Pinner’s Perspective: The Epic Needs Qualification Criteria


Michael Finch |

Oli looks back at his 8th Cape Epic, arguing that more than your bank balance should qualify you for the Untamed African Experience.

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Photograph By Ewald Sadie

The most gruelling MTB race on the planet, the Cape Epic, is without doubt no ordinary sporting event. Riding over the finish line yesterday marked the 8th Epic I’ve completed from 8 starts. I am starting to question my sanity!

In previous years, I’ve written daily updates of each stage’s experience – the trials and tribulations as well as the general mood of that year’s event. This year I decided to wait until Monday morning, giving my mind and body time to settle, before looking back with a lens that is less coloured by lactic acid than it is by how the 2017 event unfolded.

As the sun peeks over the Hottentots Holland mountains, streaming into my upstairs office, my heart rate calms knowing that I won’t be pinning any numbers to my back or mixing the day’s water bottles this morning! The heartbeat isn’t staying calm for long as I think back to our time in Hermanus. After a sweltering Prologue and 1st Stage – which saw tens of hospitalisations – the Untamed African Experience was, for the first the time in it’s 14 year history, forced to shorten Stage 2.

Wow.

Priding itself on being tougher and rougher than anything else out there, this was a massive move by the Epic. Rightly so (most) riders responded with relief knowing that respite was at hand, while commentators and those sitting at home could certainly resonate with the decision. Rider safety should always come first.

While the shortening of Stage 2 was categorically correct it represented a much deeper issue that lurks beneath the surface. And that issue is qualification. With the Epic becoming a ‘bucket list’ event the organisers need to protect its riders from themselves. It is ludicrous that the only barrier to entry for an event of this nature is your bank balance. This has to change.

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For too many years riders’ expectations have been obliterated and their lives put at risk with the false hope of earning themselves an Epic finisher’s medal. It is well known that the Epic plans for a healthy percentage of non-finishers each year and in 2017 a perfect storm erupted where an abnormally high number of riders required hospitalisation after a tough Stage 1.

In my opinion, these hospitalisations and DNFs had less to do with the heat than they did with the Epic’s non-existent qualification criteria. DNFs happen every year and are part of the game, but in 2017 they rose to the fore because people’s lives were at stake.

Intentionally I’ve waited until after the event to write so as not to get too emotionally charged. If you are considering riding the 2018 Cape Epic, prepare yourself and manage your expectations. It is not to be underestimated, while at the same time it is most certainly not impossible by any means … if you are prepared.

Photograph By Zoon Cronje
Photograph By Zoon Cronje

Let’s hope by the time we line-up for the 2018 Cape Epic every rider has qualified to be there. I wonder if finishing 8 out of 8 will be enough?!

Ciao ciao, Oli

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