Father and son team from Quebec City taking on South Africa’s Cape Epic
Simon Mercier, 51, and his son Arnaud, 20—both from Quebec City—are competing in the 2016 Absa Cape Epic mountain bike stage race in South Africa. They discuss how they got into the race, their training and how they work together throughout the long stages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83JPbs_XYx4?rel=0&autoplay=1
At the end of Stage 4 of the 13th Absa Cape Epic, a mountain bike stage race currently running in South Africa, a pair of riders from Quebec City are sitting 197th in the GC and 111th in the men’s category. They’ve been moving up in the standings and have three more stages to go.
I caught up Simon Mercier, 51, and his son Arnaud, 20, after the second stage of the event. They told their story of how they got to this stage race roughly 12,800 km from home.
Getting into Cape Epic was a challenge. Simon, a surgeon, was actually in the operating theatre when registration opened. “It was the anesthesiologist who pushed the button. And he said, ‘Nope. It’s no good. It’s all booked,'” Simon said. Meanwhile Arnaud was also trying his luck during his night-school math class, but he had no luck. Then they entered the lottery for a place in the race. They waited roughly three months, when Arnaud, a former national-level swimmer, was finally picked. Then training began.
“Of course, we had to deal with the time frame, with winter, that interrupts your outdoor training,” Simon said.
“It was hard to keep the motivation to train on our home trainers down in Canada,” added Arnaud. “But we had a training program with video, so we looked at the video. I also got the chance to go to Hawaii for one month to train in the heat and do outdoor cycling.”
The pair seem to be working well together. “Arnaud is mainly in front,” said Simon. “He’s a quicker starter than me in the morning, probably because of our age difference, which is 31 years. So, we talk. And we adjust. And we see while the stage goes on, where we are and what we can do.”
“Sometimes, during a six-hour race, he’s stronger,” Arnaud said of his father. “Sometimes I’m stronger. We always try to find a middle where the both of us are comfortable.”
