Cape Epic 2024

The Cape Epic claims to be ‘The Race that Measures All’. Over its 20 year history it has earned the accolade as being the toughest mountain-bike stage race in the world. So how does it actually measure up?

The course statistics are impressive, with 16,150m of climbing over 602km in the 2024 edition, but what makes the race so hard are the conditions. It either seems to be hot and dusty, or wet and muddy. The trails are rough and rocky, making it a challenge even just to finish as a team, given the battering meted out to ones’ bikes and bodies.

I had originally intended to focus my blog on the food and other practical aspects of the race; there is already so much good media on the riding, for example, this series of videos featuring ex-World Tour pro Daryl Impey (Dave & Daryl’s EPIC Adventure). However, as taking care of my body became the major challenge for us, I instead dive into the physical and psychological ups and downs of getting to the finish line at the end of Stage 7.

At the end of the post, I’ve listed some tips that I did not read in any of the material before the race. Throughout I have included a selection the fantastic action photos taken by Angus and the race photographer, Sportograf. The photo in the featured image for this post was taken by MTB South Africa.

This was Angus and my second trip to South Africa to attempt the Cape Epic. The first time was in 2020 when the race was cancelled a day before the Prologue due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We hoped we were going to have better luck in the 2024 edition!

Prologue (Sunday 17 March)

The Prologue took place at Lourensford Wine Estate, about 45 minutes drive from Cape Town. We had absorbed the race atmosphere at registration on the previous day. The multiple hues of different bike kit complemented the beautiful flowers in the gardens of the estate. Also striking was a shining new gold and black Robinson R44 ‘Robbie’ helicopter warming up on the grass. We’d see it this and its sibling, an older black version, a lot over the week. Usually in the distance but occasionally buzzing and possibly filming us… one can only dream.

Angus and I had both been in Camps Bay since the previous Wednesday. Unfortunately, in spite of cooking most our evening meals in the apartment that didn’t stop me getting sick – on Friday just after we climbed up Table Mountain – and I had slept really badly that night with a tummy ache and mild fever.

By 8.25am on Sunday morning, our start time for the Prologue, things had stabilised somewhat and I was no longer going to the bathroom every couple of hours. I packed some toilet paper in my pocket and hoped I wouldn’t need to stop during the race.

Tummy issues aside I felt we rode well. The descents were very dusty, in fact almost powdery. I’d been worried about the rocky ‘Toyota Tough’ section – people were saying this was the most technically demanding prologue to date – but it was surprisingly enjoyable; as Angus commented it was like the mountain biking around Chamonix.

After finishing I had to drop our rental car off at the airport and then get a taxi back to Lourensford. From there the Cape Epic team had arranged a coach for the two hour drive to Tulbach, where the first two stages would take place. The logistics of dropping cars off and getting to Stage 1 are often complicated in the Epic and are worth putting some thought into when planning for the event.

I returned to Lourensford in time for they coach ride, but it was really hot walking back to the chill out zone in the sun and I felt very lethargic. Even two hours after finishing I did not have the slightest appetite but grabbed a bean wrap. I can’t report on the rest of the food, but Angus sampled it with more gusto and spoke highly of the chicken Alfredo and a beef and caramelised onion sandwich!

Our prologue time of 1 hour 41 minutes put us about half-way down the field, 42nd out of 123 finishers in our Grand Masters category. The fastest time was 63 minutes by Nino Schurter and Sebastian Fini. It’s staggering how much faster the pro/top riders are.

Once at the Saronsberg Vineyard in Tulbach, we reached the first of the tent villages. The tents were spacious and you could half stand inside. We had one each but you could have fitted two mattresses in each one.

The set up was as we had expected though it is worth noting that there was no soap or shower gel in the showers. Angus had a bar of soap, which actually worked surprisingly well for cleaning my hair, but I was surprised that soap/shampoo hadn’t been mentioned in any of the official kit lists.

We ate dinner in an enormous mess tent. I was almost feeling hungry. Rice with a buffet choice of lentils, vegetables, chicken and beef stew.

The awarding of the day’s jerseys dragged on for a bit too long, though I was hoping that there would be some ice cream or chocolate at the end of it… to encourage people to stay. Sadly there was no dessert at all! In spite of rehydrating after the Prologue I didn’t have a pee until 8pm! But I hoped that meant my tummy was on the road to recovery.

26km, 700m climbing. 1 hour, 41 minutes. 42nd out of 123 finishing teams in the Grand Masters category.

Registration.

I noticed there were some safety kayaks at the next floating bridge we encountered, which was on Stage 1. Perhaps someone fell in?

Dusty but smily faces. Brown rivulets of dirt were still coming out of eyes the following morning.

The crew that washed our bikes after every stage.

Tent City Tulbach.

The Chill-out Zone.

My first Cape Epic dinner.

Stage 1 (Monday 18 March)

The night didn’t pass well. After hitting the sack – more accurately the soft blue mattress that had been provided with my own yoga mat on top – I woke at around midnight in a sweat and had to make for the toilets at pace. The same thing happened a couple of hours later. Although I then slept until 5am – when a camp wide wake-up call blasted out the Cape Epic theme song – things still were not good down below.

I was very worried about completing the stage. It was forecast to hit 36 degrees and if my body could not absorb fluids, dehydration and a race exit seemed likely. At breakfast I had no appetite but forced down some cereal and a banana. Then with alarming rapidity it was time for our start. We were in Group G, which was off at 7.45am, some time after the leading UCI Mens start at 7.00am. We had forgotten to pick up our SOS beacon, which is charged by the race team every night, and this led to a last minute panic. When we entered start our pen our wave had all exited and were already on the start-line!

That didn’t matter as, given my condition, we were planning on riding at our own pace. However, this was almost forced on us sooner than expected when we found ourselves  behind the bunch that formed on the initial road section! Once we reached the trails we said goodbye to most of our wave and had relaxed riding companions until the faster riders in Group H started to overtake us.

The stage was very hard – it was one of my toughest days on the bike – with the nastiest section being the final climb, Fanti’s Pass, which was more than 20% in places and which we climbed in the afternoon sun. Both I and lots of others walked the steep sections. Angus was going very strongly and rode most of them. He would probably have been 30 minutes faster on the stage had he been riding solo. The final long descent was the most technical of the day, much harder than the one selected as the Toyota Tough section.

I was so tired even my arms felt like jelly. My reaction time was down, and just making the bike go where I wanted it to go was a challenge. I clipped the left end of my handlebar on a rock in a straight downhill traverse and the next thing I knew I was rolling backwards down into the bush. Angus, who was luckily behind me, had to haul me back up onto the trail. No damage was done though I very nearly lost my phone which fell out of my pocket. It’s so easy to make these mistakes when tired and if you are unlucky, it’s race over.

For sustenance I just ate bananas, a handful of sweets and drank Coke. Not ideal, thought I think I was probably riding at a fat burning pace for most of the stage.

We finished in six and a half hours. I think I just about drank enough – though I was getting cramps at the end – but even afterwards I didn’t feel very hungry. I just felt bloated and before dinner I was on the toilet a couple more times.

That made me decide to go to the medical tent. I was greeted with a view of about half a dozen riders on drips! When I explained my symptoms, the doctor, concerned that I may have become too dehydrated, ran a blood test. This confirmed I hadn’t become so dehydrated that my kidneys were struggling, so she gave me some medicine for the bloating and diarrhoea.

This is probably a good point to mention the standard evening food options. Rice, pasta, a selection of sauces, one or two vegetable dishes, chicken and red meat in a stew or goulash. It was very tasty but I just had tagliatelle, butternut squash and lentils.

With the pills in my pocket, I went to sleep feeling more optimistic about the next day’s stage.

88km, 2400m. 6 hours, 29 minutes. 55th out of 110 finishing teams in the Grand Masters. 51st in GC (general classification, the total of all the stage times).

Not a wise use of energy, but we managed to catch the group that formed ahead of us as soon as we reached an initial road section.

Typical terrain for the stage. Dusty trails with some rocks.

Somewhere before the final climb up Fanti’s Pass… I still seem to be smiling.

The water station before Fanti’s Pass.

Dinner in the giant mess tent.

Stage 2 (Tuesday 19 March)

Alas at 11.30pm I was on the toilet again. Same a couple of hours later. The pills were not having the hoped for magical effect.

By now I had already been to the toilet many more times than the average Cape Epic participant would go over the whole course of the race, so I considered myself an expert on which ones to choose. There were a few regular flushing toilets in a trailer which were the first choice. The rest were chemical toilets. Unlike most portaloos these were not completely gross. The camp janitors went in and cleaned them after most visits. We’d also all been issued with disinfectant spray so after washing my hands with water it was easy to spray on my hands when I returned to my tent.

I stuck to my boring breakfast with the addition of a steamed omelette, basically a slab of whisked egg cooked in a big tray and cut into squares. The stage was going to very hard with an initial climb up ‘The Wagon Trail’, which we would also descend at the end. We were still in Group G but as the bunch sped off I realised we were not going to stick with it. Not that it mattered, we were soon all in a long line wrestling our bikes up the rocky trail.

Once someone decided to walk, we all had to do the same. To be honest it was a relief to have a break from pedalling. Although the view back down into the valley was spectacular, I did not enjoy it. It was too gruelling and in my weakened state I was worried that one effort too many may completely break me. My energy felt the same as it had on Fanti’s Pass (i.e. I’d had minimal recovery overnight) and my maximum HR seemed to be about 125! We reached the top 2 hours into the stage.

Thereafter things improved. We dropped into the Witzenberg Valley, a high basin hemmed in on all sides by mountains. There was a lot of faster riding on sandy tracks through the orchards in the valley as well as some sections of single track. This was rocky, steep and hot but fortunately, the longest section was only about 12km.

I’d also switched my nutrition to potatoes; these are one of Lillian’s favourite riding snacks on long sportives, though it was actually a conversation with my old Swiss Epic partner and Cape Epic two time finisher Alex that reminded me of this delicious treat. He had called me and given me a pep talk the previous afternoon which was much appreciated!

I also drank a lot of fluids. Some USN energy drink at the drink stops. Lots of Nuuns-like hydration tablets mixed in my bottles. I had felt thirsty from the start of the stage and in spite of drinking 6 litres the thirst never went away.

On the positive side I had no cramps. That may have also been helped by a couple of USN Cramp Stop tablets. The descent of The Wagon Trail was fun but as it took about 25 minutes it was wearing on the body. I held back as the consequences of a crash would have been serious.

Angus latched us onto a faster group at the bottom and we were given a good pull – mainly by the impressively strong (and friendly) Austrian Dagmar, with her Swiss partner in the team ‘From the Swiss Mountains’. About 5km from the finish I started feeling that the pace was a bit too intense and could feel a bonk coming on. I was just about to suggest easing off when my front wheel slid as we went through a 90 degree turn in the gravel courtyard of a house. At least there was an audience there who all gave me a cheer!

After a gel I got some punch back in my legs and we had a quick ride in, actually catching our Austrian/Swiss friends on the line. The only other food I ate were the potatoes but the nutrition plan seemed to work… at least for the endurance pace we were riding at.

After finishing I had the pleasant sensation of feeling like my appetite was back and made the most of the lunch options. A chocolate milk drink and pasta with a chicken schnitzel. For a change, my recovery seemed to be going well. Even better, at 6.45pm I needed to have a pee without simultaneously needing to take a dump. That was the first time I had had a pee in a urinal in three days. The simple pleasures of life!

Sadly my surge of optimism was dampened by the need to go to the toilet at 10pm, at midnight – just for a pee – and at 2.30am. I was starting to become frustrated with my body. Surely five days was long enough to recover from a mild tummy bug!

97km, 2200m. 7 hours, 32 minutes. 42nd out of 94 finishing teams. 44th in GC.

I’ll take sand over rocks but it was still not easy to ride on at times.

On some of the single-track in the high valley.

Some more pleasant riding. The main section of single-track that came later was about 12km long, and was much more rocky and demanding.

Our post-ride lunch options. These were pretty much the same every day.

Stage 3 (Wednesday 20 March)

This was a transition stage from Tulbach to Wellington. An easier day with less climbing and about 20km on the road, including a climb up and partial descent of Bainskloof Pass. The tarmac on this road was freshly laid. It would have been a joy to ride up it on a road bike, ideally with a tailwind. It was still fun on a mountain bike.

Once over the pass, as we sped down the road and entered the Wellington valley the heat was so oppressive that it felt like we were penetrating a physical barrier. After we turned off the road and started a short single-track climb directly in the sun, which marked the start of the the last 30km, it was almost suffocating.

That said, my improving energy levels meant it felt like a hard day – as expected on the Epic – rather than a horrendous one. In spite of the diarrhoea, I think I was absorbing nutrition and getting stronger. It was nice to have more of an appetite too. For breakfast I had added mushrooms to my steamed omelette and had a bowl of oats.

I had also gone back to the medical tent before the start to get some more of the anti-diarrhoea medicine, which was something called Smecta. The medic also confirmed that it wouldn’t hurt to take some Imodium as well which I did. As I knew today was going to be even hotter, I hadn’t wanted there to be any problems with hydration.

We were getting to the point where we were seeing the same teams on most days, sometimes on several occasions. Those encounters and short conversations are one of the things that makes stage racing such fun. Today we talked to a Norwegian, Rune, who was riding by himself after his partner had diarrhoea the night before Stage 2 and, in spite of fighting his way to the finish in 9 hours, had been hospitalised after finishing (Team ‘Norwegian Machinery’).

I had also been told by a friend about two Kiwi riders (Team ‘Rivetracing’) and we noticed them passing us on the first main climb of the stage. They were a much faster team, but it was to be a tough day for them. One of them had some gut problems and ended getting heatstroke in the final 10km of the stage!

As Wellington was a new finish location, we were in a new tent city. It was 38 degrees and initially the sun was so high that there was only a sliver of shade to sit or lie in right beside the tents. Nevertheless, the now familiar routine kicked in. Lunch (chocolate milk drink and some beef with noodles), a shower, a chat on WhatsApp with Alex back in London, and then some relaxing in the shade writing this blog and catching up on news. I had been planning of doing some studying in the afternoons of the race. I don’t know which fantasy world I was in when I thought I would have the energy to do that!

I had a slightly more varied race diet today. Potatoes, a gel and a pack of Shotbloks. One side effect of my recovery is that I am starting to feel hungry during the race. Perhaps that also reflects the fact we are riding a bit harder and therefore burning more glycogen. Dinner was rice, pasta, chicken and some veggies.

94km, 2100m. 6 hours, 16 minutes. 33rd out of 83 finishing teams. 37th in GC.

On the start of the road over the Bainskloof Pass. The photo I wish I’d taken was of a sign a few kilometres further which was a red warning triangle with the word ‘Leopards’ in it.

Post-finish lunch.

Relaxing in our new tent city home.

Weather forecast showing an even hotter Thursday.

Stage 4 (Thursday 21 March)

I don’t know if it is due to me absorbing water a bit more slowly or the massive amount of sweating (or both) but it still took me until 6.30pm the day before to have my first pee since breakfast. Then I was up in the night another three times to have a pee. My body seemed to be in catch up mode. Still, I was very happy to be peeing and not pooing!

Today was the Queen Stage and was originally 88km with 3000m ascent. However, in view of the 39-40 degree heat forecast in the valley, it was shortened to 74km and 2550m. We were disappointed to see however that the monstrous looking final 700m single track climb – including a section called Aap Duez due to all the hairpin bends – was still in the stage.

As my stomach was feeling better, I added a sausage to my scrambled eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes. For the first two climbs I felt as strong as Angus which was a nice change. I started to wilt at the top of the third climb and by the fourth and final one I was tired. Still at least it was where one would expect it, at the end of the stage. And many people were much worse. Although the climb was mainly in the forest and there with some shade, there was no breeze. People – stronger riders as they had started in waves ahead of us – were cowering in the shade. I even saw someone trying to fill his bottle from a tiny trickle of water, hopefully just to pour on himself rather than to drink! That said there was really no excuse for running out of water as from 20km onwards there was a water point roughly every 10km.

I was glad they did leave in the final climb, which took us to the very top of a mountain called the Geelbekskop, as the view from the final switchbacks of the climb was worth the rivers of sweat. We took a short breather at the top to take a picture and because I had found that when I reached the top of a climb in a state of wobbly armed and jelly legged exhaustion it was a sensible to try and recover before launching into the descent, the first part of which was ominously called ‘Cliffhanger’.

It started with some very tight switchbacks at the top, some rocky traversing sections and then a long flow trail through forest. It was enjoyable downhill mountain biking but my body took a battering and my right knee started to hurt, I realised due to spending too long with my dropper post down. It was exactly the kind of knee pain you get if your saddle it too low.

After 30 minutes of arm jarring descending it was a relief to return to the flatter tracks through the vineyards and the final section to the finish. Although it was an undoubtedly tough day I would almost say it was fun.

The food tally on the ride was potatoes at every stop, two gels and two Em’s Bites.

73km, 2550m. 6 hours, 22 minutes. 27th out of 71 finishing teams. 32nd in GC.

Often the gravel sections are harder to ride up than the single-track ones. It’s tiring keeping one’s bike straight on steep sections like this.

On one of the final switchbacks of the climb up Geelbekskop. A lower section of the trail is visible in the background.

Summit photo with the Wellington valley in the background.

The final few kilometres to the finish.

Post-stage re-fuelling!

Stage 5 (Friday 22 March)

This was the easiest stage of the race and was to be a relative rest. With lower temperatures forecast, just 30 degrees at midday, and a functioning digestive system, I was hoping it would be a much less arduous day. The only issue was that I had started coughing the previous morning. Last night I had been worried about it disturbing my sleep – and that of those around me – so I went to the medical tent again. They gave me three Strepsils and some kind of effervescent tablet.

At the end of the stage my throat felt raw. Back in the medical tent I was given just two more Strepsils – they were apparently in short supply – and some antihistamine. The doctor thought I may have been having an allergic reaction to all the dust. However, as I was still coughing almost two weeks, I think it was just a cold. The doctor also gave me some paracetamol. Interestingly, he told me that one shouldn’t take ibuprofen for multi-day events as it puts additional stress on one’s kidneys.

Such a big part of the Cape Epic is looking after your body, either by avoiding injury of just staying well. Being sick brought home to me how amazing one’s body is and how much abuse one can put it through when it’s working well. With the aim of giving our bodies a bit more TLC we decided to have a recovery massage and were lucky to get a last minute appointment. In hindsight, we should have booked the daily massage package!

Returning to the race, it was an enjoyable day. The trails were sculpted flow trails, the climbs were about as mellow as mountain biking climbs can be and, with a total time of four and three quarter hours, it was short.

The other highlights of the day include a transfer to Stellenbosch in an air-conditioned coach, and spending a sunny but cool evening at our final camp in the sport grounds of Stellenbosch University. Our routine was now familiar. Into the dinner tent 7.20-7.30pm, just as the jersey presentations were ending so that we could catch the daily video and the race briefing without a lot of hanging around. Then back to the tent with the aim of sleeping at around 8.30pm.

Our dinner was rice and pasta supplemented with vegetables and some meat. We never ate any dessert, mainly because there weren’t any appealing options; it was unusually some sort of cake in a plastic box.

70km, 1750m. 4 hours, 46 minutes. 30th out of 71 finishing teams. 31st in GC.

This rider, Florian, had become a legend due to his attire – he rode in speedos – and the fact he was filmed picking up other people’s litter. Sadly he abandoned on Stage 5 due to an injury he had sustained in a crash the previous day. In case you are wondering he was German… and a triathlete.

The initial climb of the day was up through the vineyards around Wellington.

They trails we rode on in the stage were enjoyable…

… with some cool rocky scenery.

Our third and final tent city.

Stage 6 (Saturday 23 March)

The cloud came in overnight and it started raining, which meant we had to get up in the middle of the night and lower the waterproof flaps on our tents. I was also up four times to have a pee. It was weird. Like my body had a delay of several hours for absorbing fluids!

Up at 5am. The cloud was low. There was a light drizzle and it was humid. I have to say I felt completely over the event. If it could have ended with Stage 5 that would have been fine with me. Nevertheless, we had to keep going.

Once we started racing the rain stopped. We climbed through the vineyards into the cloud. The stage was one of the tougher ones at 87km with 2200m of ascent, but the cooler temperatures meant we could ride harder and not feel like we were risking a meltdown. The rain had dampened down the dust and although the descents were rough and technical in places it was exciting and enjoyable riding.

It was the first day where I had eaten like I would normally do on a bike ride. A combination of Em’s bites, Shotbloks, gels, potatoes and a new favourite, quarters of hot cross buns. I also followed my routine of having some USN Cramp Stop – either in pill or gel form – towards the end of each stage which seems to work as after Stage 1 I had no more cramps.

We finished in just over 6 hours with our best position our Grand Masters category so far (27th). Afterwards we had time for another massage . There were some gaps due to cancellations so even without having signed up to the massage package we were able to find a couple of free slots.

We then walked into Stellenbosch through the University grounds to find a chemist to buy some Strepsils. The streets we walked along contained picturesque houses and gardens and we were pleased to that AirBnB that we would be staying in the night after Stage 7 was well located in that nice side of town.

Dinner was going to be cooked on a braai and we returned to mess tent to the appetite inducing smells of barbecuing meat. Needless to say, we had protein rich dinner. I hoped it wouldn’t cause a relapse of my tummy problems.

This was the final evening meal in tent city and with just Stage 7 tomorrow it was hard to believe that the race was almost over. The finish had seemed so far away and almost unattainable a few days previously, and yet now we were feeling sad it was about to arrive.

87km, 2400m. 6 hours, 6 minutes. 27th out of 70 finishing teams. 32nd in GC. Total riding time: 43 hours, 55 minutes.

We crossed this ford a total of four times on Stages 6 and 7.

The braai.

The Visual Arts Building in Stellenbosch University.

Stage 7 (Sunday 24 March)

We were given a lie-in of an hour with everything in the morning routine taking place 60 minutes later. My cough was better and as we ate breakfast I felt strong and excited by the final stage… which was a pleasant feeling.

At 8.30am we were off, working our way forward from the back of Group F. (We’d been upgraded to F after Stage 4.)

The first four climbs came in quick succession with excellent bike descents with names like ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Neverending Story’. We were able to make our way up through the field on the climbs and figured we were doing well as we started overtaking people we had not seen before. The only set-back in an otherwise perfect day was that I crashed on a gravel section about 15km from the finish. I bent my handlebars – easily straightened – but also lost my water bottle. Luckily Angus was able to lend me his as he also carried a hydration backpack. Our bikes, Scott Sparks, only carry one water bottle – we used the largest ones we could find which held 950ml – so I carried extra water in a 500ml bottle in my back pocket on all the stages. However, unlike a hydration pack it was not easy to drink from on a bumpy trail.

The crash was a reminder to take it easy. We both really wanted to finish the event on our bikes, not running with a broken machine or nursing a broken limb. Before long the tent city was in sight. We dropped down to the sports ground and sprinted in to the finish together. It was a great stage to end the race with and gave us our best stage result of 22nd in the Grand Masters category and a final GC position of 30th.

As with a lot of these events the aftermath was anti-climatic. Many people were already racing to pack their bikes away for a bus shuttle service to Cape Town. After showering we had to sort our things out quickly – the tent city was being dismantled around us – and ride our bikes to our AirBnB. Then we had to walk back to the tent city pick up our luggage and bike boxes.

We hadn’t made a booking for dinner so couldn’t get a table at the more famous Stellenbosch restaurants. However, we found a decent Italian-style eatery and had a delicious dinner of edamame salad, pizza and affogato washed down with a bottle of Windhoek lager and a Castle Lite. We saw a few familiar faces in town. Rob from the UK had come to the same restaurant for dinner with his wife and teenage sons. His wife said that she heard that the race had the highest drop-out rate of any to date. I calculated it later and it was 31% across all the teams in the race (710 teams completed the Prologue). In our category it was 43%!

We also bumped into Victor and Diego, both from the USA but originally from Colombia (Team ‘GT Racing’). They were probably the team we saw who had suffered the most. Diego had diarrhoea and stomach cramps from Stage 1. We would often overtake them on the climbs with Diego being in a world of pain and, as he was an excellent mountain biker, he would gain time back on the descents. Luckily, it sounded like Diego recovered enough to be able to enjoy the final stage.

67km, 2000m. 4 hours, 42 minutes. 22th out of 70 finishing teams in the Grand Masters. 30th in GC.

My final breakfast of the race.

Starting at the back of Group F. We were never organised enough to be at the pen early enough to start near the front!

After my crash and on the final main climb of the stage.

On the final descent, the famous G-Spot trail.

Approaching the finish line.

Smiles all round at the finish (with Rune).

Wrap Up

The Cape Epic is a team event so I’d like to thank my partner Angus. It was nice to race over the last couple of days as a team of equals, but he was very patient waiting for me in those early stages.

The other often taken for granted members of our team were our bikes and our bodies. We both ride Scott Spark RCs and they were fantastic. Aside from a couple of very minor mechanical issues neither of us had any major problems or punctures. My tummy and coughing issues aside, our bodies held up well. The only pain I had was the one in my right knee. Contrary to the doctor’s advice – but aware that the weather was cooler – I took a couple of ibuprofen at the start of the last two stages. We also had some chafing from our saddles and tender backsides, but that’s to be expected. No visits were required to the, possibly apocryphal, ‘Cape Epic bum clinic’.

Now that I am looking back on the event, it is indeed unique and based my experience of MTB stage races is at a level above the ones I have done. The event is bigger and field deeper and more international. Although the entry fee was considerable, I felt it was worth it; the scale of the race organisation was truly impressive.

Insider Tips

I have not repeated things that are already listed on the race website/FAQs.

1. Pay for all the daily extras; the laundry service, massage and bike maintenance package. Whilst we managed to book a couple of massage slots, we had no luck at all getting one of the mechanics to even give our shifting a tune-up. They were all completed booked up by riders with pre-paid packages.

2. Check that you have sufficient sealant in your tyres. I realised half-way through the race that the sealant in one of my tyres had dried out. It could have happened during the flight out to South Africa, but regardless it was stupid of me not to have checked whilst in Cape Town.

3. Bring some soap or shampoo. There is none provided in the showers. And don’t forget a towel.

4. Do not bring any work. I brought a laptop and some studying and did look at either. Unless you are riding at an elite level you will be unlikely to have the brain space or energy for anything other than some light reading. The race is a boot camp where all you have time for is riding, eating, preparing the bike for the next day and sleeping. In spite of listening to a couple of history podcasts in order to wind-down, I didn’t think about the Roman Empire even once!

5. Also make sure you take a headtorch and a couple of power banks. The power banks are the easiest way to recharge your electronic devices as the power points that are available in the chill out zone are in short supply in the afternoons. We found that charging the power banks either over breakfast or overnight worked well as more points were available then.

In general look after your body and remember it is an 8 day race. Eat the simpler cooked foods and keep sterilising your hands.

And finally, the race is over very quickly so savour it… even the difficult bits!

This final picture from Sportograf is in homage to the race and the amazing flying skills of the helicopter pilots.