Cape Epic 2017

It doesn't matter how I disappointed I felt at the news that Ironman took over the Cape Epic, I can't but help myself to be totally engrossed and excited for this year's race. 

The women change in combinations in the women's field will bring an exciting race. I would still love Ariane Luthi to take the overall title. She is an incredible rider, down to earth and races her heart out! This year she will be teaming up with Adel Morath from Germany who rode her first epic last year with Sally Bigham. Adel is quite light and got blown over when the helicopter followed them closely last year. Annika Langvad is finishing her studies in Denmark so Ariane and Adel will compete as Team Spur! This will be the first year that Team Spur will have a back-up team in the race. 

Malcolm Lange team owner of Team Ascendis Health flew in the legendary Sabine Spitz who competed for the first time last year to race with Robyn de Groot. De Groot raced with Jennie Stenerhag last year, Jennie had to abandon the race after experiencing an extremely high heartrate which she later needed an operation for. The combination of De Groot and Spitz signals danger for all of the other teams. De Groot has been hungry for victory and Spitz's appetite got whet last year as she finished on the podium last year and got the hang of stage racing towards the end of the week. She also loves the heat which will definitely count in her favour!

Jennie Stennerhag is racing for Meerendal Cape Town Brewing Company with experienced and previous winner, Ester Suss from Switzerland. It will be interesting to see what the two of them can do. 

Team Dorma Kaba features local girl and Olympian Candice Lill and Namibian Vera Adrian. They have been racing together before and did extremely well in the Tankwa Trek which serves as a good training ground for the Epic. Lill also won the Tour of Good Hope road tour two weeks ago. They are in good form and it will be great to see what the all African team will do in this year's race. 

The men's field is back to the Epic battle for 6 Epic victories between Karl Platt and Christoph Sauser. Sauser is such a force to reckon with that even being retired from racing puts him right up there in contention again. Jaroslav Kulhavy asked him to be his partner and Sauser couldn't resist the challenge. My question is, why not? He has won it five times, twice with Jaro and he rides actively with the young guns he coaches and is an allround walking legend. My heart skipped a beat of excitement when I saw the news. 


Manual Fumic will be back racing on their Cannondales with Brazilian, Avancini and I think they might have their eyes on a stage win or 2. 

Jose Hermida, the funniest Spaniard and great character are back after a year's break to race with road cyclist Joaquim Rodriguez from Bahrain Merida (also the new team of Vincenzo Nibali and Louis Meintjes) road team.

Team Scott SRAM brought Nino Schurter current Olympic Champion and rising star Mathias Stirnemann as their lead team. If they can win the overall title we will have to see, but they will surely fight it out! Mathias is in my opinion Nino's strongest team mate for the Epic and that makes me excited. 

Since Erik Kleinhans joined Team Topeak Ergon I really hope there bad luck has run out now and that Alban Lakata and Kristian Hynek will get a fair shot at the podium. They have the charasmatic team of Jeremiah Bishop and Erik Kleinhans to support them. 

South Africans Phil Buys and Matthys Beukes are now racing on local designed Pyga bikes and they will sure hope to mix it up in the African Jersey race with Waylon Woolcock who will be teaming up with roadie HB Kruger this year and NAD Pro Nico Bell and Gawie Combrinck. 

Further exciting news is that young Jenny Rissveds, Olympic Champion also from Scott SRAM will be racing with legend and team manager Thomas Frischnecht. 

No-one can say that the Epic doesn't have an exciting line-up. 

Good luck to everyone racing! Hang in there and keep on pedalling! 

Follow me on @tangocycling for live tweeting where I can. :-) 

My 1st 100 miler!

We were meant to do a ride from London to Cheddar Gorge with Strongher (a movement Marianne Vos and a whole string of other pros launched, their aim is to get more women to ride bikes) but unfortunately that ride got cancelled. 

Claire and I decided that we still wanted to ride, but that we didn't want to take on such a big ride by ourselves. 

I've only cycled to Brighton with the Heart Foundation back in the day on my first MTB with slicks that were too small for the actual wheels. Claire had an awesome route that she did with her club a few weeks ago so we decided we will do London Brighton and back to London instead. 

I left my house at 6:55 and met Claire in Leatherhead from where we cycled to join the route just before the back climb up to Box Hill. 

We cycled down to Betchworth, crossed the A25 towards Newdigate, Faygate and through the ever so quaint  Rusper. 

The route followed quite country lanes and it was honestly such a beautiful ride, we missed the bigger towns. We saw village names such as Bucks Head and Colgate. 

Stuffing my face with potatoes off course!

The route only got busier as we approached Devil's Dyke and as we dropped into Brighton.

At the top of Devil's Dyke

I have felt great all the way through and it was important for me to keep eating to make sure that I didn't run out of energy. 

We didn't stop for the normal fish & chips at the sea as it looked like a storm was brewing and we knew we still had some hard work to do. 

We stopped to fill up our water bottles at a pub in Shoreham-by-Sea,  a visit to the ladies and bought a sandwich from the Co-op. 

I was fueled by my trusty salty buttered potatoes for most of the route. They are the absolute bomb! 

As soon as we past Shoreham we were back on quite country roads passing through sweet Steyning. 

The route back was hard work, the whole route actually. It was never really flat, it was always going up or going down, generally very lumpy. 

Claire and I each took our turn on the front and whenever I wanted to slow down a little, this voice from behind haunted me... "Get a wiggle on TC!" 

It was good to have the encouragement from behind as if I was on my own I would've just given up to freewheel a bit. 

We stopped a few more times as fatigue started to kick in. We were so delighted once we got back to Newdigate as we knew from there we only had to get to Dorking before it was the last stretch to Leatherhead. 

My favourite part was coming back towards Dorking from Newdigate along a long flattish drag. It was awesome just to go for it. 

Once we arrived in Leatherhead we headed towards the nearest tea shop and treated ourselved with cream teas! 

Celebrating in true British fasion with a cup of tea, scones, jam & cream

I had an absolute ball and it was for sure my best day on my road bike so far. 

My lower body was tired after the ride, but I felt great considering the distance we covered. I have felt a lot worst after cycling before, so I think it could be one of two things, I either didn't ride hard enough or I am fitter than I thought at the moment. I don't care which one of the two it is though, as it was just so nice to cycle along beautiful QUITE roads with great company! 

Ps. I think I rode myself thin. ;-)

My activity if you wanted to check our route out. Don't follow my way to Leatherhead though as I followed my nose

https://www.strava.com/activities/613155548

REVIEW: Specialized Women Specific Cycling Clothing

All of my bike accessories are already Specialized, but I've never splashed out on buying my own Specialized cycling kit. 

I happen to have met Olivia the Brand Manager for Women at Specialized UK on the Bella Velo rides and she kindly surprised me in June with this Specialized ambassadors outfit. 

I had to take the selfie to capture my excitement, it doesn't quite do it justice, but if you look closely you'll see that I dropped everything in the kitchen to try on this outfit straight away! 

From the moment I started trying it on, I could tell that this was good quality kit and understand why people pay the price for this kit. It is just so soft, it doesn't cut into love handles or upper thighs, it just feels great. This might be a strange thing for me to say and also very cringy, but you feel like a women! Oooh I said it! 

The cycling tights are my favourite, it is awesome bib shorts with a magnet fastening on the back which allows you to go to the ladies without taking all of your clothes off. You literally just drop your tights and go. 

Below is a video from Specialized demonstrating how it works! 

The padding is thin and ergonomically shaped for the best comfort. 

Soft finishes on the arm

The sleeves of the jersey and legs of the tights both have base layer material finishes which doesn't cut into your skin and doesn't ride up either as it has nicely spaced out elastic on the inside. 

Same soft finishes on the legs

The back of the cycling top has 3 pockets, including a waterproof zipped pocket. 

If you look closely you can see the magnet dropper of the bib shorts underneath my top.

I love this outfit even though it has pink it. :-) The bib shorts is a must!