MTB

Behind The Scenes In The Media

By Absa Cape Epic

The Absa Cape Epic offers their media contingent awesome access to the action and nothing gets you closer than a motorbike.

Standard banter in the Absa Cape Epic media centre after a stage revolves around ‘how was your day?’. It’s a statement more than a question – the tone of the asker giving a clear indication as to the success of their day out. Whether that be gather stories, shooting still pictures or moving images (video).

Many a variable is at play and they all need to come together to warrant a ‘yeh, I had a good one,’  - prevailing weather, height of the sun, angle of the mountains, amount of dust around, type of trails, how the race is playing out. The list is long, perhaps though, the single most important factor in having a good day is the bikers. Not the mountain-bikers, but the motorbike riders. The pilots who shepherd some of the world’s finest lensmen and women around the tricky course, so they can capture the still and moving images and tell the story of the race.

Often hairy, always fast, never boring, watching the race unfold from the back of the bike is a big part of why the Absa Cape Epic is the most televised mountain bike stage race in the world. It is broadcast to 175 countries, including UK, USA, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Czech Republic, Japan, Brazil, Egypt and Rwanda. Viewers tune in to watch news clips, highlights packages and an hour-long program worldwide. Photographs and articles about the event have appeared in the New York Times the LA Times, Sports Illustrated, as well as dozens of international and local bicycle magazines and websites.

If it weren’t for these skilled pilots, access to the route would be limited and the images and stories simply wouldn’t be the same.

On any give stage, there are five bikes for official photographers, five bikes and a quad for video and production crew. Aside from that are five bikes with pilots for accredited media and external photographers to ride pillion.

It was on one of these that I found myself for Saturday’s Stage 6. It was the second time this week I had the privilege of seeing the race unfold from the back of a motorbike. It also happened to be the second morning that dawned wet and muddy, so cameras were wrapped in rain covers and foul-weather gear was the order of the day.

We rode hard and fast, covering the leaders in the early rain. Fine map reading, an intuition for direction and muddy-road skills got me to see the sharp-end of the race at all the spots. The sun came out and, just for a while there, the light-gods were with us. Not since riding the event in 2009 and 2010 have I felt anywhere that close to the gritty action. I didn’t come home with tired legs and burning lungs, to be sure, and way earlier than my usual seven-to-eight hour pedalling efforts back then, but I was dusty and hot and (hopefully) have the odd proper image to show for my efforts. And if I don’t, and can’t answer the ‘how was your day’s question positively as a result, I have only myself to blame. 

*This year’s race takes place from 15 to 22 March and will once again take 1 200 riders through some of the Western Cape’s most unspoilt territory. The race kicks off with the Prologue in Table Mountain National Park, starting from the University of Cape Town, and finishes eight days later at Meerendal Wine Estate in Durbanville.  

Meerendal will host the finish of the race and the Grand Finale celebrations for the first time. The Grand Finale will kick off with live entertainment, a farmer’s market, great food and wine and unmatched scenery. Vantage points will be accessible to the general public. Entrance is free.