![\"ccs-62657-0-67366100-1422451561.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-67366100-1422451561.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis year she will be racing with 26-year-old Alice Pirard, the reigning Belgian marathon champion and last year\u2019s winner of the Women\u2019s category at the Cape Pioneer Trek, where she partnered Briton, Catherine Williamson. Suss is frank about her ambitions for the 2015 Absa Cape Epic stage race: \u201cI would like win the race,\u201d she said, but added that she wanted to have fun doing so. Pirard is a little more circumspect: \u201cThis will be my first Absa Cape Epic. I\u2019m really excited to be part of it. I have wanted to race the Cape Epic for years, but there was always a good excuse to skip it \u2013 mainly because I was too young. Now I feel prepared to go for a good result with Esther.\u201d<\/p>\n
They plan to use the Andalucia Bike Race in Spain from February 22 to 27 to get to know each other\u2019s riding styles: \u201cI\u2019m very motivated and I always fight until the finish line,\u201d said Suss. \u201cI like the long uphills and the nice singletracks. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s Alice\u2019s strengths are, but I think we will work well together.\u201d The Belgian said her training had been going well and she was looking forward to riding with Suss: \u201cEsther has a lot of experience in stage racing, especially in South Africa. She has such a great palmares (record) at the Cape Epic. We have never raced as a pair, but we both raced the cross-country World Cups. I improved a lot during the 2014 season and riding with Esther will push me to the next level. I think we will be a good match, but time will tell,\u201d added Pirard.<\/p>\n Suss said they would be planning their strategy and approach to the event. The team dynamic was \u201cone of the most important things \u2026 if we don\u2019t work together then we will lose before we start\u201d. Pirard said defending champions Ariane Kleinhans of Switzerland and Dane Annika Langvad \u201care the favourites after an impressive win last year, but the competition will be hard \u2013 with the prize money being equal for men and women, the women\u2019s field for the 2015 Cape Epic is amazingly strong\u201d. Suss agreed that the Kleinhans\/Langvad combination would be formidable, but also tipped Bigham and her 2015 partner, Slovenian Blaza Klemencic, as contenders for the top step of the podium.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n