Cape Epic 2026

[DieselnDust]

I had a look at the other races in the series. The elite ladies field is tiny in all of them and those stages are a lot shorter (although Swiss Epic has mega climbing everyday)

[Shebeen]

2 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

So that’s unequal pay then…

ride less km but get paid the same = more $/km with a smaller field…

I suppose so,  but it's not what I said. "Equal prizemoney" is just short term window dressing,

Elite ladies at ACE have had equal prizemoney/separate starts for 10 yrs now? There just isn't the depth of pro female mtb that can do this sort of thing.

I'm not sure what it costs to get a pro team to Epic, but even the winning purse of R350k surely won't break even. The race entry fee is already more than 4th place at R85k.

This is a much more positive move to make the ladies Elite race more exciting, maybe we will see it happening. I get a feeling that the massive strides in ladies pro cycling in recent years could have more of a knock on effect than anything done here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nathrix]

4 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

So that’s unequal pay then…

ride less km but get paid the same = more $/km with a smaller field…

It’s still as hard for the ladies even if it’s shorter and a bit less climbing for them, the fact is men are just faster. Just wish there were a lot more competition in the ladies field.

[DieselnDust]

7 minutes ago, nathrix said:

It’s still as hard for the ladies even if it’s shorter and a bit less climbing for them, the fact is men are just faster. Just wish there were a lot more competition in the ladies field.

No one is disputing that its still hard.

Previously the equal pay advocates campaigned on the basis that the ladies have their own race over the same distance and therefore deliver the same R/km value.

With a shorter course, is this still true (which is where @babse was going with his question. So we're unpacking it, sensitive as it is.

Are so saying equal pay is still valid because "its hard"?

 

I suspect because this is a minefield, it was not included in the press release

[Bro Derek]

47 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

No one is disputing that its still hard.

Previously the equal pay advocates campaigned on the basis that the ladies have their own race over the same distance and therefore deliver the same R/km value.

With a shorter course, is this still true (which is where @babse was going with his question. So we're unpacking it, sensitive as it is.

Are so saying equal pay is still valid because "its hard"?

 

I suspect because this is a minefield, it was not included in the press release

or......

The race is the race and the prize is for racing, not how many KM each gender races. You have heard from someone who actually races (well enters) in the affected racing category and she is all for it.

Surprisingly it is just a few men who seem to now want to pick it apart without much ground or evidently, much insight.

Some of you talk such nonsense with an astounding amount of certainty

It's a change to the format that the organisers feel might benefit the race/coverage/spectators. If it doesn't then at least they tried something. 

The sky isn't going to fall on anyones head because of change. You're all just making that up and projecting it as fact

[Skubarra]

1 hour ago, DieselnDust said:

 

Previously the equal pay advocates campaigned on the basis that the ladies have their own race over the same distance and therefore deliver the same R/km value.

Vaguely recall that argument but wasn't that Ariane Luthi when taking on the Trailseeker series when they reduced the elite men's races from 100 to 75km to be the same as the women? Can't recall that line really used for the Epic?

Not that I think R/km is a particular meaningful argument anyway, if you are against equal pay there are certainly far better arguments to be made.

[Rowl]

Not like the ladies only train 6hrs per day and thus deserve 75% of the prize money.

 

Do the Springbok ladies and men's teams deserve the same remuneration given the different levels of the game, no necessarily not. Gender isn't always the main driver of pay in some industries/firms, other factors like market size/profit etc need to be considered.

 

Equal pay in the Epic, I think, is warranted even with the updated distance. Anyways.

[DieselnDust]

good insights👍

@Skubarra i can't recall if it was Arianne or Annika or if it dates further back to when Gunn-Rita Dahle Fleschsa suggested the ladies only start group and other inequalities needing to be addressed before she'd consider coming back for another roll of the dice. Sabine Spitz also made some comments about the prize purse and ladies teams getting help from the men's B-team. It immaterial who owns it because its' been the sentiment of many of the ladies teams in past expressed by various competitors

Anyway lets see what they announce in the future. Either way its interesting times

[JohanDiv]

On 10/10/2025 at 1:28 PM, MongooseMan said:

@guidodg do you have any idea how the "UFO" section in the Stage 4 route differs to the long Canola Roller section? It looks quite similar (from a zoomed out arial view at least)

Sho that looks almost exactly to what we did 2022 Stage 4, or like 80% the same. Stage 3 and 4 were the play days around Greyton.. loved riding the trails there!

 

https://www.strava.com/activities/6874642676/segments/2942050304823506234

[Skubarra]

15 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

good insights👍

@Skubarra i can't recall if it was Arianne or Annika or if it dates further back to when Gunn-Rita Dahle Fleschsa suggested the ladies only start group and other inequalities needing to be addressed before she'd consider coming back for another roll of the dice. Sabine Spitz also made some comments about the prize purse and ladies teams getting help from the men's B-team. It immaterial who owns it because its' been the sentiment of many of the ladies teams in past expressed by various competitors

Anyway lets see what they announce in the future. Either way its interesting times

interesting - if that's the case then indeed it was an unfortunate argument in hindsight...

 

[Shebeen]

1 hour ago, Bro Derek said:

or......

The race is the race and the prize is for racing, not how many KM each gender races. You have heard from someone who actually races (well enters) in the affected racing category and she is all for it.

Surprisingly it is just a few men who seem to now want to pick it apart without much ground or evidently, much insight.

Some of you talk such nonsense with an astounding amount of certainty

It's a change to the format that the organisers feel might benefit the race/coverage/spectators. If it doesn't then at least they tried something. 

The sky isn't going to fall on anyones head because of change. You're all just making that up and projecting it as fact

ok, I'll bite.

Through no fault of her own, Annika Langvad/(insert whoever is with) Spez ladies racing has basically dominated the opening stages and then the rest of the podium just watch their backs to stay on the podium. Orange jersey might go to some hotshot team on the prologue but the final winners seem to wear it all week. Sure there was the duct tape year that got fun, but the closest winning margin in the past ten years has been 8mins.

Just done a scan through results, how many teams within 5 minutes/30 minutes from GC leader at end of race - this is going back to 2016 as Gunn Rita rode 2015 and kicked up a fuss from her well earned position as a respected and decorated racer.

year:Male 5/30 - Female 5/30

2025: 1/3 :  0/1

2024: 0/4 : 0/1

2023: 2/2 : 0/0

2022:1/3 :  0/1

2021: 0/3: 0/0

2019: 0/3 : 0/0

2018 0/4: 0/0

2017:0/3 : 0/0

2016: 0/3 : 0/2

 

so ja. time to try something different - all power to them because it would have been much easier to keep the status quo as is.

 

 

 

[Ozzie NL]

On 10/10/2025 at 1:28 PM, MongooseMan said:

@guidodg do you have any idea how the "UFO" section in the Stage 4 route differs to the long Canola Roller section? It looks quite similar (from a zoomed out arial view at least)

Where did you score the map? It does not show it on the website where they list the stage details

[Skubarra]

On 10/9/2025 at 10:13 PM, Shebeen said:

Agreed. Montagu is an awesome place to kick this off. Well done ACE.

Love Montagu and love doing gravel rides there. But I don't know much about trails in the area? Not exactly a Stellenbosch or Paarl in terms of trail centres?

So is someone in the are building trails in the area for 2 days of 100km mtbing, are they going to do jeeptrack mostly or am I just unaware of the number of mtb trails in the area?

[DieselnDust]

2 minutes ago, Skubarra said:

Love Montagu and love doing gravel rides there. But I don't know much about trails in the area? Not exactly a Stellenbosch or Paarl in terms of trail centres?

So is someone in the are building trails in the area for 2 days of 100km mtbing, are they going to do jeeptrack mostly or am I just unaware of the number of mtb trails in the area?

There is plenty but until recently not very well maintained. There was a race , the Makadas 75km marathon back in the 2000’s that included what looks like stage 1. Looking at the course map it looks like A lot of old trails from back then is being revived .

[PygaSchmyga]

2 hours ago, Bro Derek said:

or......

The race is the race and the prize is for racing, not how many KM each gender races. You have heard from someone who actually races (well enters) in the affected racing category and she is all for it.

Surprisingly it is just a few men who seem to now want to pick it apart without much ground or evidently, much insight.

Some of you talk such nonsense with an astounding amount of certainty

It's a change to the format that the organisers feel might benefit the race/coverage/spectators. If it doesn't then at least they tried something. 

The sky isn't going to fall on anyones head because of change. You're all just making that up and projecting it as fact

i think you may want to take that down about 15%, big shoots - all the previous comments were actually quite relevant and interesting

[MongooseMan]

45 minutes ago, Ozzie NL said:

Where did you score the map? It does not show it on the website where they list the stage details

Screenshots of the YouTube vid 🤣