Ashley Oldfield's stage 6 Cape Epic ride report - a muddy mountain bike nightmare
This image on stage 6, tells you everything you need to know. Mechanics will be working overtime, restoring bikes for the final stage. Stage 6 easily bested the Queen stage, regarding toughness. It was muddy, rutted and almost impossible to ride in many places.Themight have been 5, but there is no question that stage 6 was one of the most challenging in Cape Epic history.
At the Epic, there is no respite. You earn that finisher’s medal by racing to the end. And although we thought the riverine trail conditions on stage were bad, it was nothing compared to stage 6.Rain and clay mix way too well The route appeared simple enough: effectively a loop of the Helderberg basin. But heavy overnight rain, which kept falling throughout the stage, made riding nearly impossible.
For riders who struggled on the wet conditions of the Queen stage, the Cape Epic’s stage 6 was a true nightmare. It was the most demanding day I’ve ever had on a mountain bike.Many of stage 6’s trails featured clay surfaces - rapidly churned to ruin by the lead riders and faster groups. We started in B-batch, which is respectable, but you still have more than 100 bikes ahead, and all the singletrack trails were mud rutted when we rode them.How bad was the mud? Worse than you could imagine.
The final Cape Epic stage will not be easy. It routes from Lourensford to Val de Vie, and includes a lot of singletrack. Fun in the dry, but it will be atrocious to race after the heavy rain lashed Cape Town over the weekend.on ruined bikes after stage 6’s awful conditions, the risk of crashing out of the Cape Epic on its final day is high. We hope not to become a number in that statistic.
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