The 2025 Absa Cape Epic has been a bag of mixed fortunes for the Banbridge CC duo Gareth McKee and Johnny McRoberts.  3 stages down, it’s still early days in the 8 day off-road stage race.

Sunday’s 26km prologue stage saw a very solid start in the TT style cross country race across the dusty vineyards of the Meerendal Wine Estate in the Western Cape province of South Africa.  They completed the distance in a time of 1:18:52, placing them inside the top 50 in 47^th place.  Monday seen the riders face the first Marathon style stage, covering 92km and 2750m of climbing over exposed terrain and offering no hiding place from the blistering sun which pushed temperatures close to 40°C.  If that wasn’t challenging enough Johnny suffered a bout of food poisoning, resulting in ‘digestive dysfunction’ and unable to take on any food.  Not ideal for the first marathon stage!  Speaking after the stage Johnny commented the effort had him “Deflated.  Dark Place. Been in medical twice. We got there”.  Clearly saving his energy for the rest of the week rather than worrying about full sentences!  They finished the day in 76^th place, dropping to 74^th overall in GC, with the stage taking them over 5 hrs 40.

Thankfully today’s (Tuesday) stage went much better.  Another TT effort, although this time 66km in length with 950m of climbing, and more exposed terrain under the punishing sun.  With Johnny starting to recover, Gareth did most of the pace setting at the front – we’re not sure if this was because he was feeling stronger than his recovering teammate, or perhaps he was just playing it safe and not wanting to sit too close behind Johnny after Monday…   Johnny suffered a small crash during the stage, the main casualty being a new Santini speed-suit (heads up Mr Duffy!). The Banbridge pair completed the distance in 2:54:53, good enough for 41^st place on the day and seeing them climb back up GC to 63^rd overall.  Today’s summarising commentary; “This is definitely something we’ve never experienced. The rock and trails are rough, it’s as hard going down as it is up.  And the heat, there’s no hiding anywhere.  Absolutely no let up, but it’s what it’s meant to be and we’re still in the game.”

They’ll be hoping with additional rest that tomorrow’s stage 3 will see further improvement.  At 78km in length and with close to 2500m of climbing over Paarl Mountain, it’s a point in the race that could set the tone for the 2^nd half of the week and will likely expose those who have underprepared in the training.  The course preview gives clear instruction – “Gritting one’s teeth and holding on to the dream – from dawn to dusk – is the only way to endure, overcome, and excel.”  With the final four stages all having a course profile that resembles a great white’s bite mark there’ll be plenty of opportunity for the Banbridge men to grit their teeth.

We’ll try to keep the updates coming on what is a truly Epic challenge.  You can get more info on the event via the Epic Series website and there is also live coverage and highlights of each stage in their YouTube channel.  For now we’ll wish the lads the very best of luck and tip our hats on a great effort so far.