Cape Epic - it's time!
Cape Epic — it's time!
Yes, the time has finally come. All those months of preparing are over. I did my last ride yesterday, on a beautiful spring day in the forest. Jeroen skipped his last one — he finally caught a virus too 😉 — but he'll be fine. I know from experience.
Eight months ago, Jeroen and I independently decided on the same day to sign up for this thing. Neither of us knew the other had done it. That still makes me smile. What followed was a long block of structured training, a lot of early mornings on the Kickr, three respiratory illnesses (with a pattern I eventually figured out), a deliberate 10-day break in Switzerland that I was convinced would cost me fitness and didn't, and somewhere along the way, a steady climb from 230 watts to something I'm reasonably proud of. Not everything went to plan, it rarely does, but we're here, we're healthy, and we're as ready as we're going to be.
Wednesday morning at 09:30 our flight leaves. We'll be picked up at Cape Town airport by a friend who lives there, which is the kind of luck that sets a trip off on the right foot. For the first four days we'll be staying with them in Franschhoek, one of the more beautiful corners of the Western Cape, which is a pretty good way to acclimatise before things get serious. Then it's game on.
We received our seeding on Sunday: 9:39:40 South African time (Netherlands is 1hr early still) for the Prologue. Which is a perfect time, considering the 33c forecast for that day. Racing begins on March 15th!
Follow us live
The Prologue will be streamed live — you can watch here: YouTube Live Stream. All other stages are also streamed live, but they only cover the Elite (pros) Men and Women. The Prologue has been covered completely the last couple of years, so that's the best shot at seeing us ''in real life''.
For real-time tracking throughout the race, download the Cape Epic app and search for team Trippz Epic — we're riders 717-1 and 717-2. It's the best way to follow along stage by stage.
The route
For those who want to study what we're getting ourselves into, the full route is here: epic-series.com/races/capeepic/route
The organisers apparently decided 692km wasn't quite enough and have upgraded it to 707km with 15,900 metres of climbing across 8 stages. I'm choosing to find that funny rather than concerning.
What's next
The plan is to post a daily update here after each stage. Honest reporting on how the legs are holding up, how the pacing strategy is playing out, and whatever the race throws at us. I'll do my best to keep that promise, even when the answer is mostly "everything hurts."
If you've been following this blog since the beginning, thank you. It started as a way to document the preparation and turned into something I genuinely enjoyed writing. Now we get to find out if any of it was worth it.
See you on the other side of the Prologue!
Until then, well.....the Race is about to get real!
