2014 Absa Cape Epic – only a few days to go

Too late! Too late for any more training, probably too late for any significant changes to bikes and kit, definitely too late to get an entry; the 2014 Absa Cape Epic is now only a few days away.

The race is now on its eleventh edition, and still going from strength to strength. This year sees a mixture of locations old and new, some new sponsors, and as ever a really high-class field of riders.

The route

As in recent years, the race starts with a prologue at Meerendal Wine Estate, including a decent amount of climbing in only 23km. No doubt there will be some good photo opportunities, like last year’s early launch through one of the older winery buildings and down some steps. And the race ends in its traditional way on the lush lawns at Lourensford Wine Estate, via, also now almost traditionally, Oak Valley at Elgin. The second venue, Arabella Wines at Robertson, is new, but not new is the punchy start to the week, with the first three stages all over 100km.

The real stinger doesn’t arrive until Stage 5 though, which on paper at least looks like a clear queen stage, with almost 3,000m, or a fifth of the climbing from the whole eight days on one stage.

I say “on paper”, because you never know what the Epic will throw at you. An innocuous-looking flattish section could hide a Pandora’s Box of sandy difficulty, or scorching heat that turns a steady climb into an oven.

And to add to the mix, after an entirely dry race in 2013, this year looks like seeing lower temperatures and a bit of rain in the first few days. We must hope nothing compared to the Friday of 2012’s race, which involved proper rain and quite a lot of people getting very cold at the top of the biggest climb.

 

The field

Whatever the route looks like, the riders make the racing; and true to form, the Epic has got some strong teams in attendance. There are new faces and old, and some new combinations of seasoned Epic riders.

In the men’s field, any team with multiple event winner Christoph Sauser in has got to be a favourite. No Jaroslav Kulhavy this year, but Sauser’s team-mate for Meerendal Songo Specialized will be another Czech rider, seasoned roadie Frantisek Rabon. Cross-country world champion Nino Schurter is also back, this time with local boy Philip Buys, who had a successful race in 2013, narrowly missing out on winning the final stage into Lourensford.

Team BMC returns with an previous Epic stage winner in the form of Lukas Fluckiger, paired with Epic newbie Martin Fanger. And beyond that there are many of the usual suspects: everyone’s favourite cross-country racer / stand-up comedian Jose Hermida is back; let’s hope he makes it onto the stage with a mic as well as onto the podium again; the Bulls have not two but three teams – Platt / Huber, Boehme / Stiebjahn, Sahm / Dietsch; and Topeak-Ergon have Mennen and Hynek.

As ever, with such a strong field and a challenging course, the race dynamics will develop in all sorts of interesting ways over the week, as GC contenders lose time due to mechanicals or clashes and then focus on stage wins, or the lead changes hands several times during the week.

The women’s race for the first time offers equal prize money to the men; a great benchmark for the Epic to set. South African company, Sasol, is stepping up as sponsor to make it happen. And as a result the field is as good as you would expect. It starts with Esther Suss and Sally Bigham for Team Meerendal – both former winners, and both will no doubt be hungry after stomach problems ended Suss’s 2013 race and that of Bigham’s then team-mate. They’ve got some very interesting competition, firstly in the form of Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad of RECM. Having won the Mixed category with husband Erik, Kleinhans is looking to expand her palmares in the Women’s category. And in Langvad, a two-time marathon world champion, she seems to have found a worthy partner. Barring mishap or injury, it’s hard to look beyond those two teams for the win, in my opinion. But then again this is the Epic, so the teams have more to deal with than just the opposition – the conditions, the terrain, the challenge of racing consistently hard over eight days. And if the two top teams have problems, the others will be snapping at their heels.

After the two main categories, Cherise Stander and Theo Blignaut of RECM are favourites in Mixed; there should be an interesting battle in Masters between the teams of Bart Brentjens, Udo Boelts and Shan Wilson; and in Grand Masters last year’s winners, Barti Bucher and Heinz Zoerweg, are now racing against each other, which should provide a good contest.

Then there are the two special categories – the red Africa jersey, which seems likely to be fought between Cannondale Blend (Lill and Keey) and RECM (Kleinhans and Bell); and the green Exxaro jersey, where there are three previous winners racing in different teams this year – Phillimon Sebona, Prince Maseko and Siphosenkosi Madolo.

New sponsors

The Absa Cape Epic has always been a bit of a commercial juggernaut among mountain bike races, and it seems just to get bigger in this respect. Assos is on board to provide the leaders’ jerseys; Columbia for other clothing, and Evoc has also joined the party. And headline sponsor Absa has just signed for another five years.

MarathonMTB.com’s presence

There is no dedicated Subaru-MarathonMTB.com team in the race this year, but Subaru-MarathonMTB.com racer Will Hayter will be guesting as one half of Team Open-Rotor, with diminutive but speedy Frenchman Jeff Bossler. Check back during the week for reports on their race and the event generally.

For more information, the event’s new www.cape-epic.com has everything you need, including, for the first time, live tracking of teams as they race.