Participants in next year’s TransCape mountain bike event will find a more balanced route as the organisers continue pushing the boundaries in one of South Africa’s top multistage races.
The grand depart of the third edition, which will take riders over seven stages from Knysna to Franschhoek, is on February 5.
Route director Wayne Collett assured riders the journey would remain a challenge.
Several changes have been made to the opening stages of the 2017 TransCape mountain bike race to give the race better balance. Photo: Jacques Marais
“The idea is to make sure the premium status of the race is not compromised and that features such as accommodation, food and evening functions can be fully enjoyed by a wider pool of riders,” he explained.
The result, said Collett, was to try and ensure that the nature of the route still provided a challenge, while maintaining a profile that did not “kill most of your riders” in the opening stages.
“That makes them unable to enjoy all the great ‘off the bike’ aspects. So it is all about the balance of the different stages.”
Collett said the first four days had all been tough in the past.
“Although truly spectacular as individual stages, they were simply too tough as a combination.”
He said the conundrum faced by all route designers was that there was a direct correlation between “increasing beauty and decreasing enjoyment”.
“The more spectacular you try to make your route, the more unobtainable you make it for more and more riders because the most beautiful sections are invariably also the toughest.”
The first stage, which last year covered 102km and 2 600m of ascent, has been tweaked to 80km with an elevation of 1 700m.
The second day is still the queen stage at 135km, but the climbing has been reduced from 2 400m to 2 000m. It’s also now sandwiched in-between two 80km stages.
Collett said the total distance of the TransCape, which was recently acquired by ASG Events, had been reduced from 675km to 650km, but cautioned that competitors should not mistake “shorter” and “easier” for being “easy”.
“You only have to look at stage two to see that the TransCape still presents a great endurance challenge. It’s simply the balance of the stages that now affords more recovery opportunity and therefore more forgiveness.”
Entries close on November 23.
