the unofficial Cape Epic thread

[Shebeen]

1 hour ago, Action_Man said:

Perhaps you missed watching last year's Epic, or have forgotten already, but the women's race was super tight racing all the way to the final stage. 

 

The problem this year is that the UCI moved the Brazil XCO World Cups a week earlier which made it a bad idea for anyone who's serious about the XCO season to come to Cape Epic. 

 

Unfortunately there is little to no money in marathon racing globally, men and woman; hence why many marathon racers from overseas can't afford to come race the Cape Epic - it's not a true reflection of how many good marathon racers there actually are out there. Have a look at World Marathon Championships results over the past years and see how many guys who have done well at Cape Epic have not even been able to feature at a Marathon World Champs as a comparison because foreign countries can afford to send riders to a Marathon World Championships, but they can't afford to send them to do the Epic. 

 

XCO has more budget, but none of the XCO women's teams were willing to spend big budget this year sending riders and staff to Cape Epic so close before the start of the XCO series. The risk vs exposure wasn't worth it. 

 

 

Yeah I watched last year, and cheered for your wife. and will be next weekend again too.

That doesn't change the fact that the strength of the field in the mens cat is way deeper than the womens. By orders of magnitude.

 

I do like facts, so since you highlighted last year as a good example let's look at the two fields.

2nd placed M/W - +11/8mins

3rd place  +11/36

5th 27mins/1:47hours

10th  1:33/5:48hours (yes, you still get prize money for being almost 6 hours back)

 

Sort of agree with you on the marathon vs XC issue. ever since they changed it to a marathon event a lot of the XCO guys didn't do Epic. The best riders are just XCO focussed, so when you are having marathon champs at UCI worlds means the best (XCO) riders won't do it.

 

 

more importantly - good luck in Brazil.

[cadenceblur]

3 hours ago, andydude said:

Saw on Beers' instagram!

Have to say, looking back - such a pity that much of this thread was not about the performances of the athletes and gear on display.

[RobynE]

Income of ~R78 million before sponsorship. 

For the 60k per person the organisers have R7,500 per participant per day to make sure accommodation (tents!), food and support is provided. 

I don’t think anyone was expecting Michelin star food, 5* accommodation, pristine routes.

But they got *** food (or could buy some from limited options), thorny or muddy campgrounds, insufficient support despite knowing the conditions in advance, limited comms and then got bare-faced lies when raising the issues. 

That jobs are created by the event is like saying it’s ok to wait in queues at Home Affairs when 8/10 staff are drinking tea and watching memes on their phones because at least they have jobs. 

The same and more jobs would be created if the organisation was better. Like a job for the guy to double check the camp sites for thorns before pitching the tents. A job for a food QC guy. A job for a person with a phone to send out comms. Jobs for dudes on quads to ferry 25L water cans around with a medic behind them or even sponsored bottles with cold water handed out along the way. Jobs for another 10 medics. 

I’m sure there was room in the 78mil for more jobs? 

Yes; it is supposed to be epic. Even epically hard. But it’s not supposed to be dangerous and uncomfortable for fit and prepared people because of poor organisation. 

 

[Titleist]

Can those who participated this year please post some feedback on your training for the past 6 months so we can see what it takes?

Weekly hours, intensity, amount of rides >4 hours etc etc.

[Pandatron]

41 minutes ago, Titleist said:

Can those who participated this year please post some feedback on your training for the past 6 months so we can see what it takes?

Weekly hours, intensity, amount of rides >4 hours etc etc.

Willing to bet that a lot of people who 'Trained', didn't actually train as much as they thought they did or ultimately just junk miled themselves into a state of perceived readiness.

[Dappere]

1 hour ago, RobynE said:

Income of ~R78 million before sponsorship. 

For the 60k per person the organisers have R7,500 per participant per day to make sure accommodation (tents!), food and support is provided. 

I don’t think anyone was expecting Michelin star food, 5* accommodation, pristine routes.

But they got *** food (or could buy some from limited options), thorny or muddy campgrounds, insufficient support despite knowing the conditions in advance, limited comms and then got bare-faced lies when raising the issues. 

That jobs are created by the event is like saying it’s ok to wait in queues at Home Affairs when 8/10 staff are drinking tea and watching memes on their phones because at least they have jobs. 

The same and more jobs would be created if the organisation was better. Like a job for the guy to double check the camp sites for thorns before pitching the tents. A job for a food QC guy. A job for a person with a phone to send out comms. Jobs for dudes on quads to ferry 25L water cans around with a medic behind them or even sponsored bottles with cold water handed out along the way. Jobs for another 10 medics. 

I’m sure there was room in the 78mil for more jobs? 

Yes; it is supposed to be epic. Even epically hard. But it’s not supposed to be dangerous and uncomfortable for fit and prepared people because of poor organisation. 

 

I’m not sure where those figures originate — without proper transparency, it’s difficult to verify their accuracy.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I don’t condone poor organisation. However, with South Africa’s unemployment rate at 31.9%, it’s important not to overlook the broader economic benefit events like this can provide.

Raising concerns is both valid and necessary, but when the tone shifts towards outrage or retribution, it risks becoming counterproductive rather than contributing to meaningful change.

[jcza]

I thought the Bikehubbers are already boycotting the Epic with such limited participation. Was great to watch both the mens and ladies races and we all secretly wanted to be there. Entry fee is steep plus all the extras you are probably looking at R100k each as a minimum coming from outside the Cape. Seems that the race is too big now and almost out of control. Back of the field starting way too late, saw the same last year at Tulbagh with leaders coming down the mountain while the last batches not even up the first climb. 

[ajnkzn]

I really think that the race would benefit from a split like Sani 2 C & Wines 2 Whales do. 
 

Enforce a minimum 3 day stage race completion within 9 months of Cape Epic start, with your percentage of winners result being taken as your seeding. 
 

Top 50% race with the elites (elites exempt from 3 day stage race seeding if they are part of an organized team entry with valid elite level results from top level races). 
 

Lower 50% of the entrants race similar, say 75% distance routes, a few days before / after the big dogs. 
 

But more of a focus on the gees and user experience as these guys are less likely to be using camper vans / Camps Bay villas. 
 

Motivates slower guys to race more, get faster and possibly return to the race if they aren’t initially “allowed” to do the “fast” event. 
 

If Cape Epic were to make the tenting and feeding an optional extra cost, I’m sure that even the bean counters in their ivory tower wouldn’t be able to argue that there’d be extra tent / setup costs. 
 

I’d love to get an accurate occupancy ratio of the tent village / dinners etc for each day. 

Edited yesterday at 12:49 PM by ajnkzn

[Bub Marley]

2 hours ago, Shebeen said:

Yeah I watched last year, and cheered for your wife. and will be next weekend again too.

That doesn't change the fact that the strength of the field in the mens cat is way deeper than the womens. By orders of magnitude.

 

I’d say this is applicable across all forms of cycling. The women’s sport is still developing whereas the mens is developed.

 

As an example for road cycling, the men are definitely more evenly matched across the peleton whereas the women I feel the variability is higher. Case in point, I have found that the ladies for instance find it much harder to control a breakaway because the strength of team is not the same. And this will ofcourse improve every year but I dont think there’s anything wrong is saying that as it stands, the mens game is far more developed.

[Stephan]

34 minutes ago, Titleist said:

Can those who participated this year please post some feedback on your training for the past 6 months so we can see what it takes?

Weekly hours, intensity, amount of rides >4 hours etc etc.

Depends what you want to achieve? Racing snake or just make the cut-off? Big difference in training focus. 

[karma]

1 hour ago, jcza said:

I thought the Bikehubbers are already boycotting the Epic with such limited participation. Was great to watch both the mens and ladies races and we all secretly wanted to be there. Entry fee is steep plus all the extras you are probably looking at R100k each as a minimum coming from outside the Cape. Seems that the race is too big now and almost out of control. Back of the field starting way too late, saw the same last year at Tulbagh with leaders coming down the mountain while the last batches not even up the first climb. 

Excuse me, you need either 0 or 3 Epic medals to have an opinion...

[The Ouzo]

59 minutes ago, ajnkzn said:

If Cape Epic were to make the tenting and feeding an optional extra cost, I’m sure that even the bean counters in their ivory tower wouldn’t be able to argue that there’d be extra tent / setup costs.

you'll probably find there is a profit opportunity for the organisers by including the tents in the price.

like a cell phone contract that throws in midnight minutes and sms even though nobody uses them.

[Pandatron]

12 minutes ago, Stephan said:

Depends what you want to achieve? Racing snake or just make the cut-off? Big difference in training focus. 

If your just aiming to make cut off or be friends with the Hyenas, should you be at Epic?

[ChrisF]

4 minutes ago, Pandatron said:

If your just aiming to make cut off or be friends with the Hyenas, should you be at Epic?

 

WOW ... why not ?

 

Doing a solid ride day after day, and managing your effort and energy to be ready for the next day.  Frankly, this is better than many prepared for this time round ....

 

Let's face it, you are in one of a few groups:

- Racers ...

- Going for a personal best 

- Fun rider .... in which case a well planned effort is worth a heck of a lot more than a blown engine mid way ... (couple of Hubbers in their race reports were clear about how they managed their effort, and made it to the end)

[Titleist]

22 minutes ago, Stephan said:

Depends what you want to achieve? Racing snake or just make the cut-off? Big difference in training focus. 

It doesn't matter what the aim is, I would like to know what each guy that commented on this thread put in.

[Shebeen]

39 minutes ago, Bub Marley said:

I’d say this is applicable across all forms of cycling. The women’s sport is still developing whereas the mens is developed.

 

As an example for road cycling, the men are definitely more evenly matched across the peleton whereas the women I feel the variability is higher. Case in point, I have found that the ladies for instance find it much harder to control a breakaway because the strength of team is not the same. And this will ofcourse improve every year but I dont think there’s anything wrong is saying that as it stands, the mens game is far more developed.

cool. So this thread branch started from me commenting that Langvad winning 6 ladies epic titles does not eclipse Platt/Sauser winning 5 each. (Those two are still at it in the masters trying to outdo each other - apparently sauser got fined for bunking the prize ceremeonies during the week, acid that he's not on top).

I'll go a bit further, while there a few exceptions but in general (2023 I see you and your duct tape) the UCI Women's category at Epic has been rather boring. Langvad/Sofia winning every stage (i think they did, or at least they could have) is not a compelling story. They've had equal prizemoney/tv time for over ten years now.