ChrisF

And yet I pay R695 for 10 to 15 minutes of their inexperienced and often inefficient time. No wonder the one owner gets to plan his day while 4 to 5 locums bring in a boat load ....

Cape Epic App Worked perfectly on the first two days ... Today .... not so much .... I could follow the lead men perfectly .... lead females took more than an hour to show on the tracker. My friends in the Masters group .... their tracker had my nerves shot !! At one stage I thought they broke down and was stuck for hours at the far end, just to pop up again at the second last water point ..... EDIT - Even the Elite riders support teams had major issues today with the tracker working intermittently .....

Respect for the team work .... Question to those in the know .... what type of spares are likely to be at the next water point ? Distance between water points .... ouch ... I see they did finish the day. Well done.

Productivity may impacted this week ... 😋 Laptop screen on Epic YT Cell on the tracker ... lead men ... "my" elite ladies team ... then my friends much further back. Watching the terrain as the men negotiate it .... nice to have some idea of the trails and landscape when my friends come along later .... We are lucky to have this wealth of information at our disposal ...

Damn, that sucks !! Hope you heal up and are back on two wheels soon.

the Elite ladies team that I have some insight into .... let's just say they looked at the shorter distances, and immediately picked up that mostly it is the flat sections that are shorter. They went on the talk about the elevation per km, and how it has increased for the elite ladies .... Going into this they were not impressed .... Then again, good friends and riding buddies (using this term loosely as they DROP me and my ebike full boost at will, even 100km into a ride on a steep incline ) are riding in the Masters Ladies class. They were even less impressed to hear that the "normal ladies" must do the full route while only "the chosen elite" are riding shorter ..... All round the organisers did not make friends with many of the RIDERS with this call. As many others have said .... without a real change in the broadcast and actively more time for the ladies, nothing much is going to change ..... little sponsor value in a few % broadcast time ...

You should hear the questions from the Masters Ladies ..... doing the full distance ....

OUCH ... that looked bad .... were you able to complete your ride ?

Slightly shorter routes for the elite ladies. Apparently less flat sections, but all the climbs ..

Single farm, single entry, parking full by 7.00 ... some participants cycled to the venue. Spectators had to cycle in. Previous years crossed multiple farms, peoviding much more parking and spectating opportunities Yes, less spectotors = less gees ...

Somwthing like 56 nations in the entries. Would be interesting to compare entry numbers over years ....

Marketers are not swayed by such trivial facts ...

Wonder how many cycle from home or B&B to the start ....

R250M down to R180M ...

https://cbn.co.za/industry-news/sa-wine-manufacturing-news/world-renowned-bloemendal-wine-estate-offered-by-open-tender-in-landmark-winelands-opportunity/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=cbn-daily-world-renowned-bloemendal-wine-estate-offered-by-open-tender-in-landmark-winelands-opportunity-3711

Nice misty morning .... welcome after a HOT week

Whats your the motivation to finish a sub-3 ? For ME ... I have a standard legal pedal assist. It is damn hard work to get in under 4 hours, at least for me it is. Sure I am more stoked about my 3:51 than @Johnny82 is about his sub-3 CTCT, a sub-6:30 DC is his goal ... for me it is about my road to recovery over the last 10 years. My next goal .... to complete a 40km road event (NOT the CTCT 42km route) in the cut off time on my gravel bike (non-ebike) ... I have yet to make it to a 30km trip on the non-ebike .... a bit of wind like this weekend and such a trip puts me right back at the physios ..... so as silly as this goal seems to most Hubbers, this is a huge goal for me. Punch line, we are each on our own journey, each with our own abilities and goals. Heck, there is a growing group of ebikers NOT entering the CTCT. They do Winelands, 99er, etc as it allows them to fully enjoy their journey .... their journey, their goals, their PB's. While saying that, the CTCT is just too big and busy to accommodate such diverse speeds, i.e. super chipped ebikes racing at 2:45 times from the mid pack through bunches of people ..... if that is your goal, then Winelands, 99er, etc has smaller numbers and space for you to go live out your dream.

Very true words. I have had one attempted bike jacking ... VERY similar to that video. I was fortunate in that I read their body language ... they were not subtle in watching me and changing their approach, even though they were still "just pedestrians on the pavement" .... my spidey senses kicked in, I kept on moving at exactly the same speed (slowly up and incline), but dropped a gear or two and switched the Giant to full boost .... that instant they stepped off the pavement I stood on the pedals and shot forward like only an ebike can do in full boost. By the time I got to them I was at 32km/h and heading straight towards them .... they jumped out of the way. Hindsight ... VERY risky and could have gone wrong in so many ways !! Then again, are we suppose to U-turn each time we saw "pedestrians" .... Two years later, and I am still not comfortable with "idle pedestrians" .... always on the alert for that last second jump or bump .... frankly p1553s me off that we have to be in this super alert mode while on what is supposed to be a relaxing ride .....

Maybe we are talking past each other .... to avoid any confusion - TWO riders from 3B finish early, then stopped along the sea and waited to finish after 3:50 (I have absolutely no idea if they were there 2 minutes of half an hour). TWO more riders ended in the finish straight to realise they are heading to a sub 3:50 .... they decided to pull into the gap left for the motorcycles to get out of the barriers .... down right dangerous ... My own ride .... in 2025 I misjudged my speed and came in much later than I planned to, with a time just over 4 hours. This year I kept an eye on my time at 27, 54 and 61km, noting that I need to allow for Suikerbossie etc ... I soft peddalled about 500m to come in just over 3:50.

The two of us have met up to and from Stellenbosch rides over a number of yrars .... but not in the last six months .... simply because I can not brazingly risk my life on a bicycle past Cloetesville ..... So yes, my wallet is also closed off to Stellenbosch. Take a few hundred of us per weekend and it adds up .... The irony, this hits close to home .... family owns a nice spot on top of Hellshoogte.... I applaud your efforts. For the last 30 years I have put a lot of my time into helping students and young engineers. Thee most satisfying thing to see a person grow and become siccessful industry leader. Your task of getting kids off the streets into the educational system is a noble task .... likely their only way to a better socio-economic situation. BUT ... and the irony is heavy on this one ...... its the very kids that slipped through your fingers that are attacking us and stealing our bikes ... My brain and my emotions are conflicted on this one .... every time that we have to re-route our rides around these danger zones your good kids loose our support ... a very sad reality Let's hope Stellenbosch steps up safety and security on the access routes ... its that "easy" to buy back support from the cycling community

Was around 40 degrees in Stellenbosch. Strange hot spots, betwee 36 and 43 degrees .... Have to agree with @BuffsVintageBikes .....well said

SNAP 5th tour ... robot after M3 a big bunch formed behind me ... tried, but nobody wanted to pass By the time we got to the railway line next to the sea I was bleeding out of my eye balls .... pulled over and soft pedalled a bit while having an energy bar. Still safer to lead than to sit mid pack on that very slopped section of road.

Let's see how many walk the second hill on Sunday .... 🤪

3B. EDIT: 109km earliest start was 3B. No such rule in play for the 42km.

@Hairy might still have contact details of the original large group of commuters ....