April Fools’ day is even more uncomfortable when you awake on 1 April and realise you missed the entry deadline for the country’s top ranked road cycling event, the MTN Panorama Tour.
Monday, March 31 is the final day to enter prestigious four-day road stage race that topped the 2007 Bicycling magazine ‘Rate Your Race’ rankings for road cycling events. The 2008 edition of the event, which caters predominantly for recreational and veteran cyclists, promises to offer an even better experience for participants with the backing of the new title sponsor, MTN.
No longer satisfied with only tackling the country’s staple diet of well-known one-day races year after year, cyclists are finding stage races increasingly attractive, particularly events like the MTN Panorama Tour, which is the country’s only road stage race of its kind.
Participants compete in two-rider teams, a format that offers increased safety as well as a sense of camaraderie that’s not found in any other road cycling event. ‘Suffer together, celebrate together’ is the underlying theme throughout the event.
The MTN Panorama Tour scored 86% on the 2007 Bicycling magazine race rankings, up slightly from the 85% in 2006, the race’s inaugural year where it made a surprise debut on the rankings at No. 2.
The event, which takes place from Saturday 26 to Tuesday 29 April (Monday 28 is a public holiday), is based in the picturesque Mpumalanga town of White River, with the stages all starting and finishing at the Casterbridge shopping and entertainment centre.
This gives participants all the benefits of completing a challenging stage race without the hassle of having to pack up and move on to a new town each day.
The stages are designed to be tough enough for a relatively fit cyclist to complete and, with a generous eight-hour time daily time limit, even the least competitive cyclists will be able to tackle the event with confidence.
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