Cape Epic Stage 7

Niclas: Welcome to the Afasteryou Podcast, where everything revolves around endurance sports and training. Here, Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka and Niclas Ranker give you valuable tips and insights that will help you take your performance to the next level. So, a warm welcome to another Afasteryou Podcast episode. The last one, at least from me alone, on Cape Epic 2025. Not directly on Sunday, the day the race ended, but today, on Monday. Yesterday I just didn't get around to it because of packing and everything. But now, right before departure, there's still a bit of time. And I wanted to summarize the race a bit from my perspective. The last day was again in Lourensford. Originally it was supposed to go over The Neck, that very, very steep climb, but this time going down. Then over to just before Stellenbosch, and then via the Helderberg Trails back to Lourensford. It would have been quite a tough stage with 64 kilometers and 2,100 meters of elevation. But since Lourensford sits in a kind of basin, rain got stuck there and The Neck at the top was completely washed out by the rain. And the organizers decided for safety reasons that the course couldn't be ridden that day as planned. We actually found out relatively late. We traveled there, warmed up. Unlike other days, the start wasn't at 7 a.m. but at 8 a.m. That's actually always the case on the last day of the Epic, that everything is shifted one hour later. Which is pretty cool, because then you don't have to get up super early at 4:30, but instead 5:30 or 6. So we warmed up and rolled toward the start, and we were already wondering why the pros weren't lining up. What's going on? And then the word spread pretty quickly that the race had been pushed back two and a half hours, from an 8 a.m. start to 10:30. What exactly was happening with the course took a while, but it was quickly established that it would be 45 kilometers. At one point there was talk of only 400 meters of elevation. When we got the info, the first Cape Epic post also said 450 meters of elevation. So we went off first and swapped out the chainring. Juri still had a 34 on, and we quickly put a 36 on. But in the end it was 1,000 meters of elevation. Though I should say, mostly jeep tracks, with one or two small singletrails that weren't washed out and were rideable. But mainly really fire roads, jeep tracks, and a very, very fast course, really just hammering. In the end about 1,000 meters of elevation, I think, just under. Yeah, 856 is what I measured with the Garmin over 43.2 kilometers. Hand-measured myself, 1 hour 53 minutes 13 seconds. In the actual finish it was 1 hour 51 minutes 54 seconds. I think I just started my watch earlier and stopped it later. On the day itself we came in 12th in Open Men, 57th overall, and finished Cape Epic in the end in fifth place in Open Men and 48th. Finished overall, and I have to say, it's a really cool result, because you have to remember Juri is 49 years old and there were already 50 pro teams at the start. That means in the GC there's even the Carl category, so the best masters teams ahead of us, and a few Open Men teams, four of them, ahead of us. We actually dropped quite a few pro teams. Sure, some dropped out, but we were even faster than some pro teams, which is really a respectable result, I think. About the numbers for the last day. Over the 1 hour 53 or 52, we had a 22.9 km/h average over 43 kilometers with 856 meters of elevation. I rode 308 NP and 253 average. So compared to the other days, between 40 and 20 watts more. Of course the stage was also slower. The whole thing started out relatively flat on asphalt. And I actually rode at the front of the field for quite a while, setting the pace at first. That was the first ten minutes. I was riding 360 watts, which felt pretty good. I had a 163 heart rate after that. Then we broke up the field a bit, or rather I broke up the field with those ten minutes. And then we were up front with a leading group. Juri then had a bit of a hard time staying with it. And then Juri and I more or less rode our own pace. On the climbs I pushed him and pushed as much as I could. And about the course itself, there's unfortunately not much exciting to say about that day. There was one steep climb, which you could also see on the stream. And otherwise, really... I'd say wide road over rollers, once through Lourensford. All descents really neutralized and only wide roads down. Which was just due to the weather. Toward the end there were maybe two singletrails. But otherwise really just wide roads, very, very fast racing. But I have to say, it was actually really fun. Right. In the end, this week with warm-ups I rode 30 hours 47 minutes. The whole thing, with warm-ups, was 618 kilometers. And 13,534 meters of elevation. The Epic was advertised, I think, with 660 kilometers and 16,000 meters of elevation. Now you have to say, two stages were massively shortened. Due to extreme weather. And the elevation difference accordingly. On one hand shortened, and on the other probably just measurement differences. Right. So, about the overall result. In the end we finished fifth in Open Men in the GC. I already mentioned that briefly. I think it's a really cool result. It was really fun. And unfortunately we couldn't defend fourth place. We ended up being four minutes slower than fourth place. And 18 minutes slower than third. You just have to say, the other teams were simply a bit stronger than us. And winners in Open Men were Manuel Fasnacht and Stefan Spielmann in 27 hours 21 minutes. We needed 28 hours 19 minutes. So a 58 minute 21 second gap. Which is a significant difference. The women's pro race was clearly decided by Toyota Specialized in the end with a 21 minute 32 second lead. They couldn't win the last stages, but over the week they were the most consistent and strongest. Sure, Langvad and Sofia Gómez were the small favorites. Langvad, I think, is the woman who has won the most Epics and is also the only one who has won six, if I'm right. I have to say, Vera Looser and Alexa Scada were just a good team and rode really well. And also Titan Racing, Honeycomb, and also Kendall ISB Sport were strong teams. But I sometimes have the feeling that only one or two top teams in the women's really make it to the Epic. That means in the last years it was always Cannondale who was there. Or the years before it was Mars Scott with Kate Courtney. Although, right, Kate Courtney won that together with Langvad. So... I would just wish, I think, that for example this year Cannondale had also sent a team with Yolanda Neff, or Mondraker also a team with Mona Mitterwallner. So that more of the top, top women would be at the start, because then the women's race would have been much more interesting, I think. Which is not meant to diminish the success of Vera Looser and Alexa Scada, because they are definitely top marathon riders. But the density of performance in the women's is just lower when you compare it to the men's, for example. And the world champion Mona Mitterwallner, for example, wasn't at the start either. About the men's race, I have to say, on the short final stage we really saw a cool race again. So from the start, Baum and Egger, mainly Baum riding at the front, Egger seemed to struggle a bit in the first hour. Schurter and Colombo were up front the whole time, Luca Braidot and Simone Avondetto were also up front in the mix the whole time and really delivered a good race. Gilbert and Nortje as well, especially Nortje rode a lot at the front. With Gilbert you could see he was hanging off the back a bit the whole time, but absolutely understandable. And it turned into an exciting race toward the end, because Schurter and Colombo sensed the weakness of Braidot and Avondetto and just attacked over the top. They pulled away a bit, and from behind Egger and Baum slowly clawed their way back. And really, in the last half hour Egger found his legs and... man, he was just drilling it from the front suddenly, putting the power down so hard that at times Baum couldn't stay with him, at least that's the feeling you had. And in the end Egger and Baum rode a really nice stage win, 9 minutes 30 seconds ahead of Schurter and Colombo. And then Matthew Beers and Keegan even grabbed a conciliatory podium. That was really cool. Also a bit of a surprise of the Epic for me at least, were Craig Oliver and Ben Oliver. I hadn't had them on my radar beforehand, and they really delivered a strong Epic. And the classic best marathon team, definitely with Samuele Porro and Marc Stutzmann, also super consistently delivered throughout the week. And were definitely very, very strong. Really cool to see. And they also really animated the race, I think. In Buco Camp Chamba it was Gilbert and Nortje who really put on a great race. You could already see in the pre-events in South Africa that they had won those, and they were really, really fit. But that they are fit enough to race so consistently here against the Europeans at the front, that was really top-notch to see and was a lot of fun. Yeah, in the end Schurter and Colombo won the whole thing. Definitely deserved, they rode the most consistently I'd say. Braidot and Avondetto second, 1 minute 31 seconds back. Gilbert and Nortje, third at 13 minutes, and the best, let's say, classic marathon team from Europe was Klimatisa Orbea. In fourth place with Porro and Stutzmann at 23 minutes. And Speed Company, thus the best Germans, Baum and Egger, in fifth place at 41 minutes. Definitely nice to see that Baum and Egger could also grab a stage win on the final day. And thus still ended up having, I think, a pretty successful Epic. And I have to say, it's just fun watching the guys race. Even though you could see they were struggling a bit with team chemistry, at least from the feel. Baum riding a lot at the front even though Egger was hanging on a bit behind. But maybe that's just part of their style, that the guys keep their fun in racing. Right. So, I'll definitely think a bit more about it in the coming days. Maybe, if you have any questions about the Epic, anything that interests you overall in terms of info and such, we can definitely, I can do another episode alone on that gladly. Otherwise I think in the coming days I'll also record an episode with Björn, so that from his perspective, since he has a lot of numbers and a lot of insights from the guys, I can talk with him a bit about what his thoughts on the Epic are. And right, thanks for listening throughout the week. I'm now finishing packing my bag and will fly back home. Thank you.