Following the Absa Cape Epic, peeking at the national flags on the back-numbers the riders all wear, you could be forgiven in thinking you were at a United Nations team-building event.
The multi-nationality of the field saw riders from 51 countries line up for the 2019 event. The average age of male entrants is 34 (female entries average out at 32), with the oldest starter Gustav Joyce, who turned 70 in February. Aryna Edwards is the elder stateswoman of the field, at the tender age of 65, one of 32 riders attempting the Untamed African MTB Race past pensionable age. The other end of the age spectrum sees two eighteen-year-olds on the start line; Luyiso Fulu from Thesele Velokhaya and Peaceforce’s Thana Groenewald.
South Africa still has a stranglehold on the biggest flag contributor, with 665 riders out there – roughly half the field. Spain is next, with 141 riders, followed by Switzerland (85), Belgium (54) and Germany with 53 riders. The USA, Australia and Brazil drew 36, 35 and 30, respectively, closely followed by Italy (26), England (25), the Netherlands on 22 and there are 20 Israeli riders for 2019.
For German rider Daniel Mannweiler, the sales job the Absa Cape Epic does for the Western Cape as an ultimate bike-riding destination is an affirmation of his move to South Africa three years ago, as a professional triathlete. He is riding his second Cape Epic with newbie Matthias Kastner, who has already fallen in love with the people and the trails of the Western Cape: “We have never seen riding like this in Germany, not even a little. And the organisation… everything works so well.”
Polish riders Daniel Marciniak and Marcin Górnicki are both Absa Cape Epic and Africa first-timers and agree on the warm welcome from the locals. “But the scenery is the best… we live in Warsaw, in the middle of a plain. We don’t know about mountains and trails like this. We are riding hard, but never hard enough to not see the next thing. It is so beautiful.”
With the South African domination, the most popular surnames in the event are, unsurprisingly, local. 32 Coetzees and the same number of Du Toits outnumber the 28 Smiths (although, we could add the 16 Smits and turn that upside down). 24 Oosthuizens, 20 each for Visser, Ferreira, Botha and Martin… local remains lekker. South Africa’s Sandiso Xetu and Hong Kong’s Vincent Yim ensure a full alphabet of surnames and first names.
Regionality within the South African entries is almost fully representative, with 300 riders from the Western Cape duking it out with 259 Gautengers, seven riders from the Eastern Cape, 11 Freestaters, 36 from KwaZulu-Natal, seven Limpopo starters, 16 from Mpumalanga and 19 from the North West Province. Only the Northern Cape failed to supply riders for mountain biking’s ultimate bucket-lister.
725 riders will earn a finisher’s medal for the first time in the 2019 Absa Cape Epic, should they make it to the other side of the untamed; while 156 will be looking to hang on for all eight days and join the exclusive Amabubesi club for three-time finishers. Eight are aiming to complete their tenth.
And then we have the Last Lions; John Gale, Hannele Steyn, Mike Nixon and Craig Beech, who are the last ones pedalling since that very first Cape Epic, in 2004, and on track to finish each of the sixteen Absa Cape Epics to date.
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