Stage 3 was the first moving day of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic as the race village moved from Saronsberg Wine Estate to the CPUT Campus in Wellington. The mammoth 103km journey included 2 150 meters of climbing and took Sipho Madolo and Christoph Sauser 5 hours 35 minutes and 43 seconds to complete.
Gary Perkin/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
The result on the stage sees them move up to 63rd in the general classification standings after slipping outside of the top 100 yesterday when Madolo suffered through the stage with a stomach bug.
Madolo’s bullish talk on Tuesday night after a nightmare Stage 2 was backed up by a steadily improving day on the bike today. His legs might still not be where he expected them to be, but he was no longer suffering from the effects of the stomach bug which forced him to the brink of withdrawing the day before. It might not have been a good day on the bike by his own high standards but it was a better day and that augurs well for the cross country style stage around Walvanpas tomorrow.
Credit Ewald Sadie/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
The lesson Sauser imparted on Madolo on Stage 2, now that his young protégé was healthy enough to focus on topics beyond survival, was one of technical zone and water point management. Sauser calls the technique CEF. Which stands for Calm, Efficient, Fast. If you’ve witnessed professional mountain bikers coming through a water point or tech zone you’ll know that it’s a recipe for disaster especially when they’re racing in a group. Sauser’s tactics involve knowing what you need, planning the order in which you need to obtain them and then moving in a calm efficient manner to do so. It’s essential in Sauser’s books to be fast but not frantic because that’s when mistakes happen; like not putting a bottle in a bottle cage properly, getting tangled up with an rival, or not repairing a technical problem properly while all the tools and spares to do so are on hand.
The water points and tech zones are points of high stress in the race and a calculated CEF stop at a water point can be the deciding factor on a stage, much like a well-executed Formula 1 pit stop.
Credit Kathy Crabbe
On Stage 4 Madolo and Sauser hope to continue their climb up the general classification standings as they take on the 73km route which includes 1 850 meters of climbing. You can follow their progress on Stage 4, by making use of the Cape Epic’s live tracking system, or on Twitter by following @songoinfo and @CapeEpic.
