Germans Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm (Bulls) regained the overall lead of the Absa Cape Epic on Friday after finishing second in the penultimate stage.

The stage win went to Bart Brentjens and Rudi van Houts (Dolphin), but the real contest was between the Bulls and Roel Paulissen and Jakob Fugelsang (Cannondale-Vredestein), who snatched the leaders’ jerseys from Platt and Sahm after winning the previous day’s stage.

Platt and Sahm caught and passed their rivals with 30km to go in the 116km stage from Villiersdorp to Kleinmond and will take an advantage of three-and-a-half minutes into Saturday’s finale, a 75km sprint from Kleinmond to Lourensford.

It was a tough outing for the Cannondale-Vredestein team, which flatted eight times during the stage. The last puncture allowed the Bulls to catch up, and fatigue did the rest.

“I think we passed our limit a few days ago. We pushed too hard for too many days,” said Fugelsang, who all but conceded victory. “You have to fix your flats yourself, you can’t ride to the tech zone. It is mentally really hard. I don’t want to kill myself for this anymore.”

This year’s pro race has been a rollercoaster ride, fueled by the presence of Brentjens and other high-octane World Cup riders. While previous editions of the Cape Epic have proven anticlimactic, with the first stage traditionally separating the winner from the also-rans, this year’s event has been a battle, day in and day out. At the close of stage 7, four teams had won stages, and the Bulls and Cannondale-Vredestein had swapped the leaders’ jerseys four times.

“We won seven stages in 2005, and people just let you go,” said Brentjens, whose team took the overall that year. “This year, no one lets you go.”

A show of strength
Facing a tough field that included previous Cape Epic winners Brentjens, Christoph Sauser and Silvio Bundi, the Bulls and Cannondale-Vredestein quickly set about proving their strength. Platt and Sahm out-sprinted Fugelsang and Paulissen to take the first stage by inches, with the rest of the pack filing in minutes later.

“We came in saying we would be lucky to just win a stage, and we have just accomplished that, so our Cape Epic has already been a success,” Platt said afterward.

Four days later, the German was not so chipper.

“I never expected a race like this,” said Platt, himself a former Cape Epic champ and distance specialist who travels the World Cup marathon circuit. “Every day it is like you are getting pounded. It makes all of my results in marathon racing seem puny. We are riding every day like it is a World Cup. I mean, look at what has happened to the other guys.”

Indeed, the stiff pace and relentless attacks ground down the other teams, forcing them to shift their attention from the overall to stage wins.

Ralph Naf and Jose Hermida (Multivan-Merida) finished consistently in the top 10 before winning the fourth stage from Ladismith to Barrydale. But the effort took a toll, and on stage 5 the two rode well back in the amateur ranks. Dolphin’s Brentjens and van Houts took that stage, but only after van Houts spent much of the first four days riding off the back.

Cannondale-Vredestein’s Paulissen and Fugelsang won stage 6 in Villiersdorp, snatching the leader’s jerseys from the Bulls’ Platt and Sahm, who crossed 91 seconds later.

Paulissen and Fugelsang, who had thought the race was over, couldn’t help but grin.

“We were really disappointed — we were thinking of just wearing CamelBaks today after yesterday because we were so tired and not motivated to go for the win anymore,” Fugelsang said.

But it was Platt’s turn to raise his arms after stage 7. The Bulls made up an early five-minute disadvantage to Cannondale-Vredestein to take the stage and carry what appears to be an insurmountable lead into the final day.

The pride of Africa
The bulk of the Absa Cape Epic’s field is composed of South African amateurs, and the race includes leaders’ jerseys for the top-ranked African twosome.

In 2004 and ’05 the jersey motivated Kenyans David Kinjah Njau and Davidson Kamau Khagi to attack relentlessly throughout the race on borrowed hardtails. The Kenyans never took the jersey or a stage, but their heroics earned them a place in the Cape Epic’s history books.

For 2007 the two were back, but not on their usual form. They lost their sponsorship dollars two months before the race, and only a last-minute sponsorship by Absa saved their season (the Cape Epic is their only race).

“We can’t afford plane tickets or hotels,” Njau said. “We only have one month’s training going into this year.”

This year, two teams sponsored by Raleigh-MTN led the charge for African bragging rights. Raleigh-MTN No. 1 (Kevin Evans and Brandon Stewart), which holds the African jersey going into the finale, looked to be headed for victory in stage 4 — they held what seemed to be a comfortable lead going into the final 30km, until Multivan-Merida’s Naf and Hermida shot past them like they were standing still.

“I was going as hard as I could and Naf just blew by me,” Evans said.

Raleigh-MTN No. 2 suffered a similar fate on stage 6. Team captain Mannie Heymans launched a swashbuckling attack on the first rise, dragging the two South African Adidas-Williams Simpson teams along, only to see Cannondale-Vredestein pass them all on a long, rocky, hike-a-bike section.

“We were all running pretty hard,” Heymans said. “But they came running by me like they were running on tar.”

Race notes
American Tom Ritchey pulled out of the race after the fourth stage. The 49-year-old mountain-biking icon, who broke a hand in a crash last month, sat out stage 5, but returned to ride the remaining stages, albeit without partner Thomas Frischknecht. “Frischy travels so much he wanted to be back home with his family,” Ritchey said. “That was part of the agreement — if I couldn’t race the whole thing he was going to head home.”

The Duravit team of South African women Anke Erlank and Yolande Devillers held an insurmountable lead after stage 7. The two were the top female finishers at every stage and lead the second-place team of Swiss Myriam Saugy and Fabienne Heinzmann by four hours.

In masters racing, Cycle Lab (Andrew McLean and Damian Booth) leads Absa (Linus van Onselen and Doug Brown) by 30 seconds.

2007 Absa Cape Epic
Overall (with one stage remaining)
1. Team Bulls (Karl Platt, Stefan Sahm), 29:42:54
2. Cannondale-Vredestein 1 (Jakob Fugelsang, Roel Paulissen), 29:46:28
3. Dolphin Mountain Bike Team (Bart Brentjens, Rudi van Houts), 30:25:09
4. Trek-Volkswagen (Alban Lakata, Peter Roman), 30:56:25
5. Team Texner-Stoeckli (Thomas Zahnd, Sandro Spaeth), 31:02:40