As you might have read (if you didn’t, read it here), we managed to secure an absolutely brilliant title sponsorship from Nedbank for Gravel Burn.
I am very grateful to Nedbank for sharing our vision which, in turn, allows me and my colleagues to travel this journey doing something that we love. I can’t emphasise enough how this partnership affects our daily approach to our work to build the Gravel Burn – which is now officially the Nedbank Gravel Burn.
When we – a couple of the key members of the Nedbank Gravel Burn team and I – began building the Cape Epic more than 20 years ago we had to approach it incrementally. In other words, we could add an element in the first year, another the next and so forth, as we imagined, and then found the revenue to cover the new and additional race features. It took us, for example, 7 years before we had the sponsorship revenues to even contemplate a few days of live TV broadcast.
Nedbank’s remarkable commitment has allowed us to work towards presenting as complete a package as possible from day one. This will allow us to offer a highly comprehensive rider experience, significant media production, corporate social investment initiatives and, as we announced some time back, a record prize purse for a gravel event. Our approach has been to plough riders’ entry fees right back into the rider experience, so this sponsorship gives us the capacity to add these elements and hopefully present an event that has all the elements of a ‘mature’ race.
Thank you to Nedbank for allowing me and my team to do what we love.
We really do believe this is going to be a fantastic experience for all – from participants to team members to volunteers to staff and, not least, the farmers and landowners along the route who have generously given us access to their property.
Nedbank CEO Jason Quinn announced the sponsorship at a cocktail function which he hosted at Nedbank’s Sandton Head Office on February 11, and we cannot thank him enough for his commitment and vision to creating what we think will be South Africa’s next big event on the global cycling calendar.
As part of the deal, Nedbank will host two full Lapas – small, intimate camp circles (referring to a traditional Southern African shelter) housing 20 riders each – in our daily Burn Camps for clients and staff that are very enthusiastic to participate in the very first Nedbank Gravel Burn. As I’ve said many times – you only have one opportunity, a chance in a lifetime, to participate as a rider in the inaugural race.
