{"id":18530,"date":"2016-03-15T13:25:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T13:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2016\/03\/15\/hunt-for-absa-african-red-jersey-not-over-r4358\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T08:33:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T08:33:23","slug":"hunt-for-absa-african-red-jersey-not-over-r4358","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/hunt-for-absa-african-red-jersey-not-over-r4358\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunt for Absa African red jersey not over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gawie Combrinck and Nico Bell (NAD Pro MTB) made inroads into USN Purefit\u2019s Absa African special jersey lead when Darren Lill suffered a costly mechanical on Stage 2 of the Absa Cape Epic.<\/p>\n

Team Spur\u2019s James Reid is riding as an Outcast after teammate Gert Heyns withdrew with illness during Stage 1, and now Team Telkom\u2019s Johann Rabie is also going solo thanks to Hendrik Kruger pulling out on Stage 2.<\/p>\n

That leaves USN Purefit\u2019s Lill and Waylon Woolcock to battle it out with Combrinck and Bell over the remaining five stages for the coveted red jersey, and the bragging rights of being Africa\u2019s best at the Absa Cape Epic.<\/p>\n

Going into Stage 2 USN Purefit held an almost nine-minute lead over NAD Pro MTB in the Absa African special jersey. However, Combrinck and Bell took advantage of Lill\u2019s misfortune to cut the lead to around five minutes.<\/p>\n

Liil and Woolcock, though, have been in great shape over the first three days of the Absa Cape Epic, and will be hard to dislodge from the red jersey pole position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings were going great today,\u201d said Lill, \u201cuntil my chain snapped. At that stage we were in the lead group and feeling strong. The repairs only cost us a few minutes, but after the stop we lost our momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-44304100-1458048434.jpg\"<\/a>Darren Lill [L] and Waylon Woolcock [R] during stage 2 of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race from Saronsberg Wine Estate in Tulbagh, South Africa on the 15th March 2016. Photo by Sam Clark\/Cape Epic\/SPORTZPICS<\/span><\/p>\n

Lill and Woolcock\u2019s strategy thereafter was to ride within themselves and not push too hard to catch the front bunch again. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to take too many risks. The trick in these situations is to stay calm and assess the rest of the ride, which is what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like most riders on the day, Lill confirmed that the course was rough \u201call over\u201d and technically challenging in parts. \u201cThe last descent before the finish was really rough, and after a full day of that riding you really feel it in the lower back. We took it easy and just made sure we got home in one piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, riders will leave Saronsberg Wine Estate in Tulbagh and make a 104km journey to Wellington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gawie Combrinck and Nico Bell (NAD Pro MTB) made inroads into USN Purefit\u2019s Absa African special jersey lead when Darren Lill suffered a costly mechanical on Stage 2 of the Absa Cape Epic. Team Spur\u2019s James Reid is riding as an Outcast after teammate Gert Heyns withdrew with illness during Stage 1, and now Team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[76,24,773,1454,774,2762],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-18530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-absa-cape-epic","tag-cape-epic","tag-gawie-combrinck","tag-nad-pro-mtb","tag-nico-bell","tag-usn-purefit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18530","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=18530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18530"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=18530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}