Cape Epic: A very strenuous day!

Diary from Michael Opper and Ralf Kropp: 28.03.2011

Start and Finish of todays stage through the Saronsberg Wine Estate in Tulbag. The specially designed stage covered over 89 Kilometers and a total of 2050 meters altitude.

Today started early with the alarm waking us at 5:00am for the scheduled 7:00am start of Stage #1. Unfortunately, Murphy was with us today and bad luck was definitely on our heels!
After just 10km Ralfs saddle broke which he then promptly lost. He carried on for at least 10km without a saddle until Michael finally built him a makeshift replacement from a saddle bag and about a whole roll of packing tape. This held up quite well until at water point #2, an employee from the Shimano Service team sponsored Ralf a replacement saddle - Many thanks again for this donation!!

Ralf then decided to crash several times which although spectacular, didn't really help our time. Luckily only a few cuts and grazes were the result of these acrobatics. This whole spectacle was however over shadowed by a huge crash right in front of Team-Rohloff. A competitor from Scotland crashed so badly that we felt obliged to stop where Michael then offered first-aid support, we guessed that the colleague must have suffered a severe concussion - we are however still unaware of the actual condition. Hopefully we can find out more later this evening.
After the doctor arrived, Ralf and I rode further however we had lost so much time that we eventually arrived at the finish with a time of 5:30:30,9 which landed us in 28th place in the Masters category.

Tomorrow is the day to regain these lost places and climb back up the field.

It is only the second day of events but we have been inundated by questions from fellow athletes with regards to the SPEEDHUB to which we are very proud to reply "the hub just keeps on going. It works"!

Okay, fingers crossed for tomorrow that Murphy has found other victims. I hope thats the end of our ration of bad luck.

Ralf and Michael


Ralf und Michael
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