Day one of your first Absa Cape Epic is a nervous affair to be sure. Add to the mix one rushed week of sorting out admin, plus the added pressure of many pundits saying how the xco style day one ‘suits you’ – James Reid of Team Spur gives us the scoop after his first outing with new teammate Gert Heyns. These are his thoughts:
On the added pressure of the last-minute pairing:
No, it’s definitely had the opposite effect. We obviously had to quickly assess each other’s strengths and weaknesses pretty quickly and it’s an instant match – obviously the guy is super talented on the downhills and he’s had some really good results on the marathon scene this year.
On how they attacked today’s prologue:
We went out as hard as we could today – maybe our pacing was a little bit off, we didn’t really play it safe – as you can see from the crash. And a prologue you can’t afford to hold back.
Photo by Nick Muzik/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
On the XCO style prologue ‘suiting’ them:
We definitely earmarked it as a day we were more likely to do better in. Mostly because a 100-plus kilometres stage is a bit more challenging, especially in a multi-stage format. There are a couple of other days in the week that we have our eye on for sure though.
On Gert’s experience:
Gert’s experience is definitely going to pay off (he won the African Jersey in 2014 with Matthys Beukes). We’ve got quite a good – fairly straightforward – communication system between us where ‘100’ represents the limit, so we kind of communicate about where we are: ’80’ or ’90’ means you’re running at 80 or 90% of where max could be considering how far you have to the finish… Today there were a couple of moments where we were running at about 120 – 130 and had to tap off a little bit, but it’s all about finding out how the other person rides and being able to communicate and work together.
On other influences:
Is great obviously having the experience of Susi in the camp – he’s been invaluable over especially the past few months since he’s been in South Africa. He’s very much a wisened old fox and that helps incredibly.
Tomorrow’s stage one from Saronsberg Wine Estate in Tulbagh – as has become the tradition – promises to be a tough one. The riders will ascend 2 300m over 108km, a lot of it on rugged and rocky terrain. This is a stage that will suit the marathon specialists and will give a good indication of riders’ form for the event.
Source: Jazz Kuschke
