Evans and Hincapie during the 2011 Tour de France. tdwsport.com photography.<\/span><\/p>\nDuring his 19-year professional career Hincapie was regarded as the premier American classics rider of his generation. He competed in a record 17 Ronde van Vlaanderen races and finished second at the grueling Paris-Roubaix – the best ever for any American. Beyond the classics he rode in the Tour de France 17 times and won three US National Road Race championships.<\/p>\n
Asked why he had chosen to do the Absa Cape Epic, Hincapie laughed: \u201cCadel made me do it \u2026 and it looks like it\u2019s going to be an amazing adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTroy (de Haas, their BMC team manager) sent us some videos on the race to start visualising and preparing over the next months, but that\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evans has been back on his mountain bike since retiring. \u201cYes, I came into cycling through mountain biking. I stayed away from the trails for most of my road career, but as soon as I stopped competing I started riding off-road again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not competed seriously since February 2015. For training reasons, I will try to get some competition in before the Absa Cape Epic.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hincapie admits he has no experience racing mountain bikes. \u201c| have always enjoyed riding off-road but have never really raced it, except just with mates at home.\u201d <\/p>\n
Neither have ever raced in a team event either.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould I be worried?\u201d Evans laughed. \u201cIt will be my first time in South Africa. That alone will be a great experience.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hincapie has also never visited South Africa, but says it\u2019s always been on his bucket list and that \u201cto do it as a part of this team is very exciting\u201d.<\/p>\n
Wingfield promises that the Absa Pride riders will make the visit of Evans and Hincapie \u201cspecial and memorable\u201d. \u201cWe look forward to hosting them and according them a proper Absa Pride welcome with full access to our world class facilities and a premium hospitality experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that as part of Absa\u2019s continued partnership with the Absa Cape Epic, the bank will once again recognise and reward teamwork and perseverance at next year\u2019s race with the popular #ConquerAsOne campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be fully supporting Cadel and George as the newest members of our Absa Pride family but wish to assure them that the unity and spirit among all racers will help them dig deep and conquer the eight challenging days \u2013 as one,\u201d concluded Wingfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cadel Evans and George Hincapie to ride for BMC Absa Racing Team in Masters category. George Hincapie with Cadel Evans. tdwsport.com photography. The BMC Absa Racing Team has been considerably boosted by the news that two Tour de France legends, Cadel Evans and George Hincapie, will be riding for them in the 2017 Absa Cape […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[76,1566,24,1567,232],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-17358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-absa-cape-epic","tag-cadel-evans","tag-cape-epic","tag-george-hincapie","tag-tour-de-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17358","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=17358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17358"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=17358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"ccs-62657-0-42862400-1479715766.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-42862400-1479715766.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>George Hincapie with Cadel Evans. tdwsport.com photography.<\/span><\/p>\n