Photos were taken by Gary Perkin and more are avalible on his site www.flipper.co.za

Knysna-George
123km, 3091m of climbing, 4.39hrs
First Place, 22sec ahead of Bulls. First Overall

Burry Stander and Chrsitoph Sauser will be racing with pride in their yellow jerseys tomorrow after a fantastically flawless stage win today!

Following a solid prologue, where Burry and Christoph finished fourth overall, today was the first major test of the 2008 Cape Epic and what a test it was!! The main contenders were in the mix, but only in the very early stages, due to team MTN’s continuing pressing the pace at the front. Some major names dropped leaving The Bulls, Songo.info, MTN/Raleigh and Cannondale in the mix at the 77km mark. At such an early stage so many riders were taking strain. By the 100km Burry and Christoph were to be found almost 2 minutes up on The Bulls and a further 5 minutes on Cannondale. The first statement was made, with Christoph and Burry showing that they were a major force on the first day of racing.

Christoph Sauser: “When we broke away we just wanted to ride steady. We did not go for it. We decided not to burn ourselves. After 30 minutes alone we realised that our steady was causing problems, so then the pedal was pushed a little harder!”

Burry Stander: “todays first stage over 123km was probably the best race ive ever riddin.at first the tempo was realy hot and over night leaders mtn were ripping up the climbs.at first i felt alittle uncompfortable on the bike but as we neared the 70km mark i felt like the legs were coming around”

Team Manager’s Report- Bobby Behan

After the luxury of staying in Knysna for three nights ahead of The Epic, including a night after the prologue, we have moved to the area of George, where our riders stay in the camper van and everybody else has the privilege of camping! I on the other hand have managed a B&B option. The cobwebs of Guinness and a late night with the girls and Charles (Burry’s dad) eroded and two days later and we are thinking very clearly.

I was so proud of the lads today. I drove to both feed points with Miss Poland Kasia and beautiful Ruth, who are both part of the Songo project, while the mechanics and Claire drove directly to the finish. I have only got to know the gent and huge talent that is Burry, but Susi is a rider I know very well. By simply looking at them and especially Susi, following the first feed I was confident. But anything can happen in The Epic. When the lads hit the asphalt at feed two I was delighted to find them stamping their authority of the race. But it is still early days in the Epic, with lots of racing to come!

Youtube clip will be up in the next hour or so…

For the full results, go here 

Please get involved and buy a kilometer for the songo.info bmx charity project!  Bye your kilometer or make a donation HERE

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under categories: ABSA Cape Epic, BMX tracks in South Africa, Burry Stander, Christoph Sauser, JAG Foundation, Kayamandi, South African Charity, buy kilometers, songo.info and tags: , bmx project in kayamandi, Burry Stander, cape epic, Christoph Sauser, JAG Foundation, songo.info, south african charity project, stage win. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.