2010 World Champion Tracy Moseley has got involved with the almighty off road slog that is the Cape Epic Challenge in South Africa.

Basically Tracy has teamed up with top South African downhiller Anka Martin and together will race 707km over 8 daysacross South Africa’s Western Cape in searing temperatures to raise money for World Bicycle Relief.

Will hopefully be bringing you regular updates from the dynamic duo, it looks like they’ve got off to a steady start and are currently 17th out of 19 on stage 2.

You can view live updates at http://live.cape-epic.com

Here’s the first update from Tracy.

The Cape Epic finally began on Sunday. I was actually really happy just to get started after so many months of talking about it and to get to the startline feeling fit and healthy was a good place to begin ! The prologue was a really nice warm up at just 27km in the Tokai forest just outside Cape Town. It was a pretty fun lap with some good singletrack where me and Anka were able to make some time up on, just to get passed on the climbs by all the roadies on mountain bikes !!

We then drove about 1.5 hours to the campsite for the first stage in Tulbagh. It was the first night in the tented village and it was pretty fun to finally be part of this famous bike race. Stage 1 was 89km with some pretty steep long climbs and so much dust it was so sketchy to follow people. The route was tough, but just so beautiful with amazing views around the valley. Anka and I completed the stage in 6hr45min, well inside the 9hr cut off, so it was a good start to the week ! For me the temperature was the hardest thing, the last 2 hrs were around 39 degrees so I was cooking !!

Today its a slight longer stage 104km, will be back later with a quick update and some pics along the way !!