Underachiever

I' have a garage full of GAINTS, including 3x TCR's 2004, 2012 and 2020. Never regretted the TCR's for a second!!

Bad boy gets himself a 4 year ban... https://www.news24.com/sport/rugby/springboks/springbok-elton-jantjies-given-four-year-suspension-for-banned-substance-20240118

He's at the Lemmer brothers tonight....😜

And mechanical does not have the better stopping power. The TRP ones are good, if you can find them!!

I'm OCD, so the pass for me is where the gravel starts, to the top, which then adds about 5km at 2.1%. Significant for old, fat and unfit ballies like me!!!! This segment..... https://www.strava.com/segments/27176466

Swartberg northern side (which includes the little downhill) would be an interesting number, certainly more difficult vs south

You probably mean Rietvlei Dam? You cannot ride inside the nature reserve....buffalo, cheetah, etc. Plenty of smaller roads on the western side that are in a bad condition, but pretty quiet.

You don't count, being immortal and all...

Wow, ok, the portion from Malvadraai to the top of the switchbacks many times exceeds the steepness from the other side, so to do that on a 1:1 ratio take some doing!!! Hats off!! Bearing in mind that for the GF you will already have a far bit off riding in the legs...

For my MTB equivalent gear ratio you would need a 28x42 for the last 3km of Swartberg. Having said that, I've done Swartberg many, many times on a MTB, but never with a gravel bike, so not sure how the 1x gravel crowd manages their gears for the race. They most likely use a 50 cassette?

Agree, but I cannot find a full GRX gruppo, any ideas? 1st thing is to move from mech discs to hydraulics if I do a stepwise upgrade.

You might sukkel with Swartberg Grand Fondo, but on the other end of the scale (flat tar), you will wear down the 13 sprocket pretty quickly

Can you please share your 105/grx mix details Ross?

A frustration is when to find a good 2x (shimano) groupset if you do a custom build, even 105 is not available - unless I look in the wrong places....

Agree, This is a ±1090 km trek. At 23kph = 47 riding hrs = 6 hrs per day. Similar to the Epic...

Heard she at Ronnie's shop on the R62....

Make sure to log on to give us a nice race report!!! Plan to be on the road at sunrise at 06h00 to beat the heat. You don't want to be on the road past noon for too much.

The gravel roads, especially the Karoo, will be rocky (sharp ones) so I would recommend either 45mm since you are backpacking or a good back-up plan for punctures. Certain sections of Swartberg Pass is very rough at the moment due to travellers and rain, even with a MTB, so take it slow. Ditto for Lategansvlei

More comments, I would suggest a small change to the route out of Oudtshoorn - take the R62 tar road towards Calitzdorp and then take the right turn towards Lategansvlei about 5km out. I cycled the exact same route from Oudtshoorn to the top of Rooiberg pass and the route is safe but will be out of mobile range for most of the time. As another person said - the area can be very very hot in Feb (40 C) so carry enough fluids. Plan for 1 day extra and do Swartberg Pass - it is well worth while. It will even be better to plan for 2 days extra and have a sleep over in Prince Albert (excellent, excellent town with plenty places to sleep and eat) an also do the Swartberg Pass from the Northern side, which is much more scenic, but also more of a challenge.

Hey Valetin, are you using a MTB or a gravel bike?

I'm on the Lynskey sales notifications, and some frames are going for good prices. Not sure about the small print...

Does that mean all those marketing videos are not true.... I am shocked...

Spicy!!! Is there another angle to this story? Is Cian perhaps the new Remco?

Don't see them around so often anymore, but Fizik Gobi is perfect for me, fitted them to all my bikes. The older M3 (M5?) was better than the later models.

98% of the time.