There has been an average of 5 123 online mentions about the #absacapeepic per day since it started on Sunday, March 23rd. Individuals have been consistently mentioning the Absa Cape Epic race online; a very noteworthy pattern indicating to high community interest and dedication over the eight-day-long event. The first day of an event usually sees the highest volume of online conversation, with a decline evident thereafter. This is not the case with the Absa Cape Epic, which has maintained consistent attention online. This is according to BrandsEye, the world’s first crowd-supported online monitoring and insights company, who adds that 7 828 individuals have been contributing to this conversation, which has totalled 25 623 online mentions between the start of the race on the 23rd and yesterday, the 27th. BrandsEye’s CEO, JP Kloppers says this indicates that a tight community of people are interested in the events of the race and are speaking about it amongst themselves, resulting in an average of 3.3 online mentions per individual. The conversation has been aggregated, revolving around the event’s popular hashtag, #absacapeepic, which has been included in 75% of all online conversation over the past 5 days. Next to @AbsaCapeEpic, online authors to produce the highest number of mentions have included Andre Ross (@The_Mr_Ross), 229 mentions, Team Bulls (@TeamBulls), 160 mentions, Sean Badenhorst (@Mr_TREAD), 147 mentions, and Kevin McCallum (@Kevin McCallum), 135 mentions, who are seemingly using Twitter to live-tweet the events of each day. From his 147 online mentions, Sean Badenhorst has managed to generate 725 retweets and replies (engagements) to his content. This could be the result of his high credibility on Twitter (4 901 followers), in addition to his influence in the mountain biking industry, JP notes. One of the key themes to arise in the online conversation has been the ‘stage’ at which the bikers are at in the race. This further supports the trend of participants and viewers live-tweeting the race as it happens. In addition to the stages of the race, individuals are also talking about the ‘riders’, including those such as @nschurter and @philbuys. BrandsEye’s online data has shown that, of the tight community of individuals participating in the online conversation around the Absa Cape Epic, 88.9% of the conversation is taking place on Twitter, and, of the gender information available, 76.6% of authors are male, compared to 23.4% who are female. Could this be an indication only of the online authors, or does it reflect the offline participation by females in the race? Will the online conversation remain consistent until Sunday? How might it change, and what will cause this change? BrandsEye is the Absa Cape Epic’s preferred choice of online monitoring and insights provider. For a summary report of the online conversation across the entire race, keep an eye out for BrandsEye’s findings next week! ABOUT BRANDSEYE BrandsEye is a South African born online monitoring and insights company, founded in 2008 as an independent company, with distribution partners in the UK, Kenya, and South Africa. The tool is the first crowd-supported online monitoring software tool, which tracks, measures and reports online brand conversations for better business