There were a lot of upset riders and team managers after Stage 4 of the 2013 Absa Cape Epic, as the rider and manager protest gave some time back to the riders who found themselves on the Stage 5 course. Full details of the protest have been posted already. With a stage length of 75km with 1800m of climbing, and about 25km of purpose built single track – it was set to be a fun day. However with anger in the legs of the leading riders, it would not be easy.
After a slower day yesterday with injury, the Scott-Swisspower pairing of Nino Schurter and Florian Vogel hit the front ‘full gas’ and opened up a good lead on the opening farm roads of the stage. Their gap increased to 40 seconds, and the Merida Multivan team of Rudi van Houts and Jose Hermida had an untimely flat, as the bunch started to chase. It was the race leaders Burry Stander-Songo Team of Christoph Sauser and Jaroslav Kulhavy who bridged across, and took the Telkom Hotspot that was also at water point 1. There was no stopping for fuel.
With Sauser and Kulhavy needing a bigger gap over the Team Bulls pairing of Karl Platt and Urs Huber who lie 2nd on General Classification, they forced the pace. Bulls were chasing behind with Cannondale Factory Racing riders Manuel Fumic and Marco Fontana. In the mixed, Biogen Britehouse were leading RE:CM, and Bridge had opened a good gap in Masters.
At water point two, Schurter lead in, and the teams stopped briefly to refuel. The gaps to teams behind were increasing, and there was no real main bunch together. With a lot of individual riders in the race now due to abandons, it has become very spread out. UCI riders in Outcast jerseys cannot be involved in the racing. So although they are there in numbers, they can’t close gaps or change the outcome of the race.
“Wasser! Iso!!”
In the Ladies race, Catherine Williamson and Yolande Speedy had a clear lead on the C-bear team of Dutch Champion Laura Turpijn and Sara Mertens. Both these teams are sleeping in tents, and not motorhomes or guest houses as many top teams are. That’s quite noteworthy!
On the climb after the water point, Songo dropped the Swiss couple, and set about creating a gap. The gap was about 40seconds, but increased on every climb. By the time the race returned to Wellington, the Burry Stander -Songo team had a gap of over 2:30 on the chasing Swisspower Team. Huber and Platt of Team Bulls were right behind Schurter and Vogel, rounding out the stage podium. With mechanicals preventing them from being at the front and animating the race, Multivan-Merida lost more time, coming in 5th, now 33minutes behind the lead on GC. Bulls are 2nd 3:43 back, Bulls 2 are 3rd 20:34 behind, and in 5th place Cannondale Factory Racing are 54:03 off the leaders. Behind the leading four riders, those are big gaps!
The Bridge pairing of Nico Pfitzenmaier and Abraao Azevedo (the man with the EuroFluro shoes) took out the Masters win, and hold a comfortable lead over Bart Brentjens and Robert Sim. Although Biogen Britehouse won the stage, the power couple of Ariane and Erik Kleinhans from Team RE:CM still lead the race by almost two hours. Australian’s Peta Mullens and Jarrod Moroni had a tough day after Mullens fell ill, and finished 6th, dropping to 3rd on GC.
Peta Mullens rides through WP2 as her partner Jarrod Moroni collects water and food.
There are just two stages left to go for the 2013 Absa Cape Epic. And the racing is on right until the finish line in Lourensford. Says Sauser of Burry Stander – SONGO: “This is my 29th stage win and I am thinking of making tomorrow my 30th, but finishing in overall first place at Lourensford is what is most important.” Adds Kulhavy: “We got up this morning and I’m not feeling that fresh any longer. But we went flat box right from the first kilometer even though we were tired from the previous days.”
Says Schurter of Scott-Swisspower MTB-Racing: “It was a good day for us. We were in the lead for a long time, drafting behind Christoph and Jaroslav. Florian got into a bit of trouble and we fell behind the leading group, but he got up again. It was a good day for Florian and a nice team result for us. It was a real mountain biking course with a lot of single-track. If every stage was like this, I’d definitely come and ride the Absa Cape Epic again.” Adds teammate Vogel: “It was a pretty tough day for me as the last couple of days took its toll. When I looked at today’s route, I thought it could only get better. There was a lot of single-track and I said to myself just go full gas in the beginning and try. You only have two options – dying or making it to the finish. Today’s course was more cross-country style – it was awesome and also not too hot. My best day at the Epic so far.”
Full results are on the Cape Epic website.
Will Hayter – battles on as an Outcast for Subaru-MarathonMTB.com
That’s four days of riding on my own now. And it’s getting pretty old. I found the first couple of days kind of OK, because I was just going really hard to get over the disappointment of not getting a proper finish. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep pushing as hard.
Today wasn’t a day just to trundle round like a tourist though; there was so much fantastic singletrack on the route that going slowly would have either meant getting held up on the good stuff, or holding other people up. So I had a rare early morning coffee and cracked on with it.
Riding as an Outcast is mentally challenging – more so than I expected. Last year I only did two days on my own, and in fact teamed up with Jeff Bossler, another rider who had lost his team-mate, so it was made a bit more palatable. This time though I’m properly tout seul.
The main rule that governs how you’re meant to race is that you’re not allowed to affect the outcome of the race. That’s quite tough for a number of reasons. You either have to sit on the back of groups or be off the front, on your own. Sitting on the back can actually be harder than being on the front, as you get the elastic effect in corners and up little pinch climbs. And that’s pretty unhelpful, because six days in I’m finding that although my basic speed is still OK, I’m really struggling with changes in pace. So the alternative is being off the front; but that’s also pretty hard, because (a) you have to be strong enough to ride on your own – fine on a good day, not so fine when fatigue has really arrived to stay; and (b) you have to be able to kick hard enough to get off the front so that the people in the group don’t benefit from your draft. Again, a change in pace that this particular diesel engine is increasingly struggling to generate.
Mentally it’s difficult, because as an Outcast you’re basically a nuisance. Clearly given where I am in the field, I’m not affecting the Men’s stage wins / GC; but I’m around the Mixed and Grand Masters leaders for example, and there are people in the Men’s field who are racing hard, perhaps for bragging rights or actually for UCI points. And seeing as I can’t help any group I’m with, I’m just in the way – an unwelcome irritation.
Don’t feel too sympathetic though – I was still riding my bike today in glorious sunshine, in spectacular scenery and on some great trails! And I’m loving the Bianchi Methanol 29 FS, combined with downhill skills enhanced by a session with Firecrest MTB training a few weeks ago. So it’s not all bad… Two days to go now, and then Mike and I can have a good few beers and some Pinotage together before disappearing off back to separate continents.
For what it’s worth, my make-believe position would have been somewhere in the low 20s again today, so still trucking on OK.