CapeEpic Stage 5

Niclas: Welcome to the Faster U Podcast, where everything revolves around endurance sports and training. Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka and Niclas Ranker give you valuable tips and insights to help you take your performance to the next level. So, good evening and welcome to a new episode of the Faster U Podcast, Cape Epic edition. Tonight after the Queen Stage. So, the Queen Stage definitely earned its name. I thought it was the most demanding stage so far, especially because of the final climb. That one was really tough. Since things ran a bit longer for us tonight, this episode will be a bit shorter, but I definitely wanted to record one. So, it cooled down nicely last night. We started at around 20 degrees. At the peak today it was only 24 degrees. But extremely, well, I don't have a measurement for it, but definitely high humidity. I was already sweating during the warm-up and thought, wow, unpleasant. Personally I don't deal well with high humidity. I start sweating very heavily, and when I have high sweat loss I also lose a lot of salt, and that can really break my neck in a race. I know this from training as well: when I train in high humidity, I have trouble holding my wattage, for example during hard intervals. So today I had to pay close attention at the VPs. Luckily they always have salt tablets lying around here and you have good access to electrolytes, so I really had to stay on top of that today. Other than that, we went from Pal to Junkershöck. In total the stage was listed as 97 kilometers and 2800 meters of elevation. I measured two and a half myself, but that could easily just be a Garmin measurement error. According to Garmin we needed 5 hours 8 minutes and 39 seconds for the stage today. At the finish I think we had official 10, so 5 hours 10, which means again around 1:20 standing at the VPs. That went really well. They set off relatively quickly again, at least I thought so. It went slightly uphill the whole time on jeep tracks. Then came a few rollers, then the first longer climb up to Murati. Then a nice trail down. After that it went up to Botmanskop. Up there it went through some switchbacks and got pretty tough uphill again. And then a really nice trail down to Stellenbosch. It's called The Doctor. It's a ton of fun. Very fast berms. On the stream you could see nicely how Colombo attacked beforehand and Schurter tried to open a gap on the descent. It's really fun to ride downhill. You can really let it rip, because the berms are built so that you only, let's say, have to correct a little minimally with the rear brake. That was really fun. And then it went over the G-Spot trail down in Stellenbosch toward the final long climb. That one used to have a singletrack at the top, I think. But by now it's been completely flattened. You can see that apparently someone drove through with some kind of excavator. So now it's just a wide path. However, we're talking about peaks here. It's zooming out right now. On average it was 10.7% over 3.7 km. At its steepest it definitely had 20% or even more, so it was really nasty to ride. It's called The Neck and it just goes straight up into the sky, and it was a really steep climb. Even in my 36-tooth today I really struggled to ride up there. At the front with the pros you could see, at least at the peak — that was unfortunately the only part that was shown — it was still completely dry. For us a bit later, the rain had already started from Stellenbosch on, and for us it was already completely wet, so our tires were already clogging up on the way up. Because of course there's dust on the ground, and when it gets wet it sticks straight to the tires. That was already really unpleasant. So we, well, I think if I were at the front of the race, or if I'd been riding the pro race normally... I would have ridden all of it, because you naturally push more. Since in this case I had to keep waiting for my partner, I actually just ran some sections today, because, well, I ran up there just as fast as the people around me who were still riding, and then on the sixth day of racing I just found it more pleasant for my back to just walk up briskly and be just as fast as the other guys. That one was really brutal. After that came another nice descent down to Lourensford, where the finish was. There were a few cool singletracks again. But on one of them the berms were really broken and partly crumbled away. I slipped out with my front wheel there once. But I caught it right away; I only broke my glove and have a few scratches on my leg, but not even a proper abrasion, so everything went easy. And then we were at the finish. In total, exactly, 5 hours time spent, 97 kilometers — sorry, listed as 27 — 2800 or 900 meters of elevation. We rode 270 NP today, 215 average. This morning at the start my partner wasn't sure if he even wanted to start today and whether he'd make it through, because he really wasn't feeling good. He just felt very exhausted and flat. But then it actually went really well. We were even in an okay position in the race. Toward the end he struggled again, but that's just normal in this race. I mean, today's profile would have been a solid profile even for any regular mountain bike marathon. And struggling at the back of that is pretty normal I think. So he really did well today. And we actually got through really well. We rode an average of 19. I had an average heart rate of 146. So for me today at least it was a lower-heart-rate day. But you have to say, of course, temperature plays a big role too. I didn't feel that good today, for example, because of the high humidity, and that's why at every VP I made sure to take care of electrolytes. So now I think we're still in 4th place in the GC in Open Men, we came 8th today, and 54th overall. And I have to say, I thought that was really good today. I think Open Men is really exciting right now. The leaders, Avelo Racing with Markus Nicolai and Lukas Koller, had a really hard time today and... lost a solid twelve minutes to Coach Me today, which of course in the GC is really not good for the guys. So there are still two days to go and they really have to make sure they stay in contact, because otherwise the whole thing could still get really exciting. So we now have an 11 minute gap to the guys ahead of us, Honeycomb, who are effectively in 3rd place. They were also 3 minutes faster today. We rode with them for a long time. We're definitely faster downhill, even though the guys are from South Africa. Not okay in my book. They should be faster. Those are their home trails. Well, jokes aside. They ride really well actually. You also notice it uphill. In switchbacks with tight corners they often struggle, unclip and stuff. That's not... oh, it's annoying when you're riding behind them, because you have to do a trackstand in every corner. But they ride really well overall. Then behind us there's a team that was actually ahead of us today. The team is called Marsh McLennan. They're now within six minutes of us. Over the next two days we have to watch out to maybe hold on to fourth place. Fifth wouldn't be a disaster either. But what I was getting at: Avelo Racing now only has an 8 minute lead over Coach Me. And honestly, you have to say Coach Me would actually already be leading, because they missed a podium ceremony and got a 15 minute time penalty for it. And they already cut open a front tire and took a really long time with that. So actually, honestly, Coach Me is definitely the stronger team so far, purely physically. Sure, you have to be at the podium ceremony — it doesn't work if you miss it. And cutting a tire could be a riding mistake, could be a bad material choice, but could also just be bad luck. You never really know, you're not inside it. So, Open Men still really exciting. The women's race, yeah... seems to me almost decided already. Sure, there are still two days and they won't be easy, but Toyota Specialized with Annika Langvad and Sofia Gomes are leading by 22 minutes 30 and ride every day with confidence. I think today was the closest day so far, but fundamentally I don't think anything is going to go wrong there anymore. Then the men's race. Really insanely cool to watch today. So anyone who's into good mountain bike racing should definitely check that out. Very entertaining. Matt Beers — sorry, Martinho — Marco Joubert and Tristan Nortje attacked up to the stadium in Stellenbosch, rode a proper attack and pulled out a lot of time over a short distance. Which, if you know the section yourself and know, okay, the climb where they attacked is relatively steep, it's not that easy, but it's also not that long, and after that it's basically just flat to slightly downhill. And on that section they pulled out a ton of time in a very, very short piece. So they must have really been chopping. Unfortunately afterwards, back up the Neck, that super steep climb, those three kilometers — I think on Strava it's three kilometers at 13% on average. And it has very short, small flatter sections in it. So it's really brutally steep. And that's where Marco Joubert really cracked. He really blew up on the way up. Which for Tristan Nortje was a real shame, because you could see, okay, he probably would have brought it home. Luca Braidot and Simone Avondetto ended up second and were dropped by Filippo Colombo and Nino Schurter on the way up there by a few seconds. And they now have an overall GC gap of 1 minute 52. Tristan Nortje and Marco Joubert have a 12 minute 55 gap. That's the top 3 so far and they're riding a really awesome race. So that... I find it really entertaining to watch. A lot of fun. And I think it's great how Marco Joubert and Tristan Nortje are trying here to get at least a stage win for South Africa. And they're riding really strongly in the GC. I wouldn't have expected that beforehand. It hasn't been like that in recent years. Teams have occasionally managed stage wins here and there. But that they ride so well in the GC, I haven't seen that in a long time. That was really awesome. Otherwise, best German team, still Speed Company in 7th place, with a 33 minute gap by now. I thought that was really impressive today. Lukas Baum, I'd almost say the entire first hour of the race, or at least what you saw on the stream, was riding at the front the whole time. Whereas Egger was really, in quotes, already pretty far back. At times it almost looked like the two-minute window. The guys aren't allowed to be further apart — no team can be more than two minutes apart, otherwise you get a time penalty or even get disqualified, because it's a team race. You have to stay together. And Lukas just rode at the front the whole time. I don't know what he had in mind, because he kept looking back and actually I thought, okay, he has to see it. But with how much they were talked about on the stream, I thought afterwards... maybe it was just a move to generate attention. Who knows. Or Lukas just felt like riding fast because apparently he had the legs for it. In the end they still came in well at the front today and didn't have that big a gap. Yeah, 9 minutes 38 it was in the end, and an eighth place. So actually not... yeah, okay. I'd almost say well ridden. What I thought was really interesting, you could see it half on the stream, that... ah, that explains the whole thing. Andreas Seewald and Jakob Hartmann were nearly at the front at the top of Botmanskop, before they dropped into The Doctor. And I only saw the result, that they came 31st. today. For reference, a team that finishes 31st or around 30th has a 32 minute gap. So I thought, huh, how did they end up there? After that there was really only one long climb left. How could the guys, if they were riding that strongly, end up 32 minutes down? As it turns out they only had a 2 minute 35 gap, but, as I see here, they got a 30 minute time penalty, apparently for the separation rule, which means they were probably more than 2 minutes apart at some point during the race. Which is really a pity, because apparently Jakob Hartmann is doing better. He struggled all week and he's found his legs, which would definitely make me happy. Maybe we'll see a good result from those two tomorrow or on Sunday, which would really be cool. Anyway, I have to go to sleep. That's why a slightly shorter episode today. But I still wanted to record one. So, two more days to go. Tomorrow will be really tough again. 88 kilometers, 2550 meters of elevation. Supposedly it's not going to rain anymore. It rained a bit this afternoon. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain again. We'll see, yeah... how demanding tomorrow will be. If it really rains again and gets really muddy, it could get really nasty. If it doesn't get too bad, the ground is in such a state that it should work out okay. Alright. So that's... yeah, that was it. Have a nice evening. Thank you.