Absa Cape Epic 2021 thread

[Stephan]

48 minutes ago, Headshot said:

What we tend to forget is that marathon stage racing is a fringe sport in the rest of the world. MTB in general has a lower viewership than many other 'mainstream" sports. The Redbull Rampage had about 50k people watching the live stream and now has nearly 650k views on the rerun. The Epic will never reach those numbers.

Good point, and a good reminder. As far as mountain biking disciplines and their global popularity is concerned, I would think marathon racing is far down the ranking order. 

[Spafsack]

5 minutes ago, @grootlem said:

A stage win is pretty big business. You also don't know maybe your race is over tomorrow, or you will not win GC. Maybe a Green jersey will be cool. Good to see my pre race favorites Canyon Northwave up there. Im not sure Beers and his partner had the correct tactics today by breaking away for most of the day and then got caught. I think he needs to look after the xco man on this long week. Bulls with 2 teams can decide a lot on what happens and tactics

Yup, i thought when beers and partner said cheers....that they would not be caught. Scary how strong and fit the other 4 teams are, never thought they would be caught but they did catch them. Hope de groot and partner get stronger, they dont seem to chat much after the race, bit strange, maybe they still trying to find themselves. Then again, the did the swiss epic. Also hope faces cst get stronger.

[ChrisF]

2 minutes ago, Stephan said:

Good point, and a good reminder. As far as mountain biking disciplines and their global popularity is concerned, I would think marathon racing is far down the ranking order. 

Also not too many can watch this at work.  Would be interesting to see the numbers of those that watch later ....

[Stretched@Birth]

I'm seriously disappointed, I received an invite from Thirsti Water (official water sponsor of the Cape Epic) to spend the day with them on their farm in Tulbach on Wednesday when the race passes through the farm (where they have the first floating bridge in the Epic), and had to turn the invitation down, too much going on at work at the moment. ????

[tinmug]

The feed is okay. The Marathon Worlds is much better (if better at all). And I only say Okay because of the frequent image breakups and general iffy video compression ... which is probably limited to the bandwidth in a distant dorpie. Annika is as good a commentator as she is an Epic rider: she made some really good observations during the developing race. Ebike footage is fantastic (and extra points for Stephan Sahm high-giving the heli-cameraman's foot). A few nags with chatter in the background and finish line cameras having different WB settings but this is Africa: getting live video from several vantage points is great.

As for viewership numbers: I don't think it's fair to compare those interested in watching marathon events to the Red Bull Rampage monosyllable-trash-your-bike-spotty-faced-lazy-mouthed-gamers-living-at-home-with-parents-having-wet-dreams-of-a-new-GPU types.

[Hairy]

47 minutes ago, tinmug said:

The feed is okay. The Marathon Worlds is much better (if better at all). And I only say Okay because of the frequent image breakups and general iffy video compression ... which is probably limited to the bandwidth in a distant dorpie. Annika is as good a commentator as she is an Epic rider: she made some really good observations during the developing race. Ebike footage is fantastic (and extra points for Stephan Sahm high-giving the heli-cameraman's foot). A few nags with chatter in the background and finish line cameras having different WB settings but this is Africa: getting live video from several vantage points is great.

As for viewership numbers: I don't think it's fair to compare those interested in watching marathon events to the Red Bull Rampage monosyllable-trash-your-bike-spotty-faced-lazy-mouthed-gamers-living-at-home-with-parents-having-wet-dreams-of-a-new-GPU types.

And then the commentator very quickly says "Do not try that at home" ... the same way he said the day before when a rider gave a double thumbs up.

Any chance they could get a better commentator to replace him next year

[Eldron]

I am enjoying Annika Langvad's commentary. It is always interesting hearing "insider" info in between the usual MC babble.

[tinmug]

32 minutes ago, Hairy said:

And then the commentator very quickly says "Do not try that at home" ... the same way he said the day before when a rider gave a double thumbs up.

Any chance they could get a better commentator to replace him next year

Well ... exactly ... how many of us have a helicopter at home, eh?

 

(I don't mind GDK, he's nice and calm and knows virtually everyone and he can actually pronounce Langvad.)

[Eldron]

18 minutes ago, tinmug said:

(I don't mind GDK, he's nice and calm and knows viually everyone and he can actually pronounce Langvad.)

Bollocks. If you aren't born with the Danish genes to grow the 13 extra tongue muscles required to pronounce the bløde d it is impossible ????????

[Jbr]

Am I dumb ? Second time I try to find the GC on their site unsuccessfully… isn’t it the most important information that should be on there now?

[tinmug]

4 minutes ago, Jbr said:

Am I dumb ? Second time I try to find the GC on their site unsuccessfully… isn’t it the most important information that should be on there now?

Select Stage 1 (any of the Stage pages will probably work), click Results tab, select Stage 1 GC in drop-down list. 

[Nick]

9 minutes ago, Jbr said:

Am I dumb ? Second time I try to find the GC on their site unsuccessfully… isn’t it the most important information that should be on there now?

I've bookmarked this for the week: https://www.sportsplits.com/races/cape-epic-2021

It's the source for the results on the Epic site.

[Danger Dassie]

3 hours ago, Headshot said:

What we tend to forget is that marathon stage racing is a fringe sport in the rest of the world. MTB in general has a lower viewership than many other 'mainstream" sports. The Redbull Rampage had about 50k people watching the live stream and now has nearly 650k views on the rerun. The Epic will never reach those numbers.

Not entirely true, Cape Epic audience figures and media metric are some of the highest globally. Yesterday's prologue currently exceeds 70k, today's stage 1 has just over 40k. Plus theres the international broadcaster stats from around the world and highlights packages. 
CE publish these regularly and all sponsors receive a comprehensive measurement report.
Also we're comparing two different organisations and discipline's here. 

[DieselnDust]

3 hours ago, Headshot said:

Ya funny name hey - you think he is having a few cold ones as we type?

Now if he was teamed up with Philip Buys they be the best team ever to hang around with

[Jbr]

33 minutes ago, Nick said:

I've bookmarked this for the week: https://www.sportsplits.com/races/cape-epic-2021

It's the source for the results on the Epic site.

Thanks !  Wow @babse amazing brother ! ????

[ChrisF]

1 hour ago, Eldron said:

I am enjoying Annika Langvad's commentary. It is always interesting hearing "insider" info in between the usual MC babble.

I logged in to watch a bit at work, lunch time obviously ,  the computer headphones were very nice and this is when you realise just how much effort goes into their audio stream.  Lots of background "music" that fits the change in cameras, etc. 

 

I clearly need to upgrade my sound system at home as I was missing these fine details .... 

 

Certainly, there is always room for improvement.  But for a free login and live stream option I am VERY happy to be able to follow the Epic.