The world of sport is littered with fierce rivalries. These duels between mighty powers of similar ability heighten the drama for fans. 

Think Australia and England at each other’s throats during the Ashes. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic going shot for shot on the tennis court (or Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, a few generations ago). Real Madrid and Barcelona taking turns to dominate Spanish football. South Africa versus New Zealand in rugby; Scotland versus England, too. 

If we want to be overly dramatic, Tonya Harding versus Nancy Kerrigan is always worth a mention – though most sporting rivalries don’t end in someone being hired to break the knee of an opponent. But name a sport, and you’ll be able to pick out the biggest, wildest, most dramatic rivalry.

In the world of cycling, you’d think it would be Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard locking horns for global supremacy – and in the context of the Tour de France, you’d be 100% correct. Mathieu van der Poel vs Wout van Aert in the one-day races would surely also classify as a worthy modern rivalry. 

…the real battle – the down-and-dirty scrap, the bare-knuckle brawl for bicycling’s crown of best and brightest – actually takes place a lot closer to home…

But the real battle – the down-and-dirty scrap, the bare-knuckle brawl for bicycling’s crown of best and brightest – actually takes place a lot closer to home, on the pothole-free streets of Cape Town’s plush, posh Atlantic Seaboard, between middle-aged men with aspirations of glory and a penchant for slinging mud on social media… 

The Road Warriors

For those not familiar with Cape Town, or Cape Town’s cycling scene, one of the most popular cycling routes in the city is the Green Point to Chapman’s Peak (or Noordhoek) out-and-back, roughly speaking, along the Atlantic Seaboard. If you’ve ridden the Cape Town Cycle Tour, it’s essentially the final 25km section of that event.

While many Cape Town-based cyclists would consider this their ‘local’, three groups have come to dominate the area. Like rival flocks of seagulls battling over the same discarded packet of slap chips, these three ‘gangs’ race and ride the same road, over and over again, Sisyphean cyclists locked in an eternal duel for Strava segments. Their barbs are delivered in the comments on Instagram and Strava, and their rivalry culminates every November in Swellendam, at the Old Mutual Wealth Double Century. 

How did it come to this? How did the sleepy, pre-dawn streets of Cape Town turn into the setting for cycling’s equivalent of Monty Python’s duelling knights, where machismo flows hotter than cortados at Bootleggers? Well, like so much in cycling, it all started with a rider getting dropped… 

Kings in search of a Kingdom

For the would-be Kings of the Atlantic Seaboard (not our title; rather, the name of a cheeky and anonymous Instagram account that acts as a score-keeper and light antagonist to the cycling groups), their shared fates and the Double Century have long been entwined.

“I think it was about 13 or 14 years ago, somewhere around 2011, when a group of us got together for a Double Century training ride. Ahead of the DC, the name of the group was Pure Smiles,” says Brendon Stevens of Team Pure Savage.

“On that particular ride, the original organiser of the group had a nightmare. He got a puncture. Then he fell ill. We got halfway through our ride, close to Cape Point, and then we left him. These were the days before WhatsApp; so on the Monday after the ride he sent us all an email, saying that we’d “left him for dead” and that we were “a bunch of savages”. The group immediately decided that ‘savage’ was better than ‘smile’. And that’s how the name went from Team Pure Smiles to Team Pure Savage.” 

…what they lack in influencer clout and youth, they make up with a canny ability to attract the best talent…

The team name immediately became a ride philosophy. “I think, every year, we’ve either improved our time or at least moved up the field at the DC,” says Stevens. “But we’ve always been true to our no-frills racing approach. Even on group rides, the strategy is to go hard. We take no luxuries to the DC. 

“In fact, in the early days, the bakkie would just leave some water on the side of the road. Some teams go all out at the lunch break; but we have no chairs, no gazebos, and nothing in the car but spares – not even a bike rack. If you blow, you still have to ride to the finish. Our philosophy has always been ‘bury yourself, and don’t slow the team down’.” 

Team Pure Savage, with a large ‘squad’ and distinctive red, white, blue and black kit, is arguably the most recognisable team prowling Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard, but it’s LPC (La Perla Classic – named for their ride meeting spot outside La Perla restaurant, opposite the Sea Point swimming pool) who can lay claim to being the OGs on the scene. The members of LPC, by virtue of their advanced average age and lack of social media acumen (Exhibit A: a total of three Instagram posts since creating an account in August 2022), are gently mocked as the ‘uncles’ of the area. But what they lack in influencer clout and youth, they make up with a canny ability to attract the best talent to their Double Century team. 

“We’ve had some good fortune, I’ll admit,” says Carel Vosloo of LPC. “A while back we needed an extra DC rider. One of our team bumped into a guy who’s a very good cyclist, but he couldn’t make it. Instead, he suggested a chap called ‘Martin’. We were a bit hesitant because we wanted to keep the standard of the team high. It turned out the ‘Martin’ in question was former Dutch pro Maarten Tjallingii! He rode with us in 2022, and that ultimately led to Belgian pro Jasper Stuyven riding with us last year.”

The foreign influence certainly helped: LPC finished fifth overall at the 2023 Double Century, a few minutes ahead of Team Pure Savage. And six minutes ahead of the third crew who contend (if not in ability, certainly in attitude) for Atlantic Seaboard honours: Mother Amateur Bicycling Club.

Mum’s the Word

“To be honest, I can’t even remember how we came up with our team name,” says Mother Amateur’s Jared Kieser. “Initially we were just a bunch of mates putting on alternative cycling races, which in a way was a rejection of the traditional racing scene… and then we started riding together more and more, until we became the very thing we hated!”

Kieser talks with his tongue firmly in his cheek, which is the attitude and mindset that has helped ignite the ‘feud’ between Pure Savage, LPC and his own Mother squad. Certainly the most digitally savvy (and perhaps cheekiest) of the three groups, the Mother guys are quick to launch good-natured attacks on their rivals through Instagram, although Strava is another avenue where individuals from each of the groups can get into, er, ‘animated’ conversations.

By Kieser’s own admission, Mother is not as strong as either LPC or Pure Savage, but they’re not scared to go full throttle at the Double Century – even if that means ‘breaking the rules’. After starting the race like a house on fire last year, the Mother crew was soon losing ground to their rivals. “And that’s when we broke the number-one rule, of ‘no drafting’,” says Kieser. 

…it all fell apart, when two of our guys started puking – one all over himself. We ended up getting smoked…

“We hopped on the back of Pure Savage, who had started after us but by then had caught up with us. It was either lose with honour, or lose by cheating; we opted to lose by cheating. Although there was some in-fighting among the team on what would be the best approach!” 

Even in the heat of battle, Kieser says, the irony wasn’t lost on him. “We used to call out okes for drafting, and now we were doing it. By this stage, Pure Savage were raging at us…” 

Things only became more inflamed as the race progressed. “Our team captain was sitting about eighth wheel on Pure Savage. He looked back and gave the signal to attack. By now we only had seven left in the team; one guy dropped off quickly, while the rest of us burnt every match we had in the attack. The Pure Savage guys were pissed. We labelled our attack ‘The Move’. 

“For a few glorious seconds, we were ‘in the lead’. But then it all fell apart, when two of our guys started puking – one all over himself. We ended up getting smoked, and all we managed to do was infuriate our enemies.” 

Despite their questionable race tactics, Mother Amateur leaves the rest behind in the fashion stakes with their commitment to the cycling skinsuit. As every good cyclist knows, the true art of cycling comprises 90 percent style and 10 percent ability. “Our main aim for the DC is to debut a new skinsuit. We had one made a few years back, but it’s time for an upgrade. Some days you just have to peacock.”

Segmented Reality

One ongoing tiff between the trio of teams involves a dispute over who helped who get a particular personal record, or PR, on Strava; while another tiff has supposedly grown men bickering over the manner in which other records were achieved – that is, riders sitting in the group, not working, and attacking at the end of a segment. 

LPC’s Vosloo recalls a time when one of the LPC riders was the main man, the KOM, on a 45km segment. “Pure Savage went out one morning, and definitely targeted that segment. Then we went out and took it back. And this went on, back and forth, for a while. It was all good fun.” And on Instagram, a social media sleuth took it upon himself to investigate which of the teams was drafting at the 2023 DC; the guilty party owned up almost immediately. 

It’s all a bit daft, but seemingly what cycling and social media were made for – as highlighted by the Kings of Atlantic Seaboard account, goading the main players into banter when the streets get quiet.

“We just want to have fun, and race hard, and try to stir up a bit of competition while we’re at it,” says Kieser. 

“Things might get said on social, but not much gets said on the rides,” says Vosloo. “In fact, a few years ago at the DC I had a puncture and was dropped by the team. I jumped on with Pure Savage and rode back to the LPC team; that was very sporting of them.” 

“Cycling – and Cape Town – is too small for any real needle,” says Stevens of Pure Savage. “But the off-bike commentary does make for a lot of fun. Half the time we end up bumping into LPC and the Mother guys and riding with them.” 

They might differ on favourite coffee shops, team kit and race nutrition, but one thing all the teams agree on is that when it comes to racing, there’s only one gas – and that’s full gas. 

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