Laura Stigger during the Absa Cape Epic mountain bike race in the Western Cape, South Africa.
© Craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool
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Laura Stigger shines in South Africa at the Absa Cape Epic MTB race

Laura Stigger won the eight-day African mountain bike stage race in South Africa with team-mate Sina Frei. Here's what it took to conquer 'The Race That Measures All'.
Written by Jazz Kuschke
3 min readPublished on

Part of this story

Laura Stigger

A multi-discipline world champion in her junior days with a trophy cabinet full of titles, Austrian rider Laura Stigger is now pushing hard at the front of the Elite field.

AustriaAustria

Laura Stigger – All In

After several Junior XCO titles, Laura Stigger finished her first elite race on the podium in 2020.

16 min
The Absa Cape Epic is considered one of the toughest mountain bike races in the world. Raced over a short prologue and seven stages of distances from 75-100 kilometres, many regard the Absa Cape Epic as the Tour de France of cross-country mountain biking and as such it attracts some of the top World Cup pros. This isn't an individual race though. It's a two-person competition and those two rider teams have to stay together for the duration of the race.
On October 24, Laura Stigger of Austria and Sina Frei of Switzerland (Team NinetyOne-songo-Specialized) won the overall title when stage seven finished at Val de Vie, South Africa. Stigger and Frei had led the gruelling race from start to finish and in total this year's Absa Cape Epic took in 620km of riding (including 15,350m of climbing).
Laura Stigger and Sina Frei as seen at the end of the 2021 Absa Cape Epic in South Africa.

Laura Stigger and Sina Frei on the ‘Champs-Élysées of mountain biking'

© Craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool

Stigger and Frei enjoyed a flawless 2021 Cape Epic, barely putting a foot or pedal stroke wrong all week. They were powerful on the climbs and poetry in motion on the descents. We caught up with Stigger after the event to see how Absa Cape Epic was for her:

This is your first ever stage race of this nature. What has the race taught you?

Laura Stigger: Yes, it was eight days of really fast racing. You can never give up, because so much can happen. Sina and I have grown so much and have a very strong friendship now. It's an amazing event and it was also really inspirational to see how hard the people [our team] are working behind us, so that we can just race and have nothing else on our minds.

Sina Frei and Laura Stigger in action during the 2021 Absa Cape Epic.

Working in tandem for the common goal

© Craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool

Before the race, the team mechanics gave you some maintenance training. Did they teach you anything that you didn't know before?

Laura Stigger: Yes, it was definitely helpful. Especially when you're in the race, under pressure and you have to fix something on time when we want to be as fast as possible. We had to fix the chain, derailleur and tube and it was very helpful.

How important is a good partner in a race like this?

Laura Stigger: I was really lucky to partner up with Sina. She was amazing and patient, especially when I lost my contact lens. We helped each other and we gelled very well as a team. Although she may be stronger than me, she stayed calm and let me go at my pace and my rhythm to finish as fast as we could.

Laura Stigger and Sina Frei pose for celebratory photos at the end of the 2021 Absa Cape Epic.

Winners are grinners

© Craig Kolesky / Red Bull Content Pool

Tell us a bit about how important the people behind the scenes are in a race like this?

Laura Stigger: It's unbelievable what the team behind us were doing for us, preparing our bikes and kit. The bikes were always in top shape. The media is really important too and it was just so amazing to see everyone involved in this. It makes it much more fun when everyone else is having fun.

16 min

Laura Stigger – All In

After several Junior XCO titles, Laura Stigger finished her first elite race on the podium in 2020.

English +2

Laura Stigger

If you come back again to race it, what would you do differently?

Laura Stigger: It couldn't have been better to end the season like this. We had an amazing eight days. I wouldn't change anything.

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Part of this story

Laura Stigger

A multi-discipline world champion in her junior days with a trophy cabinet full of titles, Austrian rider Laura Stigger is now pushing hard at the front of the Elite field.

AustriaAustria

Laura Stigger – All In

After several Junior XCO titles, Laura Stigger finished her first elite race on the podium in 2020.

16 min
Bike
MTB