Nguni Bulls – Epic Updates: Prologue & Stage 1

Sent via the wires directly from the ABSA Cape Epic by Rens Rezelman (@rens29er). Rens is riding his 3^rd ABSA Cape Epic in the Nguni Bulls Team with Andrew “Rocky” Koen. They’re team 120 if you’d like to follow them live via Tracker.

Going into the Epic

Leading up to the Epic Rens has been rather ill, with an aggressive bug, which laid his household flat. But being one to look on the bright side his comment on the germ enforced lossed was as follows:

“I lost some power. Luckily I also lost some weight” which any cyclist knows is good for your power to weight ratio.

Note from the editor: for as must as possible I’ll use Rens’ words verbatim, with just some context notes here and there to keep the flow going. I hope you enjoy his take on the Epic!

Prologue: 20km with 600m of climbing

All in. Happy days. We’ll wait for official times later. Just glad to be done in one piece. Great atmosphere on the route… real Tour de France atmosphere on the climbs. Bells clanging and people cheering. It felt great!

Thanks to those who came out… Dr Phall, Twakkie, Gav, 2 Tone… Thanks.

The (Trek) Fuel rode like a bomb down a very rutted Plum Pudding. Everyone else was walking but that dropper seatpost is just brilliant!

Tomorrow we start the serious stuff though!

Official Time: 01:07:02

Update from Basecamp:

Broken bone tally for the Cape Epic Prologue:

• 11 collar bones
• 1 arm
• 1 leg
• 1 back

According to talk around the campfire.

I think we’ve all donated some skin on that baby (Ed: the singletack leading to Plumb Pudding). It needs to be treated with respect.

When we rode down there (I think we were the 475^th odd team to do so) it was heavily rutted and dusty. The new sand hid the old damage and it made for some medical bills and broken dreams.

Plan for Stage 1: First 30km pretty much all uphill. We’ll have some time to switch on the diesels and chug up Groenlandberg.

Tactic: Home in one piece. Let the other teams blow out some big candles whiles we nurture the fire for later in the week.

Stage 1: 113km with 2 800m of climbing

As expected it was a kick in the nuts. Normally they say “2 800m climbing” and your Garmin shows 2 400m at the end.

Ha! Not today. 2 800m it was. With rain.

The day was probably one of the toughest days on the bike for me personally. I’m clearly still a bit drained from being ill and two crashes didn’t help. Nothing serious though.

First one a manky *** (*Ed: Southern European Nationality withheld for international diplomatic reasons) wiped out in front of me going down Groenlandberg. I followed as there was nowhere else to go. He was apologetic enough. He owes me a pizza!

Rocky rode really well. I was gasping for air in the middle but settled down by the fifth hour in the saddle.

The bikes behaved well. I need a new gear trigger as the one for the front derailleur has packed up. I think we rode 6:40ish and I have no idea where that put us. But certainly better on the GC than yesterday.

Thanks Nats, Amanda and Gawie for being at the water-points, it’s a great moral booster!

Rain has set in so we’re in for a muddy day two, AGAIN!

Thanks for the support you lot. Now back to work.

We’re just a bit gutted Sauser beat us again. As it stands after our 18 Epic stages: Sauser 18 vs Nguni Bulls 0. But we have tomorrow!

Official Time: 06:46:34.6

GC Position & Time: 43^rd Masters, 165 GC, 07:53:36.6