Organisers of The Herald VW Cycle Tour have made a minor adjustment to the 106km Classic route, following a request from the Cape Town Cycle Tour Trust, which runs the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour.<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s second oldest national classic, which takes place in Port Elizabeth on February 3, is an official premier seeding event of the Cycle Tour.<\/p>\n
As such, race director Tony Cooney said they would bypass the short but challenging 1km Slanghoogte climb to bring the course in line with similar seeding events across the country.<\/p>\n
Cooney said although the climb was regularly ridden by social cyclists in training, one corner had a gradient of 17.1 per cent, which was higher than the benchmark of 14 per cent set by the notorious Suikerbossie climb in the Western Cape event.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough this ascent would have added a new dimension to the racing upfront, the event is also about the less competitive rider.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief executive officer David Bellairs echoed his sentiments, saying that the trust was concerned about balancing the needs of the recreational cyclist with those of the more experienced professionals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour is about the promotion of mass participation cycling and, as such, seeks to partner with events of a similar mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooney said the change would still see riders proceed along the old Seaview Road and through the coastal hamlet.<\/p>\n
\u201cClimbing out of Seaview, they will now continue on the main road to Colleen Glen instead of turning onto the secondary road, which effectively cuts out the 1km Slanghoogte climb.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entries for the event close on Monday. Late entries will be accepted at registration on Friday, February 1, subject to a 50% penalty fee.<\/p>\n
Enter at www.heraldcycletour.co.za. For updates, follow @heraldcycletour or like www.facebook.com\/TheHeraldCycleTour.<\/p>\n
Port Elizabeth\u2019s John-Lee Augustyn training on the route of The Herald VW Cycle Tour. Photo: Coetzee Gouws\/Fullstop<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Organisers of The Herald VW Cycle Tour have made a minor adjustment to the 106km Classic route, following a request from the Cape Town Cycle Tour Trust, which runs the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour. South Africa\u2019s second oldest national classic, which takes place in Port Elizabeth on February 3, is an official […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-22090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22090","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22090"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=22090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}