Stage Two ABSA Cape Epic


LPG Sport Stage 1 Stage 2 Total Remaining
Days 2 6
Time 6h 30min 7h 30min 14 hrs
Distance 101km 139km 240km 660km
Climbing 2700m 2300m 5000m 11000m


Wild life sighting of the day: 3 Elephants! Seriously, we rode through a big 5 game park!

Quote of the day: As we were flying along at 35km/h through rolling hills our new Dutch friends chirped up: “This stage is a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing!”

Stage 2 Uniondale - Oudtshoorn
Well, well as you can imagine this all changed very quickly! The first 35km to the first water point was pretty quick, good farm roads with no noted worthy climbs.

Last night during race briefing the organizer kept warning all riders of a “little” mountain pass the riders would have to negotiate! The most testing climb of the 8 days! Beware of “Stair way to heaven”, a sting in the tail right at the end of the 15km pass, “don’t worry we don’t expect you to be riding up it”! He was spot on the sting did hurt and no we definitely didn’t ride it! Well we actually started walking about 2 km before that!

Down hills are supposed to be your reward after slogging your way up a mountain pass! Well well The Cape Epic doesn’t conform to many rules, I’ve never seen so many riders walking down a hill! Chris and I saw our chance and hurtled bye! It was going to have to be vertical before we were going to start walking – down hills!

The remaining stretch home (70km!) was broken into a two different sections:
Open gravel flowing road: We both agreed to take it easy and cruise the remained of the stage, drafting each other to save energy. It didn’t take too long before a decent sized group caught us and we quickly fell into line... (Chris continues)... or to be more accurate... everyone fell in line behind Richard!! Seriously!!... Every time LPG tried to let someone else take the pull, the whole bunch slowed and looked away!! Anyway, the flowing gravel road eventually came to an end and the last stretch awaited.

Game reserve: The next obstacle was a 20km section through a game reserve along a windy jeep track (more familiar territory for me), the highlight being the elephant spotting... and seeing our star seconders at the cyclist’s watering hole.

Wow how often do you have the opportunity of riding through a game farm!! Out biggest threat other than lions, Leopards etc was a pair of Rhino’s, who are currently breeding! We were warned not to aggravate them but if we could ride faster than 35km/h we should be ok!!

Arriving in Oudtshorn to a more than welcome rest stop was awesome and some more LPG treatment ensured we would be fired up for all the challenges tomorrow holds!

Watch this space!!!

Other topics to come:
- A day in the Cape Epic village, 1000 riders!

Stage 3: Another tough tough day!
Distance: 126km
Climbing: 2500m
The last big day, “It is going to separate the men from the boys!” one of the race organisors.