THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING »

Get the VeloNews Email Newsletter FREE

  Learn More | Archive
Home » Top Stories » Mountain »

MTB News and Notes; Cape Epic ramps up; Colorado off-road stage race

Preliminary 2008 NMBS schedule; Collegiate Nationals at Lees McRae

Published: Oct. 26, 2007

You can’t talk about South Africa’s Absa Cape Epic (www.cape-epic.com) mountain-bike stage race without mentioning Kevin Vermaak. The Cape Town native dreamt up the idea for the race after participating in Costa Rica’s La Ruta de los Conquistadores in 2002, then quit his job at the Royal Bank of Scotland to get the Cape Epic off and running by 2003. Since then, the event has blossomed into the premier off-road stage race for professional cross-country riders. In 2007, six of the top eight male UCI-ranked cross-country started their respective seasons off with the Absa Cape Epic. And nearly 1200 amateur riders also signed up to complete the journey.

It’s easy to see why top riders such as Roel Paulissen and Christoph Sauser make the journey to the eight-day race. The 900 km journey provides a week of tough racing, and is the perfect kick-off to the World Cup series, which usually begins two weeks after the Cape Epic ends. The Cape Epic also boasts daily television coverage in South Africa and Europe.

For 2008 the race will see some changes. It will begin with a short, televised prologue. It will also carry UCI hors categorie status, meaning it will award a large sum of valuable UCI points based on the final general classification. VeloNews caught up with Vermaak as he was preparing for the 2008 Absa Cape Epic route announcement gala, held October 30 in Johannesburg.

VeloNews.com: What is the significance of the Absa Cape Epic now having UCI hors categorie status?

Kevin Vermaak: It is a really big step for us. Basically there are only four other races around the world that have UCI HC status, and they are all cross-country races. There was a total of about seven hours of HC racing on the UCI calendar. Now we’re coming along and we have nine days of racing. The winners normally do the Epic in about 33 hours, so we’ve upped the amount of HC racing by four or five times for next year’s calendar.

The first two years we awarded UCI points, but it was only for cross-country marathon (XCM), and next year all of the points will be awarded in the cross-country (XCO) category, which is exciting. The rationale for us getting XCO points is that we had the top UCI riders here anyway, and they’re racing for nine days, it made sense that they should earn UCI points based on their final general classification seeding. Now we can award points all the way down to 15th place, and for these riders it is nice to get points at the beginning of the season. We’ve had the top-tier World Cup riders coming, and now I hope this will attract the next tier of racers to that will create more depth.

VN: I noticed the race does not attract the same depth in the women’s field.

KV: It’s a chicken and egg situation for the ladies. Right now we don’t put the ladies category on the UCI calendar because we haven’t had the depth of competition in the ladies’ field. Even for next year we have not applied for ladies’ classification, although we are expecting to get some strong riders, like Trek-Volkswagen’s Susan Haywood. I think the first year we could really get a competitive field for the ladies is after the Olympics in 2009. The men have proven that if they do a competitive stage race, it sets them up well for the rest of the season. But it is unproven for women whether that is true. Gunn-Rita [Dahle-Flesjå] said she would have a stab at the Epic in 2009.

It is the same with the younger riders as well. Guys like Frischi and Sauser have proved that the race is good for their seasons, but not younger riders like Nino [Schurter] or Florian [Vogel], and they don’t’ want to change their program the year of the Olympics.

VN: Talk to me about the prologue for next year.

KV: I am really excited about it. For the past years we have had a fantastic finishing event for the race with 10,000 spectators and bands and huge crowds at the finish line, but we’ve never had much of an impact at the start. It’s been very anti climactic — riders leave town at 7 a.m. and they’re gone.

I was at the Tour de France prologue in London this year and it was absolutely unbelievable. We aspire to create a similarly hyped event at the start of our race. This is going to be the first prologue of its kind in a mountain-bike stage race. From 8:30 a.m until 1 p.m. the amateurs will head out on the course in 30-second intervals. It’s a technical 17km course that is two laps, so there will be teams finishing and starting every minute. We’ll have a leaderboard and a big screen, so every rider will know what time needs to be beaten. We’ll group the amateur riders by country so that all of the Swiss riders or American riders will depart around the same time. We’ll raise each nation’s flag and play the national anthem, and give them a feeling as though they are representing their country, sort of a World Cup sort of feeling for the amateurs.

Then at 2:30 p.m. we’ll have the professionals take the course, and we’ll have a big grandstand and hospitality marquees for the sponsors. After the prologue we’ll award leader’s jerseys.

VN: Mountain-bike stage racing is grown. Between the Absa Cape Epic, the Trans Alp Challenge and the Trans Rockies, have you ever thought of trying to unite in an international series?

KV: Not really. Our model and aspirations are different from the other longer stage races. The Trans Alps and TransRockies attract big numbers, but they typically don’t look for top professional riders. This year the Trans Alp started on the same day as the European cross-country championships, and the final day of the race was on the same day as national federation championships. That precluded a lot of top talent from racing. Our goal is to truly have a Pro-Am event that will attract the best cross-country riders. I mean, we spent a lot of money on television production, which is very much centered on the pro teams. We spend a lot to service the pros. This year we will even have customized team leader’s jerseys, like you would see on the road. You will see a Cannondale-Vredestein leader’s jersey, just like you would see a Discovery Channel leader’s jersey at the Tour. These teams have made the choice to do our race, and we want to repay them. I don’t think other races are capable or willing to do things like that.

VN: What is entailed in your television production?

KV: We have a seven-camera production, two production trucks, a sattelite uplink, motorbikes and quads and two helicopters — one to follow the leaders throughout the race. We produce short news clips for the European channels that are distributed daily in a number of languages. We are the only mountain-bike race that creates 24-minute highlights packages each day. We uplink those to numerous TV stations, and they are shown in Italy, Russia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Scandanavia. In South Africa, the program is on every night at 10 p.m. and then gets repeated three times the next morning.

VN: That does sound expensive. Why spend so much on TV?

KV: We’ve researched the impact of our television production a lot, and it is a big expense, especially when your goal is to have the program ready for the next day. But we’re trying to create daily sports drama that a viewer will be intrigued to watch every day. The athletes themselves don’t know what is going to happen the next day. We’re trying to follow the mystery and anticipation in our style of TV production. We don’t want to just do a one-hour highlights package at the end of the week. People already know the results of the race by the, and it’s more of a documentary about the race. If it’s shown the same day you can really add that racing suspense and weave it into the storyline. We want to see people following the actual race, and we’ve achieved that in Africa. It’s an old recipe — ASO does it every year with the Tour.

VN: It sounds like you’ve had some trouble attracting North American riders to the race.

KV: It looks like [Chris] Eatough and [Jeff] Schalk or [Jeremiah] Bishop of the Trek-Volkswagen team may come this year. But somehow the [NMBS] ends up having it’s first race of the season clashing with our event every year. It’s another challenging chicken and egg situation. We don’t have the best North American riders and we don’t have TV in North America. In Europe it’s no problem because we have the best European riders and we can create a totally custom TV package. If we have the best Swedish rider, we’ll create a specific Scandinavian edit in postproduction. It works really well with riders like Bart Brentjens.

South Africa is a long way to come for North American riders, but our calendar is integrated really well with the World Cup. A North American rider could come over here, do the Epic and go to Europe and have a nice week and a half of recovery in the same time zone before [the first World Cup] Houffalize.

VN: Where do you hope to see the Absa Cape Epic in five years?

KV: It looks promising that South Africa will host a World Cup in the future. It would make sense to have an early World Cup here, because it could fit nicely with the Epic. I would like to see that as the official beginning to the World Cup season. For the race, I want to have a race that people aspire to participate in, whether they are an amateur or professional. I’d like to have our prize money to the level where it is a serious incentive to win.

Colorado Epic to bring MTB stage racing to the U.S.A
The organizers of Colorado’s Mountain State’s Cup (www.racemsc.com) are on track to debut the first epic mountain-bike stage race on U.S. soil. The race is currently pending approval by the United States Forest Service.Called the “Colorado Epic,” organizers hope to hold the five-stage race July 21-25 through Colorado’s central rocky mountains, in Summit, Eagle and Lake counties. Organizers hope to open registration by January 2008. For its inaugural year, the year will host 100 two-person teams and 25 individual participants.

“We want to showcase the riding that is important to us in Colorado,” said Mike McCormack of Bigfoot Productions. “This race will be an epic backcountry experience.”

Check back with velonews.com for updates about the Colorado Epic.

National Mountain Bike Series releases preliminary 2008 Schedule
The National Mountain Bike Series (NMBS), North America’s premier off-road racing series, has released its preliminary dates for 2008. The series will include six stops in 2008, including new venues at Idaho’s Tamarack Resort and at Windham Resort in New York. As of press time, the series will also include five UCI sanctioned events for cross-country.

2008 NMBS Schedule (preliminary)MARCH29-30 Fontana, California. XC (UCI C1), DH, ST, 4X, Super DAPRIL5-6 Fountain Hills, Arizona. XC (UCI C1), ST, Super DMAY17-18 Santa Ynez Valley, California. XC (UCI C2), DH, DS, ST, SuperDJUNE28-29 Deer Valley, Utah. XC (UCI C1), DH, DS, ST, Super DJULY12-13 Windham, New York. XC, DH, DS, ST, Super DAUGUST30- Sept 1 Tamarack Resort, Idaho. XC (UCI C2), DH, DS, ST, Super D

Lees McRae to host 2007 Collegiate Nationals
Lees McRae College and Sugar Mountain Resort in Banner Elk, North Carolina will host the 2007 USA Cycling collegiate mountain-bike national championships October 26-28.

Collegiate athletes will compete in cross-country, short track, downhill and dual slalom, with national championship jerseys being awarded to the victor of each event, as well as to the male and female overall omnium champions and the team champions. School teams compete in either Division I or II, with Division I schools having a student body population greater than 15,000.

Lees McRae comes in as a favorite to take the Division I crown. The school finished atop USA Cycling’s Division I national rankings in Division I for the 2006-07 collegiate cycling season. Challenging Lees McRae will be Fort Lewis College, the defending mountain-bike collegiate champions, and the University of Colorado.

2007 USA Cycling National Collegiate Mountain-Bike ChampionshipsOctober 268:00 a.m. – men’s cross country11:00 a.m. – women’s cross country
October 278:00 a.m. – men and women’s downhill1:00 p.m. – women’s division II short track1:45 p.m. – men’s division II short track2:30 p.m. – women’s division I short track3:15 p.m. – men’s division I short track
October 288:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – dual slalom