What’s in a name?

Will the Fat Boys have the edge over the Fatboys and Fat Bob?

And can The Butcher And His Babe overcome the challenge of Absa Good Wife? Will the Paradise Pimps and Whoreiors be, er, working together.

The 2016 Absa Cape Epic race register is online, and these are just a few of the more colourful names people have chosen for their teams.

For some, however, the effort has proven to be too much: Name TBA, No Cool Name and To Be Announced are presumably still racking their brains.

No such problem though for Amazeballs, Attitude of Gratitude, Dogged and No Illusion of Grandeur.

But what on earth were Moomoo thinking? And Gasssss?

More obvious are Epic Brothers, Epic Dream, Epic Fighters and Epicondriacs.

And there’s no doubting where the Karoo Poison or the Down Underdogs come from.

Talking of which, those Aussies will be from one of 54 different countries represented at the 2016 Absa Cape Epic.

They will be coming from across Europe and as far afield as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico. Besides the many South Africans in the field, the continent will also be represented by riders from Mauritius, Zambia, Angola and more. And then there will be Estonians, Ukranians, Czechs, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and a selection of Americans.

A total of 42% of the field will be riders from outside South Africa’s borders.

The Caribbean island of Aruba will be represented for the first time, as will Greece (in the person of top professional rider Periklis Ilias) and Turkey.

You can check out who is racing on http://www.cape-epic.com/riders/the-2016-race/race-register

There you will find that the youngest competitor will be 18-year-old Josep Colomina Tomas of Spain and the oldest is 68-year-old local rider Sandy Rae.

The youngest and oldest female riders will be 23-year-old Ukranian professional Yana Belomoina and South African Colleen Jacob, 55.

A total of 52% of the field will be riding the Absa Cape Epic for the first time and 16% have raced it three times or more.

Will they, like one of the teams out there, end up Tyred and Weary? Or will it be a case of Beers and Gears? But maybe they would be wiser to take their lead from the name of the pairing who have decided that their approach will be Why Worry Be Happy.

* The 2016 Absa Cape Epic mountain bike stage race takes place from 13 to 20 March and the much anticipated route can be viewed here.  The 2016 race will host the 100th stage in the history of the event – the EPIC100 –  on Tuesday 15 March. 

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