Easing into the 2014 Absa Cape Epic – the Prologue

At a big stage race, it can feel like a bit of a marathon just arriving at the start line, let alone the finish. The critical point to reach is when you arrive at the first main stage village after the prologue; once you’re there, you can settle into the rhythm of the race. But before that, there’s uncertainty about how the team will go, there’s some nervous anticipation about starting the race, and there’s the simple logistics of travel and packing. Here’s how it goes.

Arriving in Cape Town

Challenge number one, for international riders, is arriving in Cape Town with a bike and the right bags (not forgetting actually having done some training). A good reason in itself for arriving a few days before the beginning of the race. There were still people landing on Saturday, with the race starting on Sunday. That seems to me like a recipe for stress and problems; and you’re counting on everything going smoothly, or you could find yourself without a bike on race day.

Prologue -1

There are a few things that need to get done on D-Day minus 1; it’s registration day, bag-packing day, and logistics day. At its worst it can feel like a day of pure faff. But the organisation shone this year, with the whole process going much more smoothly than can sometimes be the case.

Registration at a stage race involves rather more than just signing your name on a sheet of paper. There’s the whole bag process – getting your race-issue kit bag, which the organisers will be transporting from stage town to stage town. This year the Absa Cape Epic is sponsored by Evoc, with the result that the race bag is a high-quality item, not just your basic hold-all. And it came full of an assortment of goodies – Absa Cape Epic-branded Columbia softshell jacket, Woolworths towel, laundry bag, flip-flops (thongs for the Aussies), baseball cap, T-shirt, Buff, etc. etc.

Once registered (with a merciful lack of queues this year) the job back at the hotel is to sort out the bag that you flew with, work out what you really need, and what you can really fit in the race bag; sort through the new goodies, and get the bag organised so that you’ve got a chance of finding the right kit at 4:45am each day when the alarm goes.

The prologue at the Absa Cape Epic is a 40-minute drive from Cape Town, where registration is; so bag, bike and rider all have to make their way there. So the bike needs loading on a dedicated truck at a particular time; and the bike box / bag that you flew with have to get onto a different truck to be sent to the finish in Lourensford on day 8. Logistics logistics logistics.

Prologue

Early breakfast, before getting the race bag down to the bus, along with a bag for the day, with the right ride kit. Then it’s a case of getting to the prologue venue, in this case the beautiful Meerendal wine estate, finding your bike, getting kitted up and cracking on with the race. But then once the race is done, you have to confirm that your bike has the right kind of sticker on it to get transported two hours to the first full stage venue, before finding the right bus, hopefully with your bag on it, for the journey to Robertson.

First job at a new race village is always to find a ‘good’ tent, and get your heavy race bag across the race village site to it. ‘Good’ being some magic combination of relative closeness to the loos (but not too close!), avoiding any noisy generators, also avoiding any sources of other night-time light or noise, hopefully also not miles away from the food tent, water sources, and ideally with Wifi access…

Aaaaand, relax. Oh, and get hydrating and eating, because tomorrow is a long day.

The race

While the rest of us might have something of a battle to make sure we just reach the start-line, the pros, with their RVs and soigneurs, are focused on duking it out for the win, and the first yellow / orange jerseys.

Jose Hermida and Rudi Van Houts of Merida rode a great race to finish first in the men’s race, dispatching BMC’s Fluckiger and Fanger and Topeak-Ergon’s Mennen and Hynek by 12 and 80 seconds respectively. Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Christoph Sauser trailed in ninth, over three minutes down. Hard not to reflect on his new and (in MTBing) relatively untested team-mate, Frantisek Rabon. Other notable riders were Nino Schurter in fifth with his South African team-mate, Philip Buys – who has got to be in for a tough week; what a wheel to follow… And then the top Bulls team of Platt and Huber in sixth, having given away two minutes. The race already looks interesting.

For the women, Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad of team RECM recorded a convincing victory, two minutes ahead of the other favourites, Esther Suss and Sally Bigham of Team Meerendal. Third were Ralph and Stenerhag of Cape Brewing Company. Last year’s third place overall, Sara Mertens and Laura Turpijn of Team Meerendal had a tough day, with a  crash and a recalcitrant puncture, finishing in eighth, but will no doubt be back to fight another day.

Team Open-Rotor’s Prologue

Subaru-MarathonMTB.com’s Will Hayter is guesting with Jeff Bossler on Team Open-Rotor-Asterion Wheels. We placed 49^th on GC – just scraping into Pen A for the first full stage. Apart from staying upright, and not having mechanical issues, that was pretty much the main objective. As non-UCI-registered riders this year, we started mid-pack, about an hour before the leading contenders hit the gate. As a result, there were quite a few people to pass if we wanted to do well. A fun, singletrack-laden course means overtaking can be tricky; and you don’t want to screw up either your own race or someone else’s, with any reckless overtaking manoeuvres. Today that meant a lot of red-lining to overtake as many people as possible on the climbs, and a few frustrating moments on the descents, as one rider in particular wasn’t too keen to let us past. In general though, people were very good, making space as quickly as they reasonably could.