Tracking Stage 2 - Songo's Sauser and Stander make it 3 for 3

World MTB Champ Christoph Sauser and his young South African teammate Burry Strander of team Songo.info reeled in the breakaway of Trek's Bart Brentjens (NED) and Chris Jongewaard (AUS) with about 40Km to go, erasing a five minute gap and breaking away themselves to earn their 3rd victory in 3 days. (They also won the 19km Prologue at Table Mountain and the race's longest stage, the 112km Stage 1 from Gordon's Bay to Villiersdorp.)

Via Cape Epic's live tracking it appeared all teams took a short cut, cutting off an entire section of the race course that would have led to Water Station #2 at 52km as outlined in the Google map. By my estimates, that must have been a good 10km chopped off. So was it 110km or 100km? Or was the originally planned route 120km? Anyways, unlike last year's point to point stages, this one made one big loop starting and finishing in the town of Villiersdorp which must have been convenient for everyone involved including the racers. (man was is it pain to pack up every morning and then claim your 35kg bag at the end of a long stage!)

Polar's live tracking of select rider's heart rates and speeds worked pretty well except the updates intervals weren't frequent enough making it really hard to monitor any patterns and compare to other riders as well as the breakaway progress. At 50km in, it appeared Trek-Brentjen had built a commanding lead and then the next thing you know the map shows them behind two tracked teams of the Bulls-Platt and Songo-Sauser. One last thing to note is at times riders would disappear from the grid (likely due to loss of GPS signal) and the fact that some of the top teams aren't being tracked makes it hard to determine the exact position of each team.

Big ups to my friend Rich and his teammate Doug (Block/GeoLadders.com) for their 4th place on the day and moving up to 3rd in the GC in the Masters category!

Snapshot of Stage 2 Results:
1. Songo.info (Sauser/Stander) 3:53:48
2. Bulls (Platt/Sahm) 3:56:08
3. Felt Factory 2 (Lindgren/Kugler) 3:56:09

Other Notables and friends I'm following (US competitors in bold):
11. ABSA Masters (Brown/Bucher) 4:19:50 (1st Masters)
14. DCM MonaVie-Cannondale (Kritzinger/Tinker Jaurez) 4:22:15
15. Adidas Big Tree (Pfitzenmaier/Alison Sydor) 4:23:10 (1st Mixed Team)
16. Cube/Craft-Rocky Mountain (Bresser/Udo Boelts) 4:23.11
34. Block/GeoLadders.com (Doug Andrews/Rich Bartlett) 4:51.10 (4th Masters)
36. Storck (Faris Al Sultan/Wener Leitner) 4:51.42
40. Specialized/Red Bull (Rebecca Rusch/Matthew Weatherley-White) 4:52:58 (5th Mixed)
45. DCM Chome MonaVie (Rensburg/Benjamin Sonntag) 4:56.25 (35th Men)
50. 2XtremeMasters (Dirk Rossignol/Ronny Roelandt) 5:03.52 (6th Masters)
59. Chucks Hawaii (Ingrid Rolles/Scott Rolles) 5:09:00 (10th Mixed)
129. Firefly (Francois Millard/Smith) 5:39:50 (91st Men)
163. Rwanda B (Uwimana/Tom Ritchey) 5:53:37 (111th Men)
175. StrickyTours.com (Steven Strickler/Jonathan Williams) 6:00:02 (34th Masters)
198. Independent Fabrication (Nick Hodge/Wayne Baker) 6:08.12 (131st Men)
200. Dunkeld Cycles (Dylan Chilcott/Aiden Brown) 6:08.28 (133rd Men)
202. Thieles Automotive (Trever Bushnell/Mike Thiele) 6:09.12 (42nd Masters)
287. Hansgrohe/Santa Cruz (Anka Martin/Forsythe) 6:39.18 (37th Mixed)
297. Grumpy Caveman (Graeme Mellet/Campbell) 6:41.17 (184th Men)
302. LaGrange (Alan Bub/Gary Bub) 6:43.29 (187th Men)
430. DJ & Tom Looking for Kudu (DJ Brooks/Landon-Smith) 7:37:36 (262nd Men)
490. NewspaperDirect SA (Robert Scott/Steer) 8:04.20 (296th Men)

Cool Live Tracking by Polar

Ok, maybe they had this last year, but I was racing so I never got to see this. But Cape Epic's site has live tracking of the heart rates and speed of select riders during each stage. I just captured this of Stage 2...


Visit the Cape Epic website during the race to see the live tracking.

Cape Epic 2009 is under way!

And I'm wishing I was in South Africa doing it! Well, maybe not! I'm totally out of shape and just came back from a month's trip to Australia and New Zealand. But this year's race looks pretty sweet and it seems to get better every year. For such a young race I can't believe how well these guys pull it off. The Prologue was on Saturday and started in Capetown at Table Mountain. Ok, not on Table Mountain but around it. As you may recall, last year's Prologue was in Knysna, a really great town in itself, but about 500km to the east. I had to rent a car to get out there after missing my booked shuttle bus by a day due to United's cancelled flight. (which reminds me... I never did get reimbursed for my expenses for having to stay an extra day in SF)

While only 6 US teams are competing this year (must be the economy) a quick look at the start list and you can see this race is still growing in popularity. Former pro cyclist and Tour de France vet Udo Boelts, mtn bike legend Tinker Jaurez are among the racers along with some of the names you would expect like World Mtn Bike champ Christoph Sauser, Olympic gold medalist Bart Brentjens (who at 40 can still bring it), local favorites David George and Kevin Evans, and of course those teams of Bulls. The pro triathletes are getting in the mix with top Ironman Pros Faris Al Saltan and Werner Leitner have teamed up (team Storck). Last year's winners Roel Paulisson and Jakob Fuglsang are not there to defend. Alison Sydor is not going to defend her title however is back to compete as a mixed team with half of last year's mixed team winner Nico Pfitzenmaier. The other half, Ivanna Kraft has teamed up with Lukas Kubis. A little swap to make it interesting? Top American endurance racer Rebecca Rusch (who I rode with for a short period while we were both partnerless during last year's race) is also competing in the mixed team category.

Of course, I have to give a shout out to my amateur friends mixing it up with the pros...

Ronny Roelandt (2XtremeMasters #40-1)- my Belgium friend that I met last year. Make sure your cassette is tightened this time!

Rich Bartlett and Doug Andrews (Block/Geoladders.com #215-1, -2) - my friend from Block Shop (Lancaster, CA) and his entrepreneurial teammate who raced strong last year. Rich no riding singlespeed!

Dylan Chilcott (Dunkeld Cycles #145-1) - You have no excuses with that awesome massage team

Jonny Rondash? Where are you? DNS? dude, you should have called me up!

Speaking of massage teams, Jeannette and Amori - I will miss you guys this year! Keep the boys healthy and running!

Good luck to all!

Rim Riding & the bike that won Cape Epic

I almost forgot about this story. The Cannondale-Vredestein team that won the whole thing had a near disaster day when they guys ran out of tubes and C02s after a series of flats and ultimately a rear tire tear. (the tubeless didn't help). So Roel Paulissen, the stronger rider that day switched rear wheels with his teammate Jakob Fuglsang and rode on the RIM for 18km to preserve their lead on Stage 5 into Bredasorp. The story on VeloNews.com

Cape Epic Video Highlights on Cycling.tv

In case you missed the daily coverage on Cycling.TV here are the links to the video highlights of each stage:
Prologue (includes previews of all stages)
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Stage 7
Stage 8