Sent via the wires directly from the ABSA Cape Epic by Rens Rezelman (@rens29er). Rens is riding his 3rd 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.
Photo by Sam Clark/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
Pre-Stage Chatter
By the end of today we would have scaled our first Everest climb 8 300m…
Nick Muzik/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
Stage 3: 128km with 2 300m of climbing
So normally the long stage means some free mileage. Oh how we laughed at that assumption at the end of today. I can without a doubt say that today was one of the toughest days on a bike for me. 128km of really challenging riding. The climbs were relentless. I kept telling Rocky how glad I was not to be a pro, because they need to spring those 25% inclines. We just default down to granny gear and hope to keep the front wheel form lifting.
Until we hit the sandy sections. Then we had to walk. In fairness it was only 2.5km… but after 90km of slogging away it was a test of mental strength.
And then with 28km to go we had the headwind. Oh boy… I fear some people are going to burn a lot of candles getting through that. As I write this there are hundreds of teams still out there Cut-off might just be a bit traumatic tonight.
In saying that the top end of the field is very strong. We gave a good shtonk today and just cracked the masters’ top 40…
The massage was more torture than therapeutic… but it’s like vegetables to kids: not that much fun but good for one!
I think Sauser is still ahead of us. I’ll give him today.
More importantly we got the news about the cricket at the last water-point. Our thoughts are with the Proteas!
Bikes behaved. I snapped a spoke and had an “untrue” wheel for 30 odd kilometres. No problem though. Loving the Trek.
So it’s an early night. I have no idea what we’re doing tomorrow. I’ll find out later. I’m still trying to digest today.
Good to see you Chanan!
Until tomorrow then!
Bulls bye.
