Platt rides to fifth Epic title with partner Huber collecting his first

KARL Platt and Urs Huber won the Absa Cape Epic’s Prologue in Meerendal and returned to the Western Cape wine estate seven stages later in yellow jerseys to give Team Bulls overall victory on Sunday. The win also gave Germany’s Platt a record-equalling fifth Epic title.

Honours for the prestigious Grand Finale win, though, went to Germany’s Manuel Fumic and Brazilian Henrique Avancini (Cannondale Factory Racing), who crossed the line after the 86km stage in front of thousands of cheering spectators at the Meerendal Wine Estate.

Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad (Spur-Specialized) were second on the stage, but sealed their third successive title in the women’s category.

After a strong week for Team Bulls, Platt and Swiss strongman Huber had a comfortable 15-minute lead over Centurion Vaude by Meerendal 2 before Sunday’s final stage. Unsurprisingly, the pair’s race strategy on Sunday was "no heroics" — just enjoy the ride.

This is the 10th year that Team Bulls have competed in the tough mountain bike race, and their experience was in

full display as they dominated the podium.

"Unbelievable … unbelievable," said Platt after crossing the line as the 2016 champion.

Platt won the first Cape Epic in 2004. He and first-time Epic winner Huber had two training blocks in SA in preparation for the event.

"Everyone was racing hard again, but we did what we could to control it," said Platt on the final stage’s race. "Then a bunch made a break, but Urs and I decided to take it easy and just enjoy the last 20km."

Huber said he was nervous at the start of the final stage, but calmed down once the race began. "We could see that lots of teams were going for the stage win, but we decided that was

not for us. Today, we said,

no suffering!"

Cannondale Factory Racing’s Fumic and Avancini crossed the line on Sunday in 3:13.38, lightning fast riding on a stage without much climbing, quite a few district roads and in fairly cool conditions.

"We are not the strongest team in the field," said

Avancini, "so, today, we had to be the smartest."

Second and third on the stage was wrapped up by the two Centurion Vaude by Meerendal teams. At one stage, on the last climb before the final descent, it looked like they had positioned themselves for a one-two stage finish, but Cannondale Factory Racing sneaked in front.

Huber said Team Bulls would be back next year to race for a sixth title for Platt.

"But first I’m going to relax for a while. I fly home tomorrow. I can’t wait for my own bed."

Last year, Switzerland’s Kleinhans and Denmark’s Langvad’s dominated the women’s category, winning by more than an hour and 18 minutes. This year, however, they faced a strong challenge from Ascendis Health’s Robyn de Groot of SA and Swede Jennie Stenerhag (who withdrew after falling ill).

Then German Sabine Spitz and Ukranian Yana Belomoina (Sport for Good) found their legs in the closing stages.

"It was a difficult stage after a tough week of racing, but we are happy with our overall win and super happy with our third Epic title," said Langvad.

"To celebrate, I’m going to drink some of the great South African wine that I didn’t get to drink during the week."

Grand Finale winners Spitz and Belomoina cranked up the pace to make the decisive move on Meerendal’s famous Stairway to Heaven.

"On the final climb, Yana was riding like crazy," said a delighted Spitz. "She overtook a men’s team and I was sitting behind them thinking ‘oh my gosh’, then I saw her overtake the girls and I realised I had to use my last grain of power to get to her."

Topeak Ergon’s Sally Bingham of England and her German partner Adel Morath rounded off the Sasol women’s category podium with another third-place finish at Meerendal.