Cape Epic - Stage Three

The hills are alive with the sound of music - well, to be more accurate, the sound of Russell swearing and clearing his throat. Hills and sand are two of his favorite things.

We had as long tough day, and several times Russell threatened to quit. But somehow he pushed through the pain and suffering, and we got our best placing yet - 291st.

Cape Epic - Stage Two

What a great stage. We ride single track till we were sick of it. And then a little but more.

It was tough. It was hot. But it was fun.

7h40.

Cape Epic - Day One

Done.

With a bit of moaning, swearing, grimacing, writhing and cursing. And that was just Russell's massage.

7h55 and 341st position.

Cape Epic - Day 0

The nerves are on code red, man the battle stations, one minute to midnight, or whatever other analogy you might prefer. This is it, we have registered, sussed out the opposition (and they seem to get better each year), had the race briefing, got the goodies, packed the bags, ridden the bikes one last time, had the final supper with the family, and quietly died a thousand deaths. No turning back now.

Watch out - Team Burger Kings (Team # 74) is ready to deal with whatever Dr Evil can throw at us.

The Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour Wrap up

The Results

With the Argus now a memory, the legs starting to feel a little better, and plans already being made for next year, I present the scoreboard:

Name	Race Time	Position	Gender Position	Age Position	Start Group	Group Position
Me	03:08:08	305/28817	282/22533	50/2210	VA	53/234
Craig	03:08:09	306/28817	283/22533	41/3071	VA	54/234
The Tourist (Russell)	03:19:16	810/28817	749/22533	114/3322	VB	151/229
The Greek	03:59:32	5460/28817	4934/22533	813/3071	GG	8/526
Bonte	04:17:22	8355/28817	674/5472	109/745	T	262/466
Yolanda	04:17:22	8358/28817	675/5472	105/712	T	263/466
The Runner	04:23:43	9422/28817	8316/22533	1306/3071	PC	9/375

What the scoreboard doesn't say is just how tough it was:

• I spent 50kms chasing the back of the VA bunch after getting dropped over Smitswinkel, only catching Craig right on the finish line
• Yolanda and Bonte had to stop for a puncture that took 8 minutes to fix (they still beat their nemesis, although Yolanda still bears the psychological scars of a good tongue lashing from Bonte!)
• The wind was howling - The Runner did a valiant job riding solo around the Peninsula
• The Tourist collapsed in a heap, cramps ripping through his legs as we tried to enjoy a rewarding beer in Kalk Bay
• The Greek crawling up into a ball in the beer tent, totally exhausted

A scientific investigation into performance at the Argus

The 2010 Cape Argus Cycle Tour has come and gone, and all that remains are for the war stories to be told. For the second year running the weather was rather foul, with a howling South Easter bashing the cyclists for the first half of the race. Hence the war stories - it was a real battle out there. This was another of those occasions that they should have handed out two medals - one at the start for just being brave enough to get out of bed and head off to the start, and another to anyone who persevered to the finish line.

In the ongoing saga of the Greek versus The Runner I have rather sad news - the Greek convincingly beat The Runner. However, with the wonders of modern scientific analysis, The Runner has broken down each performance and done an objective comparison in the quest to answer the burning question - who is the better cyclist (we all know The Runner is the better runner, hence the nickname)?

Here follows The Runner's analysis, and you are welcome to peer review his logic:

"By my calcs\\

There were 29000 riders and 75 start groups: this simply about 385 riders per group on average

Greek started in GG (group 17) he thus started in position 6 573rd

The Runner started in PC (Group 49) in thus in position 18 946th

So to work out from the start:

Greek only managed to finish in position 5483, this means he only passed 1090 riders or in other words a pathetic 17% of those in front of him. suddenly its not looking so good for the greek.

the Runner however finished in position 9462 which means he passed an incredible 9485 riders. This is an amazing 50% of the field in front of him at the start!!!!! OMF OMF, certainly and undeniably an insane effort. Further, to sustain this crazy objective the runner had to pass a rider every 1.6 seconds for the entire duration of the ride!

This, besides the realism of riding a mountain bike and not having any bunches to share some of the wind load, obviously gives the Runner a big disadvantage and we need to do some simple maths to equate the positioning.

Thus if we say that each person you pass, adds approximately 0.2 secs to your time, then we can recalc.

For the greek it would add on 3.6 minutes so his actual time would be around 3:55 which even the Runner can concede is a pretty good time.

For the Runner it would add a 31.6 minutes, so the corrected actual time should be 3:52!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OMG OMF

So in the end without any obvious penalties, but taking the realisitc issues of starting at the back in account, the Runner actually won this race quite comfortably which was easily confirmed by the beer tent crowd afterwards, who noted how casually and easily the Runner was moving around and chatting, whilst the greek lay about immobile on some dirty old newspapers.

maybe next year greek."

Lance Armstrong and friends trying to catch The Runner over Suikerbossie

While the scientific methods used in this analysis look sound upon first glance, a truly independent test is required to settle this issue once and for all. A test where each competitor has no advantage over the other with the only deciding factor being pure cycling ability. Luckily, such an opportunity is on the horizon - the Knysna Weekend. There is an old tradition dating back many years called The 3D Loser competition, and I think it is time we revived it. The 3D Loser is the person with the slowest aggregate time for the Knysna Mountain Bike race and the Road race the following day. For any additional details speak to Craig, as I do believe he is the current 3D Loser title holder.