 6-7 hour day in prospect even if fit, it wasn’t a day to be starting in a severely weakened state; we quite quickly made the call for him to see the medics and then get in a van for transport to Tulbagh.
So in echoes of 2012, I was on my tod again. A major part of the raison d’etre of this race is that it is a team affair; you depend on each other on and off the bike. So it’s just not the same event as a solo. Plus the minor detail that you don’t get an official result. Anyway, solo or not, there was a stage to be ridden. So I got packed up this morning, and stood in the start chute feeling a bit sorry for myself (and more so for Mike).
As I often find though, the best way to mitigate such feelings of frustration is to take them out through the legs. So I essentially went about hurting myself for the next six hours. As the course went uphill for the first 18k, I was somewhat surprised to find myself still with the lead group after half an hour. Less surprised as I blew a gasket a little way before the KOM. And then surprised again to find myself pulling back onto the lead group at the bottom of the first descent, aided by a couple of Spaniards who were in the same predicament. I permitted myself a smile or two at being in the company of many of the best MTBers in the world; if ever someone was punching above their weight, I was that person!
That dream ended as we hit a sandy section and the field stretched out. Although I was comforted to see that even the pros aren’t immune to sand – various people were all over the show on one section. From that point on until the last two climbs, I managed to settle myself into a group containing all the top Masters teams – a bunch of gnarly-legged hardcases, headed by Udo Boelts. I say ‘settle’ – it was pretty much a grovel fest for the next four hours. I can’t remember hurting myself quite as badly on a bike for such a long time.
So if there was anything to salvage from the day, it was at least what felt like a decent ride on my part; but it would been much better to do it with my team-mate.
Some video coverage from the day: