the unofficial Cape Epic thread

[Paul Ruinaard]

https://en.brujulabike.com/tragedy-at-the-absa-cape-epic-2025-a-rider-dies-during-the-competition/

 

Not sure if it has been discussed but if it has sorry for the re-post however here is some details of the fatality that was rumoured but now confirmed. RIP the rider. Very sad.

Edited Wednesday at 03:24 PM by Paul Ruinaard

[DieselnDust]

2 hours ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

https://en.brujulabike.com/tragedy-at-the-absa-cape-epic-2025-a-rider-dies-during-the-competition/

 

Not sure if it has been discussed but if it has sorry for the re-post however here is some details of the fatality that was rumoured but now confirmed. RIP the rider. Very sad.

At length, but Interesting to see the international perspective. 

[Scary Rider]

7 hours ago, Lynskey said:

You NEED to calm down 🫡

Ouens, please calm down: it is not Friday yet, I NEED to go buy popcorn, and some of us unfortunately have to work...

Even though I would like to read Le Hub all day long🤭😎

[love2fly]

On 3/25/2025 at 10:18 PM, saturdayknight said:

Yip I worked hard before the epic last year to kickstart ketone metabolism - I think this helps for various reasons

I've been following a Keto diet and IF since Jan with great results. I'd be interested to know how far you took Keto or did you come off it before ACE?

CHEERS

[sirmoun10goat]

Thinking back to 2017, I think it was stage 1 where they where they extended the time, and stage 2 got cut off at an earlier water point. My ex at the time nearly suffered kidney failure, the medic tents were overrun and there was concerns the hospitals would not be able to cope. People scoffed and joked about ‘the toughest race/untamed Africa/etc’.

2025 the race was allowed to continued, which lead to a tragedy. This time people are condemning the organisers for not stopping it earlier.

No matter what the event organisers do, people will either agree or disagree. They are between a rock and a hard place. 
 

I did not partake in this epic, so I cannot comment on the mistakes that were made. But even as a participant, it’s hard to know what discussions were held and how the decision to continue was reached without having been at these discussions.

As an event organisers, it’s not possible to tell how people will react/handle extreme weather.

From what I gather, there was a shortage of water - big mistake. But there is no guarantee more water/water points would have saved the life lost.

[DieselnDust]

35 minutes ago, sirmoun10goat said:

Thinking back to 2017, I think it was stage 1 where they where they extended the time, and stage 2 got cut off at an earlier water point. My ex at the time nearly suffered kidney failure, the medic tents were overrun and there was concerns the hospitals would not be able to cope. People scoffed and joked about ‘the toughest race/untamed Africa/etc’.

2025 the race was allowed to continued, which lead to a tragedy. This time people are condemning the organisers for not stopping it earlier.

No matter what the event organisers do, people will either agree or disagree. They are between a rock and a hard place. 
 

I did not partake in this epic, so I cannot comment on the mistakes that were made. But even as a participant, it’s hard to know what discussions were held and how the decision to continue was reached without having been at these discussions.

As an event organisers, it’s not possible to tell how people will react/handle extreme weather.

From what I gather, there was a shortage of water - big mistake. But there is no guarantee more water/water points would have saved the life lost.

I wanted to comment but decided to delete and just say, you were not there. I have a personal anecdote from 2017 too. A friend was placed in induced coma for over a week when he collapsed during stage 2 2017. He survived. It was a 9 month recovery journey and every year at DC we celebrate the fact he's still with us, If the stage had been stopped earlier, Hermanus mediclinic would no have been overwhelmed to the point where Vergelegen had to accept overflow.

[sirmoun10goat]

8 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

I wanted to comment but decided to delete and just say, you were not there. I have a personal anecdote from 2017 too. A friend was placed in induced coma for over a week when he collapsed during stage 2 2017. He survived. It was a 9 month recovery journey and every year at DC we celebrate the fact he's still with us, If the stage had been stopped earlier, Hermanus mediclinic would no have been overwhelmed to the point where Vergelegen had to accept overflow.

I was not there, but my ex was. I had to help with her physical and emotional recovery.

2017 I believe it was still under Kevin’s supervision. 

My comment is that back in 2017 when organisers did shorten a stage, there was a lot of negativity about making the world’s toughest race too easy and accommodating less accomplished riders.

Had current event organisers shortened stage 3 this year, people would have said the same thing.

The organisers are between a rock and a hard spot. Any decision made will be praised/criticised, depending on what side of the fence people are on.

I’m not here commenting about right/wrong or good/bad. Just saying that it’s not easy making these decisions, and it’s not fair to say the organisers do not care about the participants.

[SwissVan]

On 3/24/2025 at 1:38 PM, ChrisF said:

 

 

@SwissVan do you know if a similar multi-tier pricing exists for sporting events in Europe ?

 

Not that I have seen, other than reduced fees for early entries where the price increases the closer you get to the event date.

 

Edit:

Looking at the Swiss Epic (August 2025) they have an early bird tier system, Feb to April CHF 3185 (+/- ZAR 66’000) for a team, April to June CHF 3350.

But nothing based on local or international that I see

Edited Thursday at 03:56 PM by SwissVan

[SwissVan]

10 hours ago, sirmoun10goat said:

 

No matter what the event organisers do, people will either agree or disagree. They are between a rock and a hard place. 
 

From what I gather, there was a shortage of water - big mistake. But there is no guarantee more water/water points would have saved the life lost.

 

This /\
 

[DieselnDust]

4 hours ago, sirmoun10goat said:

I was not there, but my ex was. I had to help with her physical and emotional recovery.

2017 I believe it was still under Kevin’s supervision. 

My comment is that back in 2017 when organisers did shorten a stage, there was a lot of negativity about making the world’s toughest race too easy and accommodating less accomplished riders.

Had current event organisers shortened stage 3 this year, people would have said the same thing.

The organisers are between a rock and a hard spot. Any decision made will be praised/criticised, depending on what side of the fence people are on.

I’m not here commenting about right/wrong or good/bad. Just saying that it’s not easy making these decisions, and it’s not fair to say the organisers do not care about the participants.

The organisers will always be in a polarised situation, I agree.

Stage 3 was already shortened from 92 to 78km with around 120m of ascent gain removed.

The issue at hand is not about these actions but was enough done in terms of rapid response.

The routingUp Pipeline and Boulder City is very hot even when the ambient is 25Degrees C. The sun beats don on that slope relentlessly from 9am in the morning till roughly 6pm in the evening. These is very little shade, not running water and only dry fynbos for shelter. I feel that sometimes #untamed bs clouds common sense and human health and safety guidelines.  This slope was hotter than Dubai on a summers day; my garmin recorded 51 degrees C. We should not have been routed that way and I'm saying that as someone who was only mildly affected by the heat on the day.

So when you start to rack up may damned if you do, damned if you don'ts and each time you push through with the same choice with every reoccurrence delivering worse results surely you have to consider that maybe the direction your decisions is taking you is flawed and dangerous? Surely

[mrcg]

I've only done one Epic (2017) - am I allowed to comment? (for completeness, I have done nearly ALL the SA races in the last 14 years (some times multiple times - don't worry, won't list them all 😉) . I also worked and supported on a few ACE's.

For me (disclaimer: these are my own opinions and do not translate into any fact for all at all), the Epic for the last 6+ years has seen a drastic decrease in overall value to the "general customer satisfaction" outside of the riding experience (I'll come back to this). 80% of the field is not necessarily experiencing what I personally think they could/should in SA, considering the level set by the early events, most notably Sani2c. The value proposition of the Epic is: world toughest MTB race, the Tour de France of MTB. Enter ye fools and pay a crazy premium price tag to ride "with" Nino the GOAT. Suck it up, toughen up and ride, or be spat out. F#$k the food, the comforts and extra costs - you are privileged to be here in the first place.

Before I get to the riding experience, let me state (again, only my own personal opinion), that each rider is such an individual (hence training plans copy and paste usually fail), that each individual who steps up needs to understand their own body, physique, history, propensities in actions, specific talents, adaptive qualities etc. etc. This will determine individual outcomes. There are riders in the top 250 ACE field who are very strong riders on flats and up the steepest gradients, but who still walk technical bits, or fall down switchbacks, or slow to a crawl in rock gardens. Not only due to lack of skills, but mostly due to this and then their risk/reward calculation. The further back in the field you go, the more the issues compound (preparation being equal-ish). However, you can take a life-time athlete, who has never ridden a MTB, but has a "feel" for riding, is not scared, used to possibly ride bmx as a kid, and within a good 3-6month period build him/her up to ride ACE and finish comfortably/top 300 teams. Ultimately, you can be a Mini racing in F1 race with the best tuned engine, chassis, tyres etc. - but you will be lapped many many times. 

So, I think the courses have become harder, because the racing focus is on the top athletes. Less kilometers, but more climbing per kilometer (not sure about this "fact"), way more technical and challenging. And this is the most important factor for ME to ride the Epic. The challenge of the course (taking away the ridiculous entry fee). I wasn't keen to ride this year (couldn't afford it anyway), because I knew most stages intimately (Durbanville Hills, Paarl). But if a spare, free ticket cropped up, guess who would be on the start line?

Anyway, my overall point is: the Epic is not for everyone. Most riders (mostly international) do not really know what they are getting themselves into. TIA. It is even harder for them, despite decent talent and preparation. For us poor locals (in all respects), we need to decide if we are looking for an ultimate challenge. Because, in my opinion, you do the Epic to "race". And here I mean, race yourself within the limitations of yourself or your partner. This needs to be your best performance, how well can you ride, how quick can you finish (all within reason of course). The Epic is surely not a participation event. Not for that price tag, and the REAL prospect of great harm possibly coming to your body (excluding death - nobody signs up for that!).

There are so many great events, who prioritise the gees, great rider experience, more "chilled" routes, better tent villages, food, limitless drinks (although that might have disappeared forever) etc. etc. - that is more for the mainstream rider.

Final disclaimer: this does NOT absolve the ACE of such poor organisation, off-bike experience, lack of interest of the sub-elite level rider etc. (see previous post of mine). But it is a clear "maximising for profit" event. Accept it and deal with it.

Forgot what my point was 😂

[Prince Albert Cycles]

7 hours ago, mrcg said:

I've only done one Epic (2017) - am I allowed to comment? (for completeness, I have done nearly ALL the SA races in the last 14 years (some times multiple times - don't worry, won't list them all 😉) . I also worked and supported on a few ACE's.

For me (disclaimer: these are my own opinions and do not translate into any fact for all at all), the Epic for the last 6+ years has seen a drastic decrease in overall value to the "general customer satisfaction" outside of the riding experience (I'll come back to this). 80% of the field is not necessarily experiencing what I personally think they could/should in SA, considering the level set by the early events, most notably Sani2c. The value proposition of the Epic is: world toughest MTB race, the Tour de France of MTB. Enter ye fools and pay a crazy premium price tag to ride "with" Nino the GOAT. Suck it up, toughen up and ride, or be spat out. F#$k the food, the comforts and extra costs - you are privileged to be here in the first place.

Before I get to the riding experience, let me state (again, only my own personal opinion), that each rider is such an individual (hence training plans copy and paste usually fail), that each individual who steps up needs to understand their own body, physique, history, propensities in actions, specific talents, adaptive qualities etc. etc. This will determine individual outcomes. There are riders in the top 250 ACE field who are very strong riders on flats and up the steepest gradients, but who still walk technical bits, or fall down switchbacks, or slow to a crawl in rock gardens. Not only due to lack of skills, but mostly due to this and then their risk/reward calculation. The further back in the field you go, the more the issues compound (preparation being equal-ish). However, you can take a life-time athlete, who has never ridden a MTB, but has a "feel" for riding, is not scared, used to possibly ride bmx as a kid, and within a good 3-6month period build him/her up to ride ACE and finish comfortably/top 300 teams. Ultimately, you can be a Mini racing in F1 race with the best tuned engine, chassis, tyres etc. - but you will be lapped many many times. 

So, I think the courses have become harder, because the racing focus is on the top athletes. Less kilometers, but more climbing per kilometer (not sure about this "fact"), way more technical and challenging. And this is the most important factor for ME to ride the Epic. The challenge of the course (taking away the ridiculous entry fee). I wasn't keen to ride this year (couldn't afford it anyway), because I knew most stages intimately (Durbanville Hills, Paarl). But if a spare, free ticket cropped up, guess who would be on the start line?

Anyway, my overall point is: the Epic is not for everyone. Most riders (mostly international) do not really know what they are getting themselves into. TIA. It is even harder for them, despite decent talent and preparation. For us poor locals (in all respects), we need to decide if we are looking for an ultimate challenge. Because, in my opinion, you do the Epic to "race". And here I mean, race yourself within the limitations of yourself or your partner. This needs to be your best performance, how well can you ride, how quick can you finish (all within reason of course). The Epic is surely not a participation event. Not for that price tag, and the REAL prospect of great harm possibly coming to your body (excluding death - nobody signs up for that!).

There are so many great events, who prioritise the gees, great rider experience, more "chilled" routes, better tent villages, food, limitless drinks (although that might have disappeared forever) etc. etc. - that is more for the mainstream rider.

Final disclaimer: this does NOT absolve the ACE of such poor organisation, off-bike experience, lack of interest of the sub-elite level rider etc. (see previous post of mine). But it is a clear "maximising for profit" event. Accept it and deal with it.

Forgot what my point was 😂

You made your point and did it well . This sentence “ the ACE is not a participation event ” 

[Dicky DQ]

On 3/25/2025 at 4:16 PM, Pandatron said:

I'm asking the question not making a statement.. but i will provide my own answer.

You should be arriving at ACE competently prepared in my view and have the ability to at least clear the cut off by 30 minutes.

Survival of just making it Waterpoint to Waterpoint day after day increases your risk exposure exponentially, there will definitely be days where something goes wrong and stuff happens.

But going or attempting to day after day in a completely blown state/dehydrated and then wondering why bad things happen, is doff.


 

A lot of all of this could be avoided by shortening the cutoff times and cutting the rider totally if the cutoff's are not made. No more continue tomorrow etc. This way you eliminate the do as little as you have to, to preparation attitude most humans have.

This will force riders to prepare better and then heat exposure and and and will be limited. 

But this or insisting on qualifying criteria will never fly due to limiting the initial field and $$'s

[DieselnDust]

8 hours ago, mrcg said:

I've only done one Epic (2017) - am I allowed to comment? (for completeness, I have done nearly ALL the SA races in the last 14 years (some times multiple times - don't worry, won't list them all 😉) . I also worked and supported on a few ACE's.

For me (disclaimer: these are my own opinions and do not translate into any fact for all at all), the Epic for the last 6+ years has seen a drastic decrease in overall value to the "general customer satisfaction" outside of the riding experience (I'll come back to this). 80% of the field is not necessarily experiencing what I personally think they could/should in SA, considering the level set by the early events, most notably Sani2c. The value proposition of the Epic is: world toughest MTB race, the Tour de France of MTB. Enter ye fools and pay a crazy premium price tag to ride "with" Nino the GOAT. Suck it up, toughen up and ride, or be spat out. F#$k the food, the comforts and extra costs - you are privileged to be here in the first place.

Before I get to the riding experience, let me state (again, only my own personal opinion), that each rider is such an individual (hence training plans copy and paste usually fail), that each individual who steps up needs to understand their own body, physique, history, propensities in actions, specific talents, adaptive qualities etc. etc. This will determine individual outcomes. There are riders in the top 250 ACE field who are very strong riders on flats and up the steepest gradients, but who still walk technical bits, or fall down switchbacks, or slow to a crawl in rock gardens. Not only due to lack of skills, but mostly due to this and then their risk/reward calculation. The further back in the field you go, the more the issues compound (preparation being equal-ish). However, you can take a life-time athlete, who has never ridden a MTB, but has a "feel" for riding, is not scared, used to possibly ride bmx as a kid, and within a good 3-6month period build him/her up to ride ACE and finish comfortably/top 300 teams. Ultimately, you can be a Mini racing in F1 race with the best tuned engine, chassis, tyres etc. - but you will be lapped many many times. 

So, I think the courses have become harder, because the racing focus is on the top athletes. Less kilometers, but more climbing per kilometer (not sure about this "fact"), way more technical and challenging. And this is the most important factor for ME to ride the Epic. The challenge of the course (taking away the ridiculous entry fee). I wasn't keen to ride this year (couldn't afford it anyway), because I knew most stages intimately (Durbanville Hills, Paarl). But if a spare, free ticket cropped up, guess who would be on the start line?

Anyway, my overall point is: the Epic is not for everyone. Most riders (mostly international) do not really know what they are getting themselves into. TIA. It is even harder for them, despite decent talent and preparation. For us poor locals (in all respects), we need to decide if we are looking for an ultimate challenge. Because, in my opinion, you do the Epic to "race". And here I mean, race yourself within the limitations of yourself or your partner. This needs to be your best performance, how well can you ride, how quick can you finish (all within reason of course). The Epic is surely not a participation event. Not for that price tag, and the REAL prospect of great harm possibly coming to your body (excluding death - nobody signs up for that!).

There are so many great events, who prioritise the gees, great rider experience, more "chilled" routes, better tent villages, food, limitless drinks (although that might have disappeared forever) etc. etc. - that is more for the mainstream rider.

Final disclaimer: this does NOT absolve the ACE of such poor organisation, off-bike experience, lack of interest of the sub-elite level rider etc. (see previous post of mine). But it is a clear "maximising for profit" event. Accept it and deal with it.

Forgot what my point was 😂

 

46 minutes ago, Dicky DQ said:

A lot of all of this could be avoided by shortening the cutoff times and cutting the rider totally if the cutoff's are not made. No more continue tomorrow etc. This way you eliminate the do as little as you have to, to preparation attitude most humans have.

This will force riders to prepare better and then heat exposure and and and will be limited. 

But this or insisting on qualifying criteria will never fly due to limiting the initial field and $$'s

Great points both if you

1) the epic is not a participation event - penny drops

2) Enforce cut offs- penny drops again.

For 1) this imo is absolutely true. You have to prepare to play. If you don’t prepare you are going to get hurt. I recall on stage 3 on the long descent to WP2 I took all the A-lines. When those lines merged back to single the riders on B actually expected me to slot back in behind them . I got shouted at. There was a lack of understanding of the rules of racing. They say, we’re not racing, we’re surviving. But there is a lack of preparation in riding skill, and understanding the rules. The reality is that the back of the field is a completely different event. 
 

on 2)

yeah this is actually the biggest safety lever the event management has. Personally I felt all cut off where easily achievable this year despite the heat, if the athletes prepared properly. But the technical skills are really quite poor  but many will ride a sub 3 Argust. As the course gets more and more technical those with a skills deficit will find it harder and harder to complete the course within cut off. 
 

there is no substitute for preparation. 
I’ll share a personal anecdote. I rode non of the course prior to the event but I live in Cape Town. This was deliberate because my team mate lives abroad so I figured a having too much of an advantage in terms of course knowledge would increase the performance gap even more. However I have ridden almost all of it at some time in the past so there some memory of the lines. When I compared my riding with my peers in J,K, L,M&N there was a huge gap stemming from approach to riding the single track to bike set up to physical preparedness. Back to cut offs. If the cut offs are tighter I think it will weed out the poorly prepared quicker and lower the risk to the event manager as the week wears on. They sort of do this already with a tough stage 1 and 2 but by pulling in the cut off an hour they achieve more and it will actually be in the interest of rider health and safety

[Dappere]

10 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

The organisers will always be in a polarised situation, I agree.

Stage 3 was already shortened from 92 to 78km with around 120m of ascent gain removed.

The issue at hand is not about these actions but was enough done in terms of rapid response.

The routingUp Pipeline and Boulder City is very hot even when the ambient is 25Degrees C. The sun beats don on that slope relentlessly from 9am in the morning till roughly 6pm in the evening. These is very little shade, not running water and only dry fynbos for shelter. I feel that sometimes #untamed bs clouds common sense and human health and safety guidelines.  This slope was hotter than Dubai on a summers day; my garmin recorded 51 degrees C. We should not have been routed that way and I'm saying that as someone who was only mildly affected by the heat on the day.

So when you start to rack up may damned if you do, damned if you don'ts and each time you push through with the same choice with every reoccurrence delivering worse results surely you have to consider that maybe the direction your decisions is taking you is flawed and dangerous? Surely

I think we can all agree that the organisers will always find themselves between a rock and a hard place. We can also acknowledge that some of the frustrations being raised here existed even when Kevin was still running the event.

That said, I’m genuinely curious—what were your motivations for taking on the Cape Epic? I get the sense that this might be the point that prevents us from finding common ground on certain aspects of this discussion.

[Shebeen]

is it just me, or where there basically no mechanicals in the elite fields this year? I know jobert/nortje needed to swap out a wheel from their backup team in one of the early stages, but that's about it. Didn't follow it as closely in the past, but can't really think of any that affected the racing. 

 

Things getting more reliable, or riders going for more durable stuff (ie. tyres/wheels)?