Reviewing the 2013 Absa Cape Epic

Sauser. Kulhavy. Well Sauser’s here every year, and Kulhavy was here particularly to pay respects to Burry Stander. Brentjens, Frischknecht, Boelts, Platt, Dietsch, Huber, Mennen, Lakata. Well, this kind of racing is what they do these days. But what about Schurter, Vogel, Fumic, Fontana, Hermida, Van Houts, Paulissen? It starts to read like a who’s who of world cross country mountain biking. Current world champion, Olympic champion as well as silver and bronze medallists. It’s a group of riders with so many rainbow stripes between them that it’s hard to count them. And as for national championships, I wouldn’t even know where to start.

For me this is one of the big indicators that this is a race going from strength to strength, and one of its big draws. Not just because it is exciting to have a deep field at the top end, but because it is the only chance most ordinary riders are ever going to have to take part in the same race as the best riders in the world. As a road racer, even a decent amateur, the idea of racing against Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen or Philippe Gilbert belongs in cloud cuckoo land; or to look further afield, the chances of an amateur footballer rubbing shoulders with David Beckham or Fernando Torres is right up there with the chances of George Osborne admitting that he may not quite have got the UK’s economic recovery strategy quite right. But in the Epic, as a decent amateur, providing you can clock a top 50 result in the prologue, you can literally rub shoulders with the the Cavendishes / Gilberts / Beckhams of the mountain biking world (don’t rub too hard though – bringing down a pro would be the ultimate faux pas…). And the great thing about mountain bikers is that they’re an approachable bunch – world champions and other top pros alike, happy to have a chat in the start chute; the top guys are just like all of us, happy to discuss the relative merits of hardtails vs. full-sus, or whatever the topic du jour may be.

There are plenty of people who want to knock the Absa Cape Epic. Odds on those people aren’t racing it in the year when they feel the need to pass comment on it – could it be that they are feeling that they are missing out?

Yes, it is a big corporate machine and occasionally that can grate; but getting the big sponsors is part of what makes it the event it is. Yes, it’s pretty expensive to enter; but providing these kinds of rider facilities out in remote parts of South Africa doesn’t come cheap. And I’ve heard some comments to the effect that the riding at this or that or the other race is better; well, it felt pretty good from where I was sitting.

What of the quality of the actual competition? With all those big names in the men’s event, there was bound to be some exciting racing. There were several different holders of the yellow jersey during the course of the race – Hermida / Van Houts, Huber / Platt, and Kulhavy / Sauser, the eventual winners. And the lead swapped back and forth between Sauser / Kulhavy’s Songo-Burry Stander team and Platt and Huber of the Bulls. The contest between these two was slightly marred by a couple of wrong turns at crucial moments. Of course over eight days, most of the course is unknown to the riders, and in the heat of the contest, even the best course markings can be missed. Ideally the results should be decided by the racing, and these things should not happen, but in reality sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Stage 4 in particular was affected, with a hold-up on the results while the commissaires considered an appeal by Team Bulls and Merida-Multivan after their riders had missed a turn and then ended up inadvertently following the next day’s markings, already laid out in preparation. Seven minutes separated the top two teams by the end, which over almost 30 hours of racing is pretty close. Realistically though, over the course of eight days, with teams throwing everything at it, things are going to go wrong – mechanicals, illness, crashes all affected top riders as well as amateurs, so that there were in the end only a few teams realistically in the running for the yellow jerseys.

Nowhere were the perils of stage racing on rough terrain as apparent as in the women’s field. The top two favourite teams both dropped out – Esther Suss of Wheeler-BMC with illness, leaving her partner Jane Nuessli to soldier on alone in an Outcast jersey, and Milena Landtwing of Topeak Ergon similarly, although her partner Sally Bigham pulled out, disappointed, to return to Jonkershoek to continue training away from the race. This left the field wide open, but despite this the field was still beset by crashes. Eventual winners Catherine Williamson and Yolande Speedy of Energas might have thought they had seen enough injuries for the week when Williamson cut her elbow down to the tendons on day 2, and then evened herself up with a crash affecting the other elbow later in the week; but then on the penultimate day, Speedy crashed hard, fracturing her collarbone and two ribs. Not wanting to sacrifice what was a career highlight victory for both riders, she soldiered on, heavily taped up, and the duo managed to hold on to enough of their comfortable cushion over second place to secure the win. Chapeau. It was also good to see other teams up on the podium, such as the Belgian / Dutch pairing of Sara Mertens and Laura Turpijn, for C-Bear, who won the last two stages.

The red African jersey also saw some good racing. After the disgrace of half of last year’s top African team, David George, it was good to see some local riders mixing it up near the top of the field. The jersey changed hands between Lill and Keey of Cannondale Blend and Beukes and Buys of Scott Factory Racing, with the latter eventually profiting from Lill’s stomach bug and taking top honours, also taking sixth overall.

And what about the course? I think I heard 50km of singletrack quoted. I don’t know whether that’s accurate, but it feels plausible, and I reckon that’s pretty good in an eight-day stage race for 1200 riders. And that singletrack was well managed too. The risk with including so much singletrack in a race with so many riders is that the fun is sucked out of it by too much walking. Doubtless some riders will have suffered that fate occasionally; but the organisers took the sensible decision to stagger the start of the singletrack-heavy stage 5 over an hour and a half – a great call. There were some great trails in the race – whether for the scenery, the buzz of the trail or a combination of both. Particularly memorable was the lengthy trail built by the Hanekom brothers through dramatic sandstone rock formations on stage 2.

It’s natural to want to compare one race with another. Which one’s hardest? Which one’s most fun? Which one has the best scenery, or the best facilities, or the best coffee, or whatever? We could argue about whether there is any point doing that, but it’s going to happen anyway.

Bits of this race weren’t for the faint-hearted. The hot, sandy walking of Stage 1 will have brought many riders close to breaking point, and that’s only on day 2! The cumulative fatigue will have hurt others; and still more were brought down by illness or injury. 176 riders didn’t finish the race. Out of about 1,200 starters, that’s a decent rate of attrition. And that attrition is not limited to amateurs – Robert Mennen out courtesy of a some wildlife.

Knox and Yamamoto were gone after a crash, Buchli, Boelts, Ronchi, Stoll, Landtwing, Suess. The list goes on. But for my money that’s how it should be – this should be a tough event to finish; otherwise where would be the pride or sense of achievement in completing it? If it were easy, anyone could do it. But as those numbers say, not everyone can do it, which is why so many people come back again to again to take on the challenge, and why members of the thrice-finisher Amabubesi club wear their special jerseys with such pride.

The rider facilities are truly impressive, particularly when you consider that the whole set-up has to be built from scratch for each stage village – this isn’t the Alps where there are small towns at regular intervals that can put up 1200 riders and associated crew / hangers-on. Now having completed its tenth year, the race has got to the point of refining the minor details: The experience on crossing the line each day is a case in point: one set of smiling helpers hands you cold Coke, water, Energade. Another smiling and energetic crew member takes your bike away to the Pragma bike wash. And then the cheery folk from Woolworths not only hand you a bag full of tasty bits and pieces to get the recovery process started, but they place a towel that has been soaked in iced water on the back of your neck. How’s that for attention to detail?

So for now enjoy some of the great photos, particularly those captured by one of the Epic’s stalwarts, Gary Perkin, and get on the case to enter the lottery for next year…