![\"ccs-41808-0-94589300-1382096550.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-41808-0-94589300-1382096550.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nImage credit: Nick Muzik<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Buys, the current Elite men\u2019s South African and African Cross-country champion and Beukes, a former Elite men\u2019s national cross-country champion, surprised many with their sixth place overall at the Cape Epic earlier this year. They also achieved a third and a second place stage finish and secured the top African team prize in the process.<\/p>\n Both resumed their focus on cross-country racing after the Cape Epic and both competed at the UCI XCO World Championships for South Africa in Pietermaritzburg in August. Beukes did contest some marathon races too, but neither has been in the stage-race spotlight since their impressive Cape Epic performance and they\u2019re planning to change that on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re definitely aiming to win the Prologue stage. It is after all only 14.8km long and on the trails I built myself, so I know them better than anyone else. We must make the most of that advantage,\u201d smiled Beukes, who has recovered fully from a bout of illness.<\/p>\n \u201cPhil and I did the Lesotho Sky stage race about three weeks ago, which was good, hard riding at high altitude. I was a bit sick after that, but planned to rest anyway, so I\u2019m feeling very fresh ahead of Cape Pioneer Trek. We\u2019ll aim for a couple of stage wins, and see how we are placed in the overall. It would be great to go for the overall win if we can,\u201d added Beukes.<\/p>\n The Cape Pioneer Trek is a seven-day 549km stage race around the Klein Karoo region of the Western Cape. It\u2019s largely a semi-arid area with dramatic geography and a significant variety of terrain. In general, the stages aren\u2019t as long as many of the Cape Epic stages, but they\u2019re intense, which is likely to suit Beukes and Buys.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been doing longer rides and races recently, so the distance shouldn\u2019t be an issue for us. The key is conserving as much energy as possible and using what we need to at right time. We used that strategy at Cape Epic and will use it again here,\u201d explained Buys.<\/p>\n Stage 2 (Day 3) sees the riders tackle the iconic Swartberg Pass to a mountain-top finish. With R100 000 (US $10 000) for the stage win, it\u2019s become a major prize in mountain bike stage racing, and a significant distraction to competitors who believe they\u2019re in with a shot at it. At 92km, the stage is relatively short, but there\u2019s a total of 2760 metres of ascent, 1100 metres of that coming in the final 12km.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard some teams are considering doing the entire Cape Pioneer Trek on lightweight hardtails just so that they can have an advantage up the final climb on Stage 2. We\u2019ve decided that the risk of fatigue and mechanicals is too high and have stuck with our trusty SCOTT Spark dual-suspension bikes, which are still pretty light,\u201d explained Buys.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d obviously like to win that stage, but to get to the final big climb there\u2019s some rough terrain, as well a the whole of Stage 1 and the Prologue. We\u2019re playing it safe with our equipment, just as we\u2019ll be doing for the whole race. It\u2019s worked for us in the past and we think it\u2019s our best strategy to use if we have any chance of winning the race overall,\u201d added Buys.<\/p>\n Philip Buys and Matthys Beukes tasted early stage-race success as the SCOTT Factory Racing team at the ABSA Cape Epic in April; and they\u2019re hungry for more ahead of the 2013 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek, which starts in South Africa\u2019s Western Cape province on Sunday, 20 October. Image credit: Nick Muzik Buys, the current Elite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4668,703,54,3794],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-21491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-bridge-cape-pioneer-trek","tag-matthys-beukes","tag-philip-buys","tag-scott-factory-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21491","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21491"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=21491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}