![]() Then we both nearly lost it when MvDP attacked, France was constantly taking time checks on the descent, “One thousand two thousand three thousand four thousand five thousand six thousand, he has SIX SECONDS!” I was worried about MvDP holding my favourite pro status as Remco was bike length behind and coming up fast in my estimation, yet that’s over, Remco has lost ground, MvDP has taken a huge lead in my personal favouritism. France almost fainted with excitement when Pogačar, Ganna, Wout and MvDP went off the front on the Poggio, especially as she’d asked me on the Cipressa if any of them had ever won it before and found out they hadn’t, I think she manifested it. Which was kind of surreal as I felt like I should join in. We got back to the hotel in the afternoon and sat on my bed and watched Milan Sanremo from 154km out, which is heroic in itself, although it was made enjoyable by the fact Ned was commentating on the race here in South Africa. We’re oozing winning behaviour, or as France put it after finishing unpacking and sorting her OCD like system into our mobile home for the week, “See, reducing cognitive load.” I have to say, I feel like France is CEOing this trip to win the Tour de France, as the level of organisation and planning is beyond anything I ever knew when racing professionally. There’s no doubt we need a solution, and so France has nutrition packs labelled for each day with precise fuel loadings we anticipate needing. ![]() He is now the Director of Performance Solutions at Science in Sport. Box ticked.įor nutrition France tapped up her old contact from her CEO days at Team INEOS, their former Head of Nutrition, James Morton. We rode the first climb of tomorrow’s opening stage, it’s grippy, we chose discretion over valour and didn’t go beyond it, instead getting a picture with Table Top mountain slightly visible in the distance, contrary to our failed tourist attempt yesterday where it was just a grey cloud. Then we were off to the Cape Epic village to register and collect numbers, the size of the operation is impressive, it’s a logistical master-piece and gave Frances the fear, she’s been riding an emotional roller-coaster for weeks, and asks me at least twice a day if she’s going to be able to do it. We ended up queuing for an age, so got to chat about life the universe and everything and our shared trepidation about what we were getting ourselves into, I recorded some serendipitous pod action for NSF. We collected our camping car first thing in the morning and bumped into the Digger and the Doughboy team aka Mitch Docker and Ian Boswell. We’re MILLARTIME after all, we have to look the part, I’m enforcing my strict aesthetic standards on my sister. POC helmets, glasses, gloves, back packs, and Fizik shoes, nothing new there as I always wear POC and fizik, but this was an opportunity to upgrade to new stuff so we were box fresh, race-ready and matching. We have kit for every day, packed into individual bags in order to keep things hyper organised, I thought this was slightly mad, but it was an inspired idea that was shared with us and which made total sense when packing the Camping Car (or is it called a Mobile Home, I never know?). Frances is riding a Factor Lando XC, a beautiful machine, about the best you can get, and perfect for Cape Epic.Īs for kit, we’re fully CHPT3’d up: Cargo Shorts and Aero Jersey being the outfit of choice, with Henley’s as an option. In 2019, I bought myself a mountain bike, 27yrs after selling my last mountain bike to purchase my first road bike, it had to be a Yeti, the dream finally fulfilled. ![]() Yeti were the real deal, rare beasts, and way beyond what I could afford. When I got into mountain biking in the early 1990’s (this is what led me to road racing) my dream bike was a Yeti and my hero was John Tomac. This is perhaps not the first choice for Cape Epic as it’s more trail orientated than cross-country I don’t care, I love it. This brings me to equipment: I’m riding my Yeti SB100, it’s been converted to 115 rear travel with a handlebar lockout (thank you Cyclosphera, my local shop in Banyoles). We’d never met Nick before but were put in touch with him under high recommendation, turns out he’s a legend, I knew this when I saw he has the same bike as me, a Yeti SB115. We were then picked up by Nick Lamond, our man on the ground here in South Africa. Not sure it was necessary, at breakfast we couldn’t eat anything as we were still full from the night before, which was frustrating as the buffet was world class. ![]() Today started earlyish, I decided to set my alarm to 6:30am to start setting my body clock for the pre-dawn starts ahead of us this week. South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands (USD $) ![]()
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