“I’m not an overly emotional person, and that day was the only time in my 20 years with the cycle tour that I cried.”
The event organiser whose name is synonymous with the Cape Town Cycle Tour had just had to call off the 2017 event, with 35,000 cyclists standing on the start line.The wind at the start line was blowing at 100km/h and the chief commissaire of the race called Bellairs to say conditions were dangerous, even for the most skilled riders.
But Bellairs knows it’s the gusts that could seal the event’s fate. If they become dangerous on Chapman’s Peak Drive, for example, cyclists may be stopped from embarking on the cliffside climb. “There were buildings with construction scaffolding on them around the start and it was a potentially hazardous situation. We also could not send people to the finish venue as the wind speeds made the marquee tents unsafe too, so we had to evacuate the caterers and support services personnel from there.
It will take more than four hours to start the Cape Town Cycle Tour, beginning just before dawn on Sunday. Leading riders will finish the 109km course long before the back-markers even get going.“Seeing the video of one particularly recognisable rider leopard-crawling to the side of the road and being helped in behind a concrete pillar, to hide from the wind, showcased just how difficult the conditions were.
“But with registration opening the next day, I knew most of our international riders would already be in South African and many riders travelling from upcountry would already be on the road to Cape Town. We could not disappoint them by cancelling.“It became a solidarity ride. In fact, we had one of our best ever turn-outs, in terms of entries to riders taking part.”
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