The Ouzo

our LBS has a few for their coffee shop. 2 of them are welded up units, but they are light enough for the barista to get in and out of the shop by himself. But they also have 2 more that they bring out for busy days, these are assembled once they've been brought out. LBS coffee shop sacrifices 2 parking bays for this, thats enough to get 4 of these stands setup (2 per bay). Racked roughly with a mix of MTB and road bikes, I would estimate 32 bikes across the 4 stands.

2 things 1) high speed chase and what looks like a Toyota corolla do not go together. Drunk lighty must have been driving really crap to have been caught by a cop in a corolla 2) we have a very serious problem with alcohol abuse in this country. And its openly bragged about and displayed in most social circles. Not sure what the solution is, but whatever it is we're not doing it.

based on a fellow hubbers feedback I placed an order for 2 ykyw bibs, will provide feedback once they arrive and I use them a few times

this thread has become to long to sift through it, so I'm asking the question again. Which bibs are decent quality for road ? Much to my horror, I was informed by the wife when I got home this morning that my Ciovita bibs have become transparent. Hopefully I did not emotionally scar to many people with it.

we know why you're watching it 🤫

because some people have trained their rear ends off to be able to just finish the 97km, let alone do it in a great time, and then someone come along and pulls their bike out a week before the event to charge the battery and does it with out a sweat. are we going to see electronis exo skeletons in marathon races next ? like I said, I see both sides, but I'm still more anti e-bike

those are the official e-bikes, what about the unofficial ones that started other groups ? I can see both sides of the argument. There was a gent with 1 leg racing in A batch on a normal bike, and doing very well, if he doesnt need an e-bike then why do others ? and If it gets more people riding and keeps the event going for longer then great, let people ride them.

look, with the dwindling entries into the event its probably not a bad thing to let them enter, keeps the numbers up.

part of my cycling group is a guy who rides an e-bike for medical reasons, he did not start with us as there was apparently an e-bike start batch, even he was saying how he did not like the fact that these unrestricted e-bikes with spare batteries were passing him with ease whilst he put the work in.

I blame the organisers for this, CTCT does a better job with holding areas for waiting cyclists (not perfect though). But its always going to be like this with this many riders not wanting to miss their batch as well as trying to start at the front of their batch so they want to be first in.

I hear you, but you can generally tell if a rider is conscious of being in the way and just can’t move over, vs those that don’t care/dont know any better. I try not to shout at anyone to keep left, it’s usually just quicker to simply just pass, I did ask one youngster who was pushing his bike to move to the side, but hopefully how and what I said came out politely as my intention was to guide rather than scold.

we needed a license to ride 50cc motor bikes as scholars, so I would imagine this is treading on some grey area where its classified as a bicycle just because it has pedals attached to a crank.

yeah, how about making it safer, both from cars and crime , first. Aint no way people are going to want to ride in JHB currently unless its closed roads. B.T.W. speaking of crime, did anyone gets harassed like previous years in the car parks ? Seemed to me that things were kept under control this year w.r.t. unwanted guests.

100%, saw lots of that too, sometimes it makes you wonder how they got seeded there, becayse if you're good enough to be seeded that far forward (like I was), then even if you'd lost plenty fitness over the year, you should still have the skill / know-how / etiquette to move to the side of the road when you can see you're not keeping up with those around you. And these are the long route riders, when the short route folks joined in all hell broke loose. I understand and welcome letting youngsters out there to ride, but when you have unaccompanied 10 year olds mixing it up with long route riders coming past a twice their speed it makes for some "interesting" manoeuvres.

I read and article the other day (or was it a video clip) about how the cycling industry has diluted itself with all the different types of bikes, I think more people have drifted to gravel because its the in thing right now and "safer" than road riding. We have been crying for years to make number collection easier without having to drive out to silly places and get herded through the expo, as someone that did his first 947 in 1998 and has been through the number collection / expo shuffle 21 times, it did feel rather ho-hum to simply just collect a number, but if I'm totally honest it was much more convenient to collect from Bedfordview AND the expos have been getting more and more watered down over the years anyway.

or safe 1) that exhaust looks like a burn waiting to happen 2) 80km/h without much effort is probably not the best idea on a bicycle.

they were saying 12000, but not sure if that included the short ride. very far off the hey day numbers of the past.

I suspect not, but dont think the glory years are over just yet, bringing it forward this year because of G20 meant it clashed with other events.

OK, wasnt you then, I passed a white one climbing onto the M2 near the end, lady rider with a youngster on the back, contemplated shouting out hello Robyn, luckily I didnt.

where you riding a Peugot Tandem ?

I think the heat got the better of alot of people, plenty people cramping. I felt it wasnt as well put together as previous events. There was one area where they had a water point on the left, and cones on the right over an expansion joint, forcing riders into a single lane on the left past a water point. When I went past I still thought to myself there is a disaster waiting to happen, because faster riders want to stay right and avoid the congestion at the water point. Well it turns out at least one person fell victim to that, a mate of mine was not able to pull left in time, went between the cones, tried to bunny hop the expansion joint but it clipped the rear, sent him flying and slashed his rear tyre. This want the only dodge thing, at another point there was a bricked wrapped in red and white barrier tape in the middle of the road indicating a hole, you could not see this from a distance. The short route riders mixing it up with the long route guys from town was also a mess, these guys were riding all over the show, stopping in the middle of the road etc. My race went OK. I started with my team and our goal was sub 3h30, we were very slow getting onto the highway, so 2 of us went upahead and pushed the pace up slightly, had a decent bunch going until woodmead where all the wheelsuckers crowded past us on the descent to kyalami. As I'm still suffering PTSD in the middle of large bunches at high speed I backed off and let the all go, passed most of them on the climb into Kyalami. Once I turned off of Witkoppen my legs decided they did not feel like continuing, so it was a slow slog up the hills from there. With the heat my HR would not stay down so I stopped a few times, caught my breathe and continued. Even standing around after the finish my HR hovered around 130bpm and would not come down. Heat and dehydration. I'm happy with the 3h21 I did, this being my 21st 947 I was not to concerned about getting a PB. Well done @Dexter-morgan for your sub 3, great effort.

Hahaha. No stress. and I just went back on emails and saw registrations are from yesterday. , will make a plan to get out to Bedford

Uhm, it’s only Tuesday, how are you folks collecting numbers. and normally we have a million reminders

The great thing is there is nothing terribly complicated or expensive on this bike, the bad thing is you won’t recoup any money you throw at it. it can be fixed with the most basic of tools

The sweat / sunscreen story has me slightly worked up. How do you make and market a product aimed at cycilsts, but tell them they can get sweat on it ? What next, Specialised saying you cant get mud in your MTB ?