An Epic Week - Riding the 2013 Cape Epic (Part 4)

Total Focus

The most technical section of the stage looms, and while I’m looking forward to it, some dudes ahead of us seem intimidated, grabbing brakes unnecessarily and trying to dab their way down rock-lined chute. A fight almost ensues when another rider pushes past Brendan and almost sends him headlong into a tree in that very chute. Not cool – but I stay on my bike and sit tight for the ride down.

Approaching the N1 highway on the race's 'Queen Stage'

Riding the trails of the Cape Epic under race conditions demands total focus. Letting one’s mind wander can be costly; the scenery is breathtaking, but the mind is clouded by fatigue, the physical senses dulled by the pounding and shock of the cumulative off-road kms. The best riders have solid fundamentals to fall back on when taking on even the most basic of obstacles, and they can afford to scale their mental energies accordingly; the demanding obstacles call upon all their reserves of commitment and focus...

An Epic Week - Riding the 2013 Cape Epic (Part 3)

Where the pros come to play

What Brendan's shirt said...

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the Cape Epic has attracted, and continues to attract the world’s best cross-country riders. This year is no exception - winners of World Championships, Olympic medals, and World Cups attend – along with the dedicated stage race specialists, the multiple winners, the folks who have also ridden and triumphed at other fearsome and epic MTB events like the Transalps, the Transrockies, the Crocodile Trophy, and the Iron Bike. Furthermore, it is a non-Olympic year: the focus of many of these athletes is unlike 2012 for London – we get the elites in droves, and we, the mere mortals in our droves, are not disappointed.

Humility and playfulness in equal measure from these folks is not something one usually expects, but we see it with our own eyes and hear it down the grapevine. Erik and Ariane Kleinhans, the indomitable Mixed duo this year (winning all but one of the stages), were sitting next to Brendan, Kate and myself at a dinner table in the evening on Monday (Stage 1). They are reserved and make light banter with us and several other punters and supporters, but they rise with poise when their names are called to claim their spots as the day’s stage winners and the Mixed category leaders jersey. It is a jersey they do not relinquish for the entire duration of the event.

An Epic Week - Riding the 2013 Cape Epic (Part 2)

Sometimes the kilometres seem to fly quickly by; at other times, you seem to be fighting for every meter, every turn of your wheels, every revolution of your cranks.

Macam Jamboree, but lagi big

If each stage is a Jamboree ride, then it is a seriously long ride. Then, considering the distance of each stage, water points are as good as start and finish lines in their own right (distances between them can be as short as 10km, or over 35km), especially for the amount of climbing one has to do. When the distance is short between points, you can be assured the section in going to be a hard one.

Brendan and me at the finish of yet another stage... dirty but happy!

We’re hanging in there and hearing the war stories accumulate around us. Tales of excitement, disappointment, enjoyment, and exhaustion abound in their various forms. We have seen and heard of broken bones and bikes, witnessed feats of utter teamwork and dedication to each other, and we have our fair share of receiving rude behavior out on the course. Most people here ride like gentlemen (and ladies), with fair acknowledgement of what they can or can’t do when the going gets tough; those that don’t, don’t usually last as their lack of etiquette and real MTB skills quickly shows up.

An Epic Week - Riding the 2013 Cape Epic (Part 1)

It's a big freaking bike race, this Cape Epic.

To put it in perspective (for Singaporean and Malaysian readers especially), try to imagine a Jamboree ride with 1200 riders, but at 100km distance on average. That's 2 to 3 Jamborees joined together, done in a single day.

With upwards of 16000 metres of climbing. Comparisons to climbing Mt. Everest twice would be made, but that isn't really the point. It's being done on mountain bikes - though, like Mt. Everest, making the summit counts for nuts if you don't make it down alive... there is an almost equivalent amount of descending too.

This is done for 7 days straight, not including the prologue stage.

The 2013 Cape Epic - with the tagline of 'The Magical and Untamed Mountain Bike Race' - is something like that, with an official total distance of 706km spread over 8 days.

The race highlights South Africa's magnificent Western Cape region, a land of rugged mountains, sweeping countryside vistas, and hot, dusty, rocky, and eminently MTB-able terrain. There really is no better way to admire the landscape other than by sampling but a small portion of it, for a little over a week, on a mountain bike.

How big is this race? Another indication: this being the 10th anniversary of the Cape Epic, there is nothing short of a who's who list of mountain biking luminaries racing.

7 of the top 10 Olympic XC riders at London 2012 are represented here. This includes Jaroslav Kulhavy, Gold Medalist. Just to whet your apetite, here is a picture of his bike:

Seatpost to handlbar drop is unmistakeable!!!

Who else is here?

Bike tweaks!

Let’s talk a little more about the setup of my mountain bike for the Cape Epic, the Chiru Pulse. It is a 29” hardtail that has little tweaks and mods that adhere to the concept of favouring reliability over light weight – an approach that is absolutely essential to surviving the Cape Epic.

 New XTR Trail 38/26 chainrings: as mentioned in an earlier post, chainsuck and skipping gears are two things one can live without; pairing new rings with a new chain ensures that does not happen. Also note the chainstay metal shield is missing...

Aid Stations

I met up with Kate and Brendan today. They had been 'on the road' for almost 24 hours before they got into Cape Town late last night.

Still fighting off the palpable jetlag, we got down to business over lunch at the Victoria and Alfred (that's V&A to the locals) Waterfront and proceeded to outline a plan for the Cape Epic. Here are just some of the main pointers about our aid station strategy for the ABSA Cape Epic, including points about the weather and conditions on course that will affect our plans:

Chainrings for me

How appropriate that the first proper post on this blog "Gear for Wilson" concerns actual gears (on the mountain bike!).

Well, as you know, I'm currently in Cape Town, South Africa for this little race known as the Cape Epic . I had just assembled my bike yesterday, intending to do a short but still decent Saturday lunch-time ride around town. Cape Town: it is recommended you see the city on a bike; it is easy to get around and the traffic generally does not pose a problem to safety if you ride smart, as evidenced by the large numbers of cyclists zooming around town yesterday.

Opening post

first post... testing