‘Mr Cycle Tour’ prays it won't end in tears ... again

David Bellairs is relentlessly cheerful, but two years ago this weekend he was in tears.

The event organiser whose name is synonymous with the Cape Town Cycle Tour had just had to call off the 2017 event, with 35,000 cyclists standing on the start line.

The wind at the start line was blowing at 100km/h and the chief commissaire of the race called Bellairs to say conditions were dangerous, even for the most skilled riders.

“I’m not an overly emotional person, and that day was the only time in my 20 years with the cycle tour that I cried,” Bellairs, 56, said this week.

So far, it looks like Sunday’s event will not provide a repeat performance. Depending on which weather forecast you look at, the south-easter will range from a “strong breeze” to 51km/h.

But Bellairs knows it’s the gusts that could seal the event’s fate. If they become dangerous on Chapman’s Peak Drive, for example, cyclists may be stopped from embarking on the cliffside climb.

The memory of 2017 was never far from Bellairs’ thoughts this week as his team put the finishing touches to the 41st edition (42nd if the aborted event is included) of the world’s largest mass-participation cycling event.

“The predictions leading into the race indicated that the wind would be no stronger than it was in the infamously windy years of 2009 and 2010,” he said.

“With the wind speeds as they were, disaster management officials wanted to avoid 35,000 people gathering near the start, so delaying the start further was not an option.

“There were buildings with construction scaffolding on them around the start and it was a potentially hazardous situation. We also could not send people to the finish venue as the wind speeds made the marquee tents unsafe too, so we had to evacuate the caterers and support services personnel from there.

“The police chief makes the final decision regarding safety on the day, but we went around the table to all the key stakeholders and unanimously agreed it was unsafe to continue.

“After the decision was made I was relieved, but also very emotional. I know so many riders save for years to make the trip to Cape Town for the cycle tour. But it was the right decision.

“Seeing the video of one particularly recognisable rider leopard-crawling to the side of the road and being helped in behind a concrete pillar, to hide from the wind, showcased just how difficult the conditions were. If mountain bike world champion Nino Schurter could not ride in that wind it was not safe for anyone.”

It was far from the first massive problem Bellairs has faced. In 2015, for example, the 109km event was shortened to 47km as fire raged on the Cape peninsula.

“On the Wednesday before the race, disaster management told us the Cycle Tour would not be able to proceed,” Bellairs said.

“But with registration opening the next day, I knew most of our international riders would already be in South African and many riders travelling from upcountry would already be on the road to Cape Town. We could not disappoint them by cancelling.

“It became a solidarity ride. In fact, we had one of our best ever turn-outs, in terms of entries to riders taking part.”

In 2018, the prospect of Day Zero threatened the event, and it was decided to take it “off the grid”.

Bellairs said: “We used no municipal water for the water points and made plans to put water back into the system to cater for the influx of visitors to the city.”

Farmers in the Elgin Valley transferred nearly two million litres of water into the upper Steenbras Dam and Swellendam Municipality trucked water to Cape Town.”

The tour, which is estimated to have injected R500m into the Western Cape economy last year, was known for many years as the Cape Argus Cycle Tour, and is still widely referred to as “the Argus”. But the daily newspaper is no longer involved in the event.