Head 2 Head finally kicked off this week with a short 4.7km prologue in the USA after Alexander Lentolm had to retire due to growing family problems, leaving his girlfriend, the stunning but deadly Hayley Johansen to take his place, and become the only female competitor this season.

This week's Head 2 Head of the week saw the youngest cyclist in the competition, Reagan Seperawski face off against his senior by just two months, local prodigy Mitch Thompson. In the end the Kiwi-Pole missed out by mere hundredths of a second, leaving him in arguably the best position in either conference, attending the special loser's midweek training camp but not losing any time, as the tiebreaker is sorted by whole seconds.

In other H2Hs Sylvain Lipawsky got the result he was looking for by losing to Chris Robinson. He says he just wants to attend the training camp, and whilst that might be true you can't help but know he would have lost anyway. Oscar Erikson and Plusvite de la Lumiere triumphed over Lukas Wildauer and José Alberto Juárez respectively, and Shaquille Sinclair narrowly edged out Marco Balducci by a single second. Danny Robertson packed his bags to the training camp after losing by a fairly convincing 4 seconds to Tigran Davidyan. Christopher Jepernackey set the record time with a 5'09, with Erik Garner-Hammarling Jr. doing respectably four seconds off, thus setting the fourth best time. To round things off Hayley Johansen came close but left without a cigar against a flying Peter Pal.

Overall an entertaining start to the season, but early days so you're never quite sure who was putting themselves to the limit with the promise of a beneficial training camp if they lose.

Ollfardh wrote:
It might overlap with the overview for EPIC I do every now and then, but we'll see how it goes

Cycleman123 wrote:
Stat upgrades right here: +7 SP
+3 HIL

All hell has broken loose in the Cyclocross world today as riders were told merely hours after arriving in South Africa that the race was cancelled. This has sparked many conspiracy theories, but as of now it is a safety issue, though the workers and organisers on the SA end can confirm that it is fit to be raced on. Reactions have ranged from model professionalism from Francis Vague and his BKCP-Powerplus team, from quitting, most notably overall Trophy leader Elliot Cook and cult hero and fan favorite, Amadou Bakari. Meanwhile 4th placed Lachy Bauer has publicly condemned the UCI and is considering his options for the trophy.

For the riders still in South Africa training TMM Sports have organised a half hour special race on the course, which Coca-Cola are rumoured to be helping with, although publicly they are still very firm in their stance alongside the UCI.

Stay tuned with SGN for more news as this story unfolds.