Team RECM’s Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad survived a crash scare to charge home and into the orange leader’s jersey in stage one of the Absa Cape Epic at Oak Valley Wine Estate in Grabouw today.
Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad during stage one of the 2015 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race.
Photo: Sam Clark/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS
Kleinhans and Langvad completed the 113km route in a time of 5:32:00 securing an overall gap of just over 20 minutes on second placed Jennie Stenerhag and Robyn de Groot of Team Ascendis.
Meerendal Wheeler’s Esther Suss and Alice Pirard rounds off the podium in third, moving into third on the overall standings at the same time.
“I’m not a huge fan of the colour orange,” said Kleinhans, “but I like the orange colour of this leader’s jersey. It’s definitely one I want to keep.”
Kleinhans fell on the stage while overtaking some slower riders, but shrugged it off as a minor mishap on an otherwise dominant day.
Team RECM admits that they came into the Cape Epic with the goal of winning it, so both riders are thrilled with their racing so far.
“It feels wonderful to be on the podium again,” says Langvad. “We want to win this race, it’s a huge season goal for Ariane, and right now it feels like we are on track.”
Second-placed team on the day, Ascendis Health, started the race with no major expectations and are taking the race day-by-day.
“It was hard out there, especially when the rain came,” said De Groot. “We are riding well together and we had another good day, though we did feel it in the legs towards the end.”
“We are riding as hard as we can,” added Stenerhag, “but Ariane and Annika are still miles ahead of us. They are just two absolutely phenomenal riders. This is definitely one of the strongest women’s fields the Cape Epic has ever had, but it feels like they have no competition out there.”
In the men’s race Christoph Sauser of Switzerland and Czech Jaroslav Kulhavy of Investec Songo Specialized claimed the leaders jersey ahead of Karl Platt and Urs Huber of Team Bulls.
Team Multivan Merida riders Jose Hermida and Rudi van Houts round off the Elite men’s podium in third position.
Go to Absa Cape Epic for more results and photos.
