The Eskay Cycling Herald: Kry Jou Gat in Rat!

It’s the age of catchy phrases, sexy symbols, Google analytics, and MTB race names that rhyme. There are some fundamental guidelines you should follow when planning your own mountain bike (or any cycling) race.

Here is a fool’s guide on how to organise your own cycling race from a marketing and branding perspective:

Approach a newspaper as a sponsor. They love having races named after them. Granted, the big ones are already taken – Cape Argus (both road and MTB); Die Burger (same story)…the Herald out in PE even sponsors a race (I think it might be the only formal race out there in the Eastern Cape – that and a trek through an elephant park apparently). So, now you’re relegated to the lower tiers of newspaper hierarchy for sponsorship. Never fear – I personally think “Die Son” would be a good sponsor. And they love a racy headline so the naming of the race would be a blast. In the age of public participation and transparency (refer to Twitter, Facebook and all other social media platforms where everyone has a say) I would stick to a more traditional approach and go for the “face-to-face” interview methodology when asking the public to name a new cycle race. I’d go to Newlands after the Stormers had beaten the Bulls (because they can’t beat the Sharks) and ask some of our Cape Flats ambassadors for a few cycle race naming suggestions. I'm anticipating some of the following brainstorming threads to be amongst the leaders:

One that’s bound to surface is the age old:

Or the politically correct variant

But it needs to rhyme or roll off the tongue. So let’s take Jy moet Ry for example. This falls in line with the current crop of alliterative names like Ride the Rock, Gravel Travel, Berg and Bush, and Grape Escape. If we had to choose another popular format, we would need to throw a number 2 in the middle. And no, I'm not talking toilet humour here – consider the following races that are joined by the number 2: Wine2Whales; Karoo2Coast; Mast2Mast; Sani2C; Nine2Five; Moon2Noon….enough already. I think we get the point that “2” symbolises the process of using your bicycle to get from one point to another.

In our race, and in keeping with the Cape local theme we have been tasked to by our sponsor (Die Son), we would probably need to opt for “Gat in Rat” or something (how we would explain to The Oracle its pronounced Gggggghhut in Rut, I don’t know…). So we have a sponsor and a name. Our print brochure (that we would shove under your windscreen along with 11 other race brochures when you’re parked at a race) would read “come and ride Die Son’s Gat in Rat Race”. I can already see that the Southern Suburbs riders will abbreviate it to Die Son’s Rat Race – because Gat in Rat (Afr) is simply not a cool race to ride in! Way too much throat clearing required for that pronunciation.

A possible poster for the new cycle race around the Cape

Right – we have a name. We have a sponsor. Now we need prizes – because there’s always someone left in the beer tent at 14:00 on a Saturday afternoon (remembering that 85% of the field were finished by noon….). Obviously we will have scantily clad Cape Spanish matric girls handing out Die Son newspaper. Pang of guilt? Apartheid is over my fine Afrikaans friends – you're allowed to look now! (Although I think a bit more than just looking happened in the dark old days…but let’s not take that treacherous piece of morally dangerous singletrack…back to planning the event) I'm almost certain Spur will come to the party with a tent. It’s not like any of the brewery groups are not going to erect a tent and sell beer after a race…we’ll just have to accept that either SAB or Brandhouse products will be sold. NEVER both at the same event. Ever. Grand prize? Year's free subscription to Die Son; and exclusive interview (with a promise not to dig up too many family secrets to make the article more spicy); and a Raleigh bike from Macro valued at R899. Hey - times are tough.

Wow. So we are nearly there! But where should we ride? Oh yes – the intellectual negotiation property of any race organiser is the ability to have a group of farmers who will “only open their farm for that specific day” of the race. But we already have Boschendal, Lourensford and many others out of the equation as they are part of another robust inner circle. Besides – who wants to ride the same route as another race? I'm thinking that our sponsor might be inclined to push the route through a slightly more dangerous type of terrain that speaks to its readership: the ganglands of the Cape Flats. And it’s not all flat. Apparently there’s a Lavender Hill to get through. Here our race organiser will negotiate a truce between various warring gang factions so that no stray bullets take out any riders. The singletrack might not be great – but you would need to traverse the temptations of the odd brothel and crack house…hey, you might never come out after a trip like that! We could start at the Pollsmoor sportsfields – that way the Southern Suburbs riders could come and support The Rat Race en masse! Just say parking is near Tokai and they’ll be there! And I’ll bet the parking is a lot safer inside the walls of Pollsmoor than at other races. How many other races have security breaches? Here we at least know most of the skabengas might be close – but they’re behind bars. But hey – keep a pack of smokes on you just in case….you never know.

Patricia De Lille will definitely start the race. Helen Zille will also be there because the two of them do such a great job of creating a united front. Hell, let’s get them on a MTB tandem together! That will help with sponsor articles leading up to the big day. We can say they put the “ill” into “hill” or something (“De Lille” and “Zille”: revert back to the top section for the whole naming and rhyming methodology needed).