Ride Rate Review

We were based around 30 or 40 min drive from top of Sani Pass border at a guest lodge that was under construction. This trip I was on was organised by Detour Trails (www.detourtrails.co.za) with Rowan Surridge. Nigel Hicks and Co. they organised such a rad trip. Closest hospital was like 100km away or something I heard, so its pretty far out. Accessibility was by 4x4. I wouldn't suggest going it alone, the place is pretty vast and I would hate to get lost out there. Give Rohan a shout, they will show you a rad time.

Yeah. I wanted to be there at the recce but fate unfortunately had other plans for me.

Hey thanks for the share. if you have the opportunity to ride that side, you shouldn't give it a second thought. Trails that we rode were next level, extremely raw and natural untouched by human builders putting their signature marks on the land. Trail builders there are the weather and the animals. I would class this trip as a kind of adventure enduro racing(the timed stages we had) the start and the finish points are the same for everyone but how you get there is up to you, it could go bad for you or not. Pretty much luck of the draw as a lot of the riding was blind. It was a very refreshing experience not being restricted to riding a specific course. It's totally worth the 1500Km journey. So much so that I was going to go to Lesotho again this month, if I hadn't have recently crashed pretty bad. Never been to Afriski but I may do the Crank Chaos thing next year, if I am not abroad. I heard it's really good there now with a fair amount of new trails they have been building.

Video will unfortunately only drop in around a month, I have got a huge backlog of video to work through. I think it's time for a 3 video week. The hub is a DT Swiss 350, I added some grease a few months back to try reduce the volume, it helped a little bit but it's still too loud.

Rad writing skills there Myles & you summed it up pretty good like. It was great seeing you all there this year at what IS totally the biggest, baddest, raddest race in the Province. Next year you WILL finish. I'm suffering from an ITB injury and it started showing face from liaison 4 so it was another painful Ezelenduro, but thank goodness we skipped last years double trouble hike a bike, right?

I am glad Intense are back offering of the best bikes around to the SA market & that ride you have there is totally legit. I had a lot of fun on one when I had it on test. I'm sure you are going to be super stoked out on the trails with this bike. I had the new 2.8 GRID Butchers on a bike I was testing this week. The casing was not something to write home about. I tore the tread area and sidewall on my first ride in the rocks so I think the narrower tires would be a better choice if with Spez tekkies. I would stick to narrower tire than 2.6 simply because you may get better protection from tighter spaced knobbies on the tread to make up for the casing.

Greetings from the Grand Massif

PDS has amazing riding and it was an awesome experience to ride there. I would definitely recommend that everyone go if they haven't been there, the shear vastness of the lift system is insane. It's a pitty about Morgins, but there is plenty of other rad places and plenty of sneakies to ride. I'm traveling alone(I had a group going but but when time came to commit things changed) but I am lucky enough to have made friends with my housemate from last year who was there for the season, he showed us slot of rad secrets and places we would never have found, he's back this year so I'm hooking up with him again. I also have a mate that immigrated to France and will be traveling and staying with him in Prapoutel.

I'll be staying in Prapoutel for a few days, there is a rad system called Les 7 Laux I'll be riding with other trails in the area.

I think 15k is cutting it tight, last year we did a 12 day trip for around 17.5k and we were proper sewer rats, we discovered we were eating pet food for dinner(food labels are all in French) after 5 days or so, granted it was my first time I could've done it a little cheaper, but not 15k. In a week I'll be headed back but basing this trip i'm focusing more on natural trails the region has to offer in the lesser known destination for my YouTube channel, I will be basing myself in Samoëns which is around 25km from morzine which was the EWS French stop in 2015, then I'm heading south to Grenoble side for some more fun. I will probably do a day or 2 in morzine but that's really all I need there as I just wanna smash the "forest of zore"(steep, rooty & gnarly descent back from zore to the village) So far for 15 days I'm in at around 14.5k, that's my accommodation, flights, insurance, transfer, visa, etc. Only thing to add is spending money. I think this is going to be an amazing adventure which i will bike vlog on my channel to help equip any of you who are planning to visit in future with the tools to do it at minimum cost.

It's my last few days on the Specialized Camber Comp Carbon & can't think of a better place to spend it other than on the hero dirt Tokai had today.

hey there buddy Our local agent can be found at www.zerode.co.za, its run by a great guy, very friendly and helpful. The bike has a 600% gear range, first carbon production bike to feature a Pinion gearbox. Only servicing that the gearbox requires is a 60ml gearbox oil change at 10 000km. Its completely different to anything I have ever ridden.

I had a blast shredding Delvera on this Zerode Taniwha. This was my first experience with a bike that featured the Pinion Gearbox.

I took this Mythic Monster out for a ride at Contermanskloof today to get the suspension dialed in. This is The Zerode Tanihwa. It's a full carbon frame & it features the Pinion gearbox instead of the conventional drive train system seen on every other bike.

I am fortunate enough to have both the MRP Ramp Control as well as recently installing the Luftkappe, as you can see by the video i just released. The mods I have are quite different from one another. The MRP effects mostly the final third of the fork stroke giving you bottom out resistance, the fork feels more linear completely open(because you dont use tokens) and you can set it up using LSC/Comp to firm up or make more plush on the trail. When i ride my HD3 (with the MRP) i often adjust the settings depending on trail conditions, if i know the trail. It offers a bit more versatility because you can control the fork a little more out on the trail. You would need to find the good balance point with pressure & compression though because when you turn up LSC you affect the small bump as well. The Luftkappe on the other hand offers big mid stroke support with a nice ramp up toward the end. I noticed small bump sensitivity because it changes the forks progression quite a bit and allows you to run much less LSC. Of course you can also setup and fine tune on trail but this option is very much fit and sort of forget. The SKF Low Friction Seals also help giving better small bump. If you are bananas about uour fork you could get both the MRP ramp control & the luftkappe, but you would just need to see if your fork is setup for it.

Upgrade Imminent

Nice.

My mtb career : Start flats Moved to clipless Back to flats Back to clipless Now Back to flats Until I ride clipless again They are both great and both have advantages and disadvantages. Although I love clipless and that "part of the bike" feeling, it's nice to switch out and get a different feeling on the bike, at the moment I'm getting prepped for some rather muddy conditions where clipless shoes have a real bad weakness at the moment.

Unless your stem/headset loosens, which can happen. I'm really keen to see how this system works.

Yeah unfortunately, no chain breaker. Not a deal breaker to me though, the benefit of having just the tools out weighs the missing breaker. I use the tools way more often than a breaker and I don't mind being "that guy" on the trail who ruins your Strava pb's to bum a chain breaker from riders by.

I have had my eye on the one up site ever since RiRu dropped those spy pics at the opening ews race. I'm sure I'll get one of those for my Mail Order Monday videos.

Solid Gold Thanks for the hard work okes.

Omw dude. That is hectic. You are very lucky there was someone around who gave a toss and took action against the prep. I hope you bought him a case of bells?

Well there's a happy ending. Thank goodness he has insurance, many people don't have that security. So keep em bikes safe at all times. We live in dangerous times.

ah yeah dude, I very very seldom leave my bike on the back of my car now days. Someone told me of 2 bikes that was stolen on 1 rack just like that this past weekend in stellies this past weekend. Also have to remember to remove before it goes to a friends house or a bike service, because you never know who' watching/waiting, jy weet?