Absa Cape Epic
The Cape Epic 2009
Rebecca Rusch / 22.03.2009
I am finally over in South Africa and have started the Cape Epic, a 685 km, 8-day mountain bike stage race. The route passes through mountain and wine regions and will feature over 14,000 meters of climbing over the course of the week. It’s the largest and most competitive stage race in the world and the team rosters are packed with 1200 athletes, including Olympians, pro riders, World Champions and regular cyclists.It is my second year competing in this event as my own Spring training camp and a great travel experience. I am here racing in the mixed division with my coach and friend, Matthew Weatherley-White. Matthew is an ex-road cycling racer, adventure racer and long time endurance athlete. We are using this race as a key building block to my season. We’ll be recording all of our heart rate data on our Suunto watches and compiling a training report when the kilometers are all logged. I am also traveling along with Specialized team riders, Chrisoph Sauser and Burry Stander. We’re camping for the entire week of the race, but camping in style with motor homes, mechanics and soigneurs to help us out. I will be sending reports from the field when I can and you will hopefully get to experience much of the behind the scenes experience and the racing excitement from our reports.
The Prologue is now under our belts and I feel relieved to have finally started the race and gotten the nerves calmed. It was 17km with 650 meters of climbing through the recent burns on Table Mountain. What goes up must come down and the descents were extremely loose and rocky. A rider broke his collarbone yesterday pre-riding the course. I expect there will be more crashes today. Matthew and I discussed our strategy for this day and vowed to ride hard, but be sure not to blow up or crash and to take things a bit conservatively. It is a long race and this is just the prologue. Matthew and I made it through unscathed. The bikes were perfect and we stayed upright. We finished the stage in 4th place, which I am VERY pleased with.
All of the women in the top three mixed teams for today are Olympians. We are also surrounded on all sides by World Champions, more Olympians and various other cycling pedigrees. We are in very competitive and very good company, so I feel great about our preliminary performance. The top 6 mixed teams are all within 5 minutes of each other after today, so this week promises to be extremely competitive. There are still more than 600 km to go, so I’m sure the results will be fluid. However, we made a great statement and it’s a good confidence boost to know we are riding amongst the best in the world.See All Event Posts
