2025 Cape Epic race recap – a race for the GOATs
The Cape Epic defended its reputation as the most testing mountain bike stage race, with a brutal 2025 edition.
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The biggest mountain bike stage race on earth – the Absa Cape Epic, kicks off on 16 March. Here’s everything you need to know to follow the adventure.
A selection of tech from day one of the toughest mountain bike stage race on Earth.
Five-time Cape Epic finisher, Reuben van Niekerk, is attempting to secure his sixth finisher’s medal this year.
We take a look at Lukas Baums 2025 Cape Epic race machine.
[Photography by Nick Muzik]
Weather was the defining feature at the 2025 Absa Cape Epic. Although the event is scheduled for early autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, riders suffered through one of the hottest riding days on record during stage 3, forcing a stage cancellation and ending many Cape Epic amateur ambitions. Extreme heat and dusty trails were followed by a wetter weather shift toward the final stages, turning some trails into a quagmire for riders.
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But what really happened with the pro teams? And does the event require a rethink regarding its open entry policy, with amateur riders not requiring pre-qualifying criteria?
The GOATs weren’t kidding around
When the timesheets were finalised after the mud-shortened stage 7 finish in Lourensford, Nino Schurter and Filippo Colombo (SCOTT-SRAM) became outright winners of the 2025 Cape Epic. Unquestionably the greatest cross-country mountain biker ever, Schurter added a third Cape Epic win to his amazing palmares.
2025 capie epic nino.jpg, by Liam Mercer
The feature of SCOTT-SRAM’s overall win was not so much Schurter's performance but rather Colombo's. In years past, Schurter had often ‘expired’ teammates a few stages into the Cape Epic, with other riders unable to match his power, fitness and endurance. In Colombo, SCOTT-SRAM had a rider who could match Schurter as required.
The overall general classification (GC) racing was tremendous, with less than a minute between the leaders and second place, as the teams rolled into the penultimate and final stages. SCOTT-SRAM’s final margin of victory was only 01:32, with Wilier-Vittoria’s Luca Braidot and Simone Avondetto chasing hard all week. Rounding the Cape Epic CG podium was a local team, Marco Joubert and Tristan Nortje of Imbuko ChemChamp, who were 12:58 off the.
Annika Langvad and Sofia Gomez Villafane (Toyota | Specialized) were matchless in the women's race. Langvad now has six Cape Epic winner’s medals, and this was her finest performance, supporting the Danish rider’s reputation as an all-time XC racing GOAT.
Whereas the winning margin in the men’s race was less than two minutes after seven stages (and a Prologue), Langvad and Gomez Villafane were never troubled by other teams, winning by a margin of more than 20 minutes. What makes that win remarkable is that Langvad had a baby six months ago and somehow balanced new motherhood with a punishing Cape Epic training schedule.
What happened to the race favourites?
Each Cape Epic has its own insider narrative and daily dramas around weather, trail conditions, unrideably steep and rocky climbs, and the humanity of amateur riders desperately trying to get-in before cut-off times.
2025 cape epic 1.jpg, by Liam Mercer
Schurter is a favourite in any race he enters, but he did not arrive at the 2025 Cape Epic unchallenged. During the last few years, Schurter had ruined teammates with his pace and suffered a vulnerability for punctures. His habit of running ultralight tyres for the benefit of lowered rotational mass has lost the Swiss mountain biking legend valuable time on stages with the notorious Cape Epic devil thorns or sharp rocks.
A defending champion is always a favourite. Especially when the lead rider is a local. South Africa’s Matt Beers was expected to add a fourth Cape Epic legitimately, but he would eventually finish a lowly tenth, more than an hour off the winners. Unable to secure a Specialised teammate for the event, Beers paired with American gravel bike specialist and former Outbound Gravel 200 winner, Keegan Swenson.
The Outride | Toyota | Songo team of Beers and Swenson were an unusual combination but promised much. They were legitimately considered probable winners, but from the prologue, it was clear that Swenson was struggling. The American rider’s misfortune compounded with each stage. Swenson was unable to hold his South African teammate’s rear wheel on the steep, demanding climbs, which defined the margin of victory for pro teams at any Cape Epic.
2025 capie epic 3.jpg, by Liam Mercer
During the event’s extreme stage 3 around Paarl, Swenson was struggling with lower back issues, too. Beers was evidently frustrated, but Swenson’s dramatic underperformance at the event remains a mystery. It’s even more mysterious because Swenson’s partner, Gomez Villafane, was part of the utterly dominant winning women’s team.
Swenson had spent a two-week training block in Argentina with Gomez Villafane, only weeks before the event, yet their performances were wildly divergent.
The other team that underperformed expectations was ORBEA Leatt Speed Company’s Lukas Baum and Georg Egger. Famous in Cape Epic folklore for their dramatic final stage GC win 2022, Baum and Egger are high-risk riders and unquestionable fan favourites. During the 2025 event, they were unable to execute any of their audacious attacks and finished fifth overall.
Nino Schurter’s third win was a wonderful moment for a rider who has made South Africa his off-season training and lifestyle base. Annika Langvad’s achievement was incredible for the mom of a six-month-old.
Wild weather and stage changes
The Queen’s stage did not define the 2025 Cape Epic. It was supposed to be stage 5, the transfer from Fairview (Paarl) to Lourensford (Somerset-West). At 98km with a climbing profile of 2850m, stage 5 was an anxiety trigger for all riders, especially the amateurs, leading up to the event.
Stage 3, a loop around Paarl’s iconic granite rock mountain, was a nightmare for all – and the defining day of the 2025 Cape Epic. Weather predictions for stage 3 were severe, and the heat developed into something much worse than could have been imagined for the amateur field. Organisers had shorted stage 3 from 90- to 78km, but nothing could influence the inevitability of extreme Western Cape weather.
2025 cape epic 4.jpg, by Liam Mercer
The stage featured singletrack and brutal, punchy climbs, which meant that riders with some technical ability spent way too much time waiting, as unskilled riders dismounted and walked, blocking the trail. This meant riders with the singletrack skills to be pedalling, were forced to be out on the route for much longer, standing around, increasing the heat exposure. And the heat soak was terrifying.
By lunchtime, temperatures on parts of the stage 3 route touched or exceeded 40-degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). With no wind and amateur riders underhydrated, race organisers decided to cancel the stage. Some amateurs had head units registering 50 degrees (122 Fahrenheit), with northern hemisphere riders, coming off a deep winter pre-event training block, at significant risk for heat stroke.
Riders who had made it to the 66km mark on stage 3 by 14:36, when organisers halted the event, were allowed to continue and classify for stage 4. However, heat fatigue damage had been done to many in the amateur field.
Ironically, conditions would cool after stage 3, with light rain accompanying the Cape Epic field for stages 4, 5, 6 and 7. This created some route issues, as the powdery dry trails, baked throughout a long South African summer, couldn’t absorb the sudden onset of moisture. Some of the event’s best singletrack trails developed into a consistency akin to peanut butter, caking the skid depth of XC tyres and rendering them without traction.
The final stage was shortened from 60km and 2100m to 40km and 1050m, with much of the iconic singletrack trails in lower slopes and valleys around Lourensford becoming unrideable after the rain. Instead of destroying these trails, organisers made a sensible decision to shorten route sections most vulnerable to poor drainage.
Does the Epic need a qualifying system?
Cape Epic organisers cannot influence weather. They can only respond to it.
There’s a narrative that additional water points should have been added to aid amateurs on stage 3, knowing that temperatures were going to be extreme. However, perhaps the most telling issue is that some amateur riders spend too much time waiting for less skilled riders to walk seemingly simple trail features. This created singletrack traffic hold-ups that kept many riders out on stage for too long – waiting, walking, and pushing bikes, instead of riding.
The Cape Epic has always marketed itself as the untamed extreme mountain bike race, where pros and amateurs ride the same route, revealing the excellence and humble human suffering of mountain biking. Some questions must be asked about pre-qualifying criteria for amateur riders. For an event that has become highly professionalised, it's curious that anyone can purchase an entry and arrive without pre-qualifying.
There are just too many hold-ups towards the back of the field, with riders walking innocuous trail features. This stalls the momentum and rhythm of others in the amateur field, who should have the right to deploy their technical riding skills and keep rolling along, instead of being dismounted and walking on awkward off-terrain, in carbon-soled shoes.
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