Tag Archives: Team Topeak-Ergon

Journal

Prepping for the Cape Epic

[Jeremiah Bishop checks in as he and his Topeak-Ergon team prepare to embark upon the challenge of the 2015 ABSA Cape Epic: the 8-day mountain bike stage race across South Africa. These accounts will be featured with additional photos on DirtRagMag.com]

We are staying at a little gem of a place called the Ride Inn. We booked accommodations with kitchens, but the inn’s café is amazing; it has red bush tea, solid espresso and to-die-for baked goods.

Here at Topeak-Ergon Cape Epic headquarters, our pre-race preparations are coming along great, but the week started with a scare. A wildfire just hit the nearby mountain and many of the bike trails in the area. Our team almost had to evacuate yesterday.

On the drive in from the airport, I saw a line of fire on the mountain that looked like a giant “M” creeping across hillside. ‘Whoa! That’s is big!’ I’d heard there was a wildfire burning nearby, but I’d thought it was like a couple acres not a couple of thousand! Due to the smoke and ash carpeting the ground, I could tell it was close. I opted to stay down the hill at the accommodations that the team booked when David and Sally Bingham decide sleeping within sight of the fire-line was not safe.

Luckily, the fire is now under control thanks to the fire fighting helicopter pilots and ground crews that have been working for days.

Now, the mood is relaxing here at the Ride Inn. Once the ashes and burned areas are cleared, I’ll have to come back for the 3-hours plus of smooth fast singletrack. The dramatic backdrops of steep rocky mountains and promises of pay-to-play berms through dry brush and pine groves are tempting when rest is the goal. We did get out on a short ride at a nearby vineyard trail network of flowing hillside trails that weave through eucalyptus and vine stock. It made me think I need something like this in Virginia!

The scene here is part service course and part lounge as the riders do some light training. The mechanics Peter and Giovanni have been tuning the bikes and back-up bikes as well as the crucial six service boxes that riders can access during the stage race. During the race, no outside assistance is allowed; too many support vehicles on private property would be a problem. In fact, STRAVA downloading during the race is prohibited! Each of our service boxes has enough parts to build a frame into a full bike. There are even six seat post/saddle sets with each rider’s ride height marked on them. It’s a pretty pro operation, as you’d imagine.

11069295_1005348832827421_3936205271430268053_n

David and team manager Dirk have sorted out the RV’s. All three of them are primed, stocked and our team chef shows up tomorrow night. This is definitely not your normal race; this is the CAPE EPIC! Defending the title is the team’s goal, so it’s a big effort.

At the pre-event press conference all the heavy hitters sized each other up and made nervous jokes in front of the TV cameras. Will Kulhavey and Sauser bring the heat for Sauser’s last Cape Epic? The Bulls have two teams including 4-time Cape Epic winner and multi-time stage winner Karl Platt of Germany, and they are hungry for a win. Of course the Centurion Vaude team is very strong. Will Rudi van Houts and Jose Antonio Hermeda of the Multi Van Merida team go for GC or stick to their XC roots and just pick stages?

For now we rest prepare and hold the excitement for the Table Mountain Prologue. Anything can happen, so it’s best to be calm and ready when the gun goes off!

I’ll check in again after Stage 2.
Jeremiah Bishop

Journal

Back to Bike Racing!

This winter, I have been training like a blacksmith making armor for an epic battle looming on the horizon. So I was eager when it was finally time to travel to the first race in mid-February. I was headed for the Andalucía Bike Race in southern Spain.

With so many weeks spent training in winter’s cold, I decided I’d earned a couple of good sightseeing and time-zone-acclimating days in Europe in advance of the race. I made my way to Spain via Nicé, France, where I enjoyed a few days training with World Tour climbing ace and good friend Joe Dombrowski.

Right off my overnight trans-Atlantic flight, Joe took me out for a dream road ride. We nailed a five-hour route with 10,000 feet of elevation gain in 60 miles. It was like a pinball game made for road bikes. Every legendary climb in Cote d’Azur is marked with cycling signage; kilometer-to-go markers and numbered switchbacks line each ascent. When we descended, we were like darts. There were high-speed potentially deadly cliffs with 180-degree turns, spirals and tunnels. Wow! It was like riding down a gravity-fed paved roller coaster of serpentine switchbacks with the azure Mediterranean an incredible backdrop. At one point, the sheer vertical drops made me nauseous; or maybe that was the mere three hours of sleep I was living on.

After a couple days of getting on the time zone, I also had a chance to adjust to the food. Better than amazing, I feasted on mushroom tortellini, nice wine, and octopus ink pasta one night, and loup de mer (sea wolf) the next.

I had to wave farewell to Nicé; the real adventure was next. I joined my Topeak-Ergon team in Spain’s olive country between Cordoba and Jaen for our team orientation and the first race of the year.

There was a lot to learn – and quick!

I had a new Canyon Lux with custom RS1 and prototype tires. Yes! I was like, “Oh, yeah! I got a license to drop some trail!” The bike is sharp, smooth and looks mean! And then there was the fact that I was racing as part of a two-man team. Within the race, Topeak-Ergon divided our squad into two pairs: a lead team and the support team.

11001870_992696620759309_4703406359399166338_n
I have known our team captain and former World Marathon Champion Alban Lakata for years. He would join Kristian Hynek for our “A” team. In our support roles, my race partner Robert Mennen and I were sizing each other up. Last year, Robert won Cape Epic. Meanwhile, I was competing in the US cross country and endurance race scenes and had a couple US titles under my belt. It was like pairing a Formula 1 and NASCAR driver – in the best ways.

Coming into the Andalucía Bike Race, Robert was recovering from a recent a chest cold; and I was about to see where my fitness was. I’d been working hard in the off-season, but in the absence of racing it’s tough to know for sure. As we took on the ABR, we found that our pairing worked well. Robert liked to rip it on the downhills and flats, and I was stronger on the climbs.

The racecourse was harder than I thought it would be. The climbs were massive and there was slick mud over soupy limestone covered trails! During a couple stages I thought, “Am I out of shape or are we really climbing 10,000 feet on mountain bikes in just 3.5 hours?” (Leadville does this amount of elevation over 6.5 hours)

A large part of the first-race-of-the-year-shock was mostly the wake-up call that comes from facing a globally competitive field so early in the season. My form is there, and now the motor is warmed up. In fact, the race did get easier as it went on. In our support roll, we knew it was more about smooth consistent riding and getting in a solid ride.

In the first days of the stage race, I figured out the hard way that with six hundred riders fighting for the first trail made the racing much more like a cross-country race initially. I was focused on trying to find Robert in the sea of others. This approach had me back in the 50s and stuck in an epic traffic jam. There were a couple of crazy crashes on the fast road roll-outs; bodies flying, people dismounting to run over ditches and shouting back in the melee as riders took shortcuts. We could be shuffled from 17th to 47th in an instant on the double track.

After Stage 2, things became a lot smoother. Our reflexes sharpened, plus our endurance kicked in. Our team-based riding strategy fell into place. We got into the top-4, and then found life was easier.

The “Ah, ha!” moment happened during Stage 3. Instead of looking for my teammate during the hectic first minutes of the race, I decided I’d better just get my ass in position for the fight! Later in the stage, stage we chased down Team Bulls and out-kicked them to the line. Now it was evident we were riding as a team and having a great time. On the back-to-back monster climbs, our combined form was not as high as Kristian and Alban; but with a couple weeks of rest after ABR, I think I will be able to work some good tactics at the Cape Epic. Most importantly for a back up team, we will be there if trouble hits our leaders; lending a wheel or attending to chase-duty on the road sections.

The other thing special about a stage race is the amount of equipment and logistics involved. The next day’s preparations start the second you finish today’s stage. Proper recovery, fuel and rest are critical. Lucky for us, our soigneurs Torsten and Giovanni, mechanic Peter, and team manager Dirk were on point and on time – so well prepared, they seemed to have telepathy for our needs.

The whole goal for Andalucia Bike Race was learning the ropes of how to ride as a team and get settled in the groove with new gear and such. Now we have bonded over great racing and lots of good multi-cultural jokes spoken in three languages. This team rhythm will pay dividends in the most important mountain bike race stage race on earth: The Absa Cape Epic.

One thing is for sure: we have a big adventure coming and I am excited to be in attack mode to help Topeak-Ergon defend the win at the Cape Epic.

Africa, here I come!

Uncategorized

Jeremiah Bishop Signs with Topeak-Ergon

Signing American endurance specialist, Jeremiah Bishop, Topeak-Ergon Racing Team sets its sights on dominance in endurance mountain bike events around the world.

Topeak-Ergon Racing Team is ambitiously launching into the 2015 endurance mountain bike season. With the addition of Jeremiah Bishop, the German-based team has committed one of the top athletes in the American endurance scene. Bishop will vie for the title of USA National Marathon Champion, as well as top results at stage races and ultra-endurance events around the world.

Jeremiah Bishop joins Alban Lakata (AUT), Kristian Hynek (CZE), Robert Mennen (GER), and Sally Bigham (UK), to form the perfect line-up for 2015 and become a threat to take podium spots at all the important mountain bike events. For Jeremiah this presents the opportunity to participate in major events outside the United States.

“This is a very exciting step for me,” says the reigning overall winner of the American National Ultra Endurance Series. “Now I can ride at the toughest races all over the world and will be assisted by an incredibly professional team with the best partner materials and amazing bikes from Canyon. I’m really looking forward to this new challenge!”

Team manager Dirk Juckwer is also very enthusiastic. “Finally we have the opportunity to start with two strong male teams at all the big stage races. This allows us much more room for tactical and technical racing.” The importance of this was significantly shown at the Cape Epic victory of Robert and Kristian last year.

Bishop’s first official participation with the team will be at the Andalucia Bike Race from February 22-27 in Spain. This six-day stage race around Cordoba is considered as the perfect preparation for the Absa Cape Epic, which takes place just a month later in South Africa and in which the team will compete. After the early season racing campaign across the Atlantic, Bishop will return to the USA to focus on events in the National Ultra Endurance Series, the Breck-Epic, and other popular endurance events with Topeak-Ergon USA teammates Dave Wiens, Yuki Ikeda, and Jeff Kerkove. Bishop will return to Europe to compete in the TransAlp stage race.

4962

To follow Bishop’s racing season as it unfolds, “Like” TEAM TOPEAK-ERGON on Facebook and follow @ErgonBike on Twitter.