{"id":16947,"date":"2017-03-21T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T04:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2017\/03\/21\/absa-cape-epic-stage-2-to-be-shortened-by-40km-r6310\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T07:04:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T07:04:35","slug":"absa-cape-epic-stage-2-to-be-shortened-by-40km-r6310","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/absa-cape-epic-stage-2-to-be-shortened-by-40km-r6310\/","title":{"rendered":"Absa Cape Epic Stage 2 to be shortened by 40km"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stage 2 of the 2017 Absa Cape Epic has been shortened to 62km and will finish in Caledon after leaving Hermanus. The stage had been scheduled to be 102km and finish in Greyton but race medics warned that a combination of heat and humidity on Tuesday could endanger the health of riders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big decision for us and we have never done it before in 14 years of staging the race, but the safety of our riders is paramount,\u201d said Absa Cape Epic CEO Lynn Naud\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-27066500-1490069175.jpg\"<\/a>An exhausted rider after missing the cut off during stage 1 of the 2017 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race held from Hermanus High School in Hermanus, South Africa on the 20th March 2017. Photo by Shaun Roy\/Cape Epic\/SPORTZPICS<\/span><\/p>\n

The first two days of the race \u2013 a Prologue near Durbanville and Stage 1 in and around Hermanus \u2013 have been marked by temperatures peaking at 40\u00baC and extremely dry conditions. Several riders have suffered from heat-related ailments.<\/p>\n

It is expected to be extremely hot again on Tuesday with increased humidity.<\/p>\n

The 62km will include about 1 500m of vertical gain, down from 2 350m on the original route. The finish will take place at Caledon Botanical Gardens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the call after extensive discussions with the medical team and key stakeholders,\u201d said Naud\u00e9. \u201cWe considered various options but decided this was the fairest and safest option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stage 3 will start as scheduled in Greyton on Wednesday and the race organisers were early today busy organising shuttles to get bikes and riders from Caledon to Greyton.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been up through the night making plans to organise the finishline logistics and have this run as smoothly as possible, but we ask all stakeholders to be patient,\u201d said Naud\u00e9. \u201cBarring any unforeseen developments the rest of the race will be held as scheduled.\u201d
Tuesday\u2019s start will take place at the times originally scheduled.The maximum stage time will be adjusted and announced before the start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stage 2 of the 2017 Absa Cape Epic has been shortened to 62km and will finish in Caledon after leaving Hermanus. The stage had been scheduled to be 102km and finish in Greyton but race medics warned that a combination of heat and humidity on Tuesday could endanger the health of riders. \u201cThis is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[76,24],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-16947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-absa-cape-epic","tag-cape-epic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16947"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=16947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}