On March 28, 2008, Anka Martin and Megan Hilliard will be pushing off for the start of an insane MTB race, the Absa Cape Epic. Read on to meet the team, and don’t forget to check out their pre-race photos in the GLTR Gallery!

The magical and untamed African MTB stage race will start in Knysna, South Africa, on the 28th of March and will finish 9 days and 966km later in Somerset West on the 5th of April.

There are 1200 riders that will be participating in teams of 2, and you have to stay within two minutes of each other at all times. We will be doing 18529m of climbing — that is more elevation gain than climbing to the top of Mt. Everest not once, but TWICE!

Anka Martin, a professional downhill MTB racer (Fluidride) and Megan Hilliard will be partnering up to tackle this epic adventure on their Iron Horse bicycles as Team Iron Horse Maidens.

With Megan living in sunny SoCal and Anka in Bend, OR, we had a few training camps together, but most of the training these past six months was done solo, as no one wanted to ride for as long as we had to go and ride for. Our iPods became our new best friends.

Anka escaped the snowy winter of Oregon and has been in South Africa (her homeland) for the past month, getting some sunny (scorching) riding in under her belt and spending some time with her family.

With a few days to the start, the training is starting to taper down a bit and our lives will be back to semi-normal in no time at all. Doing a race like this is pretty demanding: working full time, putting in between 3-5 hours of training a day, and still having a somewhat normal life at home with our husbands.

We would like to thank all of our sponsors for helping us to get to the start of the Absa Cape Epic.

Lots of Love,
Anka & Megan

XXX