Teamwork is the key to success at Cape Epic

• Photos

By Fred Dreier

Closely matched, Paulissen and Fugelsang cross the line in first place

Photo: Fred Dreier

The first stage of the 2007 Absa Cape Epic produced an unpredicted twist when defending champion, Switzerland’s Christoph Sauser, fell out of contention for the overall on the 101km journey from Knysna to Uniondale. The two-time World Cup champ and his partner, Italian Johan Palhuber, crossed the line nearly 10 minutes down on the Bulls team of Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm, and the Cannondale-Vredestein squad of Roel Paulissen and Jakob Fugelsang.

Sauser’s legs weren’t to blame for the time gap. While trying to hold pace, Palhuber, a last-minute replacement for the ailing Liam Killeen, suffered horribly on the day’s final climb, reached the top exhausted and sputtered home, barely hanging on the wheel of his all-star teammate.

The dilemma highlights the one component of the Absa Cape Epic that is arguably more challenging than South Africa’s heat and wind: Teamwork.

At the Cape Epic, the race clock stops when the team’s second rider crosses the line, and the rulebook forbids teammates from riding more than two minutes apart. Teams, then, must stick together. There are no exceptions to the rule.

“You have to be evenly matched because you can only go as fast as your slowest rider,” said Andrew McLean of Johannesburg, currently ranked first in the Masters 40-plus division.

McLean had to draft for his teammate, Damien Booth of Johannesburg, through the beginning of the second stage, an epic 132km slog from Uniondale to Oudtshoorn.

“I was bad at the beginning but he was suffering at the end had to ride on my wheel,” Booth said. “A lot of times Andrew is stronger than me but it’s not to his advantage to ride faster than me because that puts me back further. It’s to his advantage to just slow down and ride my pace.”

Masters leaders Andrew McLean (left) and Damian Booth know what good teamwork is

Photo: Fred Dreier

Slowing down for one’s partner is easier said than done, especially in a competitive race. During the stage 2, the 1200-rider field broke into echelons early, and throughout the day the groups gradually whittled themselves down. Teams tried jumping across the huge gaps, however many of those attempts proved to be futile.

“There’s always a group ahead of you that you’d like to be in, but one of your riders probably isn’t strong enough to get there,” Booth said. “You have to be patient with your partner and let it go.”

Linus Van Onselen of Stellenbosch, a three-year veteran of the race, said he has ample experience in dealing with lopsided partnerships. The 54-year old has come to embody the race’s never-say-die attitude, and his grimacing image is featured prominently in the race’s bible and Web site. Onselen admitted he has always been on the weaker end of his partnerships.

“You can’t blame your partner if he’s weak — some partnerships end up breaking up because of that,” Onselen said. “Maybe you say it silently, but you can’t say it out loud. You’ll lose your partner’s support.”

Onselen and his partner, 45-year old Doug Brown, finished the second stage as the third-ranked master’s team. Brown said he frequently pushed Onselen’s backside up climbs and drafted him into the wind.

“You dig very deep and do whatever it takes to keep him moving in times like that,” he said. “Lucky for me Linus is tough as nails.”

Longest Day in the Saddle
The second stage of the 2007 Absa Cape Epic featured the longest course map — a whopping 132km of trail and fire roads separated the Uniondale starting line from Oudtshoorn, the finishing city.

A blast from a tractor-trailer rig’s air horn awakened riders in the race’s tent city promptly at 5 a.m., and by 7 a.m. all 1200 contestants were lined up for the starting gun.

The first flat 35 kilometers alternated between paved and dirt roads, giving the front of the pack the feel of a road race. Echelons of hundreds formed on the blacktop, with single riders and teams yo-yoing off the back of the larger packs.

With the coast several kilometers away, the dry South African interior turned up the thermometer early — by 9 a.m. temperatures had climbed into the mid-70s. By 11, it was a dry, sun-baked 90 degrees.

The front group of professionals quickly separated themselves from the field, and as expected the day’s primary obstacle, the Kamanassie Nature Reserve climb, provided the final separation. Cannondale-Vredestein’s A-team of Roel Paulissen and Jakob Fugelsang pushed the pace up the backbreaking 35-km ascent. Only Sauser and Palhuber could maintain the pace, with stage 1 winners Karl Platz and Stefan Sahm the last to lose the pace.

But mechanical disaster stopped both teams on the descent — Fugelsang broke his chain on the way down, and Sauser destroyed his wheel. While Cannondale-Vredestein enjoyed a speedy recovery, Sauser and Palhuber surrendered their second-place seeding while stopped at a tech zone.

Conditions became even drier on the far side of the Kaminassie, and riders faced 70 more kilometers of riding on a rocky, windy plane with little coverage. But 120 kilometers into their journey, the course diverted into the Buffeldrif Game Farm, a private game reserve usually viewed only by tourists with deep pockets. The course nearly had to be diverted when a pair of rhinoceros was spotted mating by the trail, but the animals were shuffled off before riders appeared. Athletes were, however, greeted by elephants and hippos basking in the game reserve’s reservoir.

The detour marked the third time the Absa Cape Epic has run through private game parks. The racecourse runs primarily on private land as it snakes its way from Knysna to Cape Town, and Kevin Vermaak, the race organizer, said the parks historically request the race to gain exposure from the television coverage.

“We have a very strict policy that if a landowner requests payment we go elsewhere,” he said. “We go through well over 100 different properties and we could never afford to pay them all. But local businesses put pressure on the landowners to let us come in.”

Paulissen and Fugelsang emerged from the game park with a sizable lead on a chasing group of four — Platt, Sahm and the Dolphin squad of Bart Brentjens and Rudi van Houts. A veteran World Cup athlete, Paulissen said the huge effort began to wear on his confidence.

“You suffer on the climb and then there is so many kilometers left on the flat, I think it was harder than the climb,” Paulissen admitted.

The two still made it to Oudtschoorn ahead of Platt and Sahm, who assumed second place when van Houts could no longer keep the pace. Paulissen and Fugelsang were the only team to break five hours, rolling in at 4:58:24.

“Today I was thinking about what if I do not recover in time for the season,” Paulissen said. “In 2005 I cut it close, but there was only a week separation before the first World Cup. This year we have two weeks, so I will be okay.”

Riders wore a similarly exhausted gape after finishing the monster stage, which had many spinning their wheels for six to eight hours under an unforgiving South African sun. Among those was Palhuber, who again cracked on the run-in to the finish line and struggled to keep pace with Sauser. The Swiss occasionally freewheeled in the final kilometers to wait for his tired teammate.

It was another former Absa Cape Epic champion, 2004 victor Platt, who summed up the day’s struggle.

“This is much more difficult than in years past. In 2004 we were sure from day one that we were going to win,” he said. “This year nothing is sure. I’ll be happy to finish.”

2007 Absa Cape Epic
Stage 2 Uniondale-Outdshoorn
Men
1. Cannondale-Vredestein (Roel Paullisen, Jakob Fugelsang), 132km in 4:58:24
2. Team Bulls (Karl Platt, Stefan Sahm), at 3:10
3. Dolphin (Bart Brentjens, Rudi van Houts), at 4:09
4. Multivan Merida (Jose Hermida, Ralph Naf), at 13:21
5. Trek-Volkswagen (Lakata Alban, Peter Roman), at 13:21
6. Texner-Stoeckli (Thomas Zahnd, Sandro Spaeth), at 20:39
7. Raleigh-MTN (Mannie Heymans, Melt Swanepoel), at 20:40
8. Stevens (Johannes Sickmueller, Rene Birkenfeld), at 22:30
9. Addidas-Williams Simpson (Shan Wilson, Jacques Rossouw), at 24:36
10. Raleigh-MTN (Kevin Evans, Brandon Stewart), at 25:46