The Ouzo

1) I can totally relate, when the adrenalin is going I too sometimes do silly things. Slapping mirrors closed is a favourite of mine. I think something that has saved me more times than it should has been not been able to catch the car in that moment. Once the adrenalin wears off you kind of come to your senses and realise how stupid that would have been. 2) I would think assault would be a more serious crime than damage to property. Cops were as usual just being full of excrement. 3) The stories i've hear about Uber, they are not doing themselves any favours.

I find very second or third garmin update breaks livetracking. My normal routine is to turn on the garmin, open the connect app, make sure the device and phone are connected and that a synch has taken place. 99% of the time this routine ensures that it works, but every so often it decides to not work.

its interesting as a greek too

I ride just about exclusively alone. I know the risks, try and avoid hotspots and try and time my rides when there is less traffic. My wife gets an email everytime I start my garmin (when the damned feature works) and she can track me on my rides. But if I'm mugged and my cell taken then that feature is useless. I mostly ride the same routes and take roughly the same time, so she know where to find me. I have come to terms with the risks, made myself believe that I take the precautions needed to be as safe as possible, and made myself believe that when my time comes, I could just as easily be walking down the road or driving in the car. Like the others above, I prefer to be in my own head and not have to deal with group chit chat / politics / egos.

share some of this info here. It may just be interesting

awesome. well done

Just a quick loop around the airport

Scratching (sounds better than quitting) when your body is giving you all the signals that you should takes more will power and integrity than pushing through and very possibly causing permanent damage to your body (and possibly still not finishing). I am the same as you, I hate not finishing something I've started, but you can be proud of what you achieved. Its just that on the day, under those conditions, your body decided its enough. I look forward to your race report and to following your dot again next year.

how does that work ? Cut off has moved past him. He hasnt moved since around 12:39

not sure if gemmerbal is going to keep ahead of the cut off. Looks like he is suffering judging by his stoppages etc.

gemmerball's tracker has not updated since 6:12. Hopefully just a slow update.

@gemmerbal's position has not updated for 2 hours. Shows 1km from WP3. Hopefully just a glitch with the tracking.

not to get into a pi$$ing contest, but I would also imagine that 16km/h figure doesnt take into account a head wind. But good point on trying to hold a line, although even just to the side of the rider ahead offers a drafting advantage,

that is an astonishing pace to keep for so long.

and there is the phycological advantage of riding with others that also helps to keep the pace up. Respect to her.

@gemmerbal is about 21km from WP3

100% Just thought it might be an explanation for her big lead. I dont have the balls to line up for this event, let alone have the legs to draft anyone for so long, so huge praise to her.

cant see from the tracking, could she perhaps be drafting some of the men ?

komoot, strava and garmin connect can all create routes based on the most popular used routes. I'm not aware if any of them are able to give your turn by turn navigation from their phone apps, but they do allow for GPX export to load the route onto your cycling computer/device (provided you own one that will do turn by turn navigation)

As a photographer that has dealt with mass quantity pics and quick turn around time, you need to keep any edits to a absolute minimum. This means basic straightening of the image, possibly some slight exposure corrections and thats about it. There is no time for anything else, shoot jpg and get the stuff out. As for composition etc., someone raised a good point earlier, not very easy when you're shooting 1000s of riders coming past, but I'll add another dimension to this and that is experience. In order to keep internal costs down they most likely use students or inexperienced photographers for these events.

Was wondering how long it would take them, just received an email, entries for 2024 have now opened with early bird pricing.

you okes down there fire cannons every day, now you're worried about an itsy bitsy little bullet.

a couple of well positioned snipers is what is needed.

yep, the same guys I tried to stick with right in the beginning. They left me for dead. But him, I and another Club 100 rider rode together until Kyalami, I then met up with him again on the return drag on the M1, but didnt have the legs to stick with them.

Thanks for being honest. And if I'm totally honest, if I had a Varia I'd be using that site too. For nothing other than my own personal bemusement of data.