5 Days, 522 km and 6188m of climbing, well sort of.
The Tour of Good Hope is now the Cape’s closest stage race which can be compared to the Giro del Capo in years past. Pure Savage has its roots at racing the Coronation Double Century, so the addition this year of a team competition to the Tour of Good Hope was welcomed. The team competition consists of 8 riders with a team overall competition, individual general classification and a king of the mountain jersey. There are 5 days of racing based from Paarl with four road events and a team time trial on the second day.
The Team:
Bernard “The Centaur” Griesel
Bernard took a hiatus from the Pure Savage DC team this year to ride the event with his fiancee, in a mixed team coming in the top ten. Little did we know he was still in his base phase of training in preparation for the Tour of Good Hope. Training for the event saw Bernard hammering with LPC and hard sessions at Wednesday nights Killarney sessions. He uses a little bit of sugar bushy to gauge his fitness and some cortado’s to keep the engine puring. At the tour he is looking forward to dishing out some hurt while smiling and hoping for a place on GC and possibly a stage win.
Klyde “Cannonball” Stevens
A flat land specialist, Klyde is best known for rolling into the DC half way point 5 min behind the team, be sick behind the team car being washed off by support staff, half a handful of cramp stop, bottle change and back on the front to work until he pops again. He chipped a part of his patela in an accident before the DC and has been struggling to do more than 60km since then. He has spent everyday of the past 4 weeks at the sport science institute on the grucox machine getting his knee ready for the tour. His goal is to hang on and pop for the team! He has left his job!
Delano “West Coast Wheelsucker” Gallagher
Having moved from town to “Blueberg” Delano finds himself away from safe confines of the climbs and out in the open with the pumping South Easter. Training consisted mostly of hiding behind Kevin and stealing most of the Strava KOM’s in the Blueberg area. He is looking forward to a lekker week of racing his first stage race like a euro pro. He is hoping Savage competes for overall spoils in the team competition and for some fun on some of the stages. Hopefully can put some hurt on others in the field and his own team during some of the stages.
Brendon “Mr aero” Stevens
Brendon’s form has returned after his Andy Schlek like performances in the last races of 2015. He has been working on his aero position for months now in preparation for the TTT. His training has consisted of wearing out the tar on Constania Nek and picking off all the low hanging strava KOM’s in the Southern Suburbs, someone please go and ruin his day
here. He has been made the road captain for the tour as he is the easiest to understand on the road. His goal for the tour is to try and beat his sufferscore on Strava of 462.
Kevin “The Spider” Dolley
Ever since Kevin slid into the A group with a rather under the radar performance at the West Coast express in 2015 he has been mixing it up with the elites this season and learning in leaps and bounds. He took part in some interval training at the start of the year and can be found at the #2 spot on all Delano’s KOM segments on strava. He has a massive motor on the flats and the team will be looking to him for a big performance in the TTT. Kevin enjoys soaking up the suffering during the rides and hanging on, hoping to be there at the sharp end on as many stages as possible.
Elboet has been busy preparing for the tour by doing lots of cross training. His time was split between the road bike, mountain bike, trail running and active recovery while rock climbing. Had a good december with TITS but struggled with time to get the longer rides in so the longer days are a little of an unknown. Looking forward to all the mountain passes with the team and refining the race strategy on the fly. His aim is to be the domestique superior and has a few demons to beat on the passes next week!
Calvin “Cool shades” Moore
After being the unlucky number 8 at the DC this year, Calvin has some suffering to dish out to his team mates. He did the Hunter Allen training program in the early season and then trains with the team to keep on the wheels for as long as possible. He has seen massive improvements from roughing it at the PPA rides in the E group to now hanging on for dear life in A. Looks forward to topping 700km in one week with a double century on the Sunday. In the tour looking to help out in the hilly days and the cool new shades at the end.
Nardus ” Ek Kramp” Matthysen
This man has been very busy and has been squeezing in his training during his rides to work and runs after work. Nardus a veteran of the DC team always can tap into some form when it is need the most, like in the last three sisters on the DC. His goal is to be the Riche Porte to our teams Chris Froome. Although I am not sure he knows that Richie now rides for BMC and not Sky, we hope that is the case otherwise we are in trouble. As all the other savages he looks forward to putting his legs in the pain cave for the week.
The team is amped for the Best Med Tour of Good Hope presented by ASG. We will hopefully have live tweeting and facebook updates on the day and maybe a write up here and there depending on how broken the guys are.
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A big thanks to all the photographers for the use of their amazing photos!! Please check out their sites on the watermarks, or contact us and we can put you in touch with them if you would like them to take some shots for you.
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Hammer!