JohanDiv

If it's raining so hard that the coal gets wet, I ain't riding outside!

Anton, while you are here, I have a Scott Spark and Scott Addict (and maybe a Scale as well) that needs some love in the new year.. Can we work out some kind of bogus double deal discount for a returning customer? [emoji12]

Every morning... and still not sick of the scenery!

Sorry if this has been posted already.. Sam Gaze leaving Specialized and joining MvdP at Corendon-Circus.

There we go....

Had a great time! The new route is basically 80% in the forest now..It takes on a whole different vibe in the forest when it gets dark and you only have your little spot of light to follow on the singletracks through the trees..The rock garden suddenly turns into a boulder park! Certainly kicks the adrenaline levels up a gear or two in the dark! Trying to post a few pics but have no idea how to do it on an event page...

Guess I won't be getting my new carbon wheelset in time for Christmas then....

I woke up at 5, checked the wind, and rather took my MTB out on the singletracks than doing the long route in the wind. I'm too inexperienced when it comes to road cycling and felt I'd might be a hazard to myself and people around me in the wind if last weekend was anything to go by. Glad I skipped it as one of my mates I was supposed to ride with went down in the bunch when a guy fell in front of him. Bike is close to written off and knee needed some stitching up.

I'm dumb with this seeding stuff. What exactly is a virtual winner? I see it is around 6mins quicker than the actual winner.

And dealing with nutritional intake..what works and what doesn't work for you. The only way to figure that out is on long training rides.. I get what Robert is saying though, that 23week program has multiple 3hour rides on weekdays during a single week..that's going to be near impossible to strictly follow with a full time job. But strangely the longest ride on that program is a 4 hour ride on a weekend. I'll shift it around a bit over that weeks in the program and do shorter sessions during the week and a longer 5-8 hour ride on the weekend.

Haha no!! Last time around I started training 3 week before the race and that was basically just three long rides of between 110km and 140km on three successive Saturdays! (But my fitness was already okay-ish since I was busy training for Karoo2Coast, not on any program though)

Haha yip I know! We entered a team of 4 for the The Race again.. I was trying to bargain for 12 hours, the rest of the team said 11 hours, I asked aim for 11 hours and be happy with 12 hours, they said no, we aim for sub 11 hours and possibly a Top 30 finish, end of discussion. Obviously my training started this morning! I'm at least 12kg overweight. First thing to fix is this! Then when we are done with the Argus we are going to follow that 23 weeks Trans Baviaans training plan religiously until raceday! Last year I entered 3 weeks before the race with a team of guys I didn't know and never ridden with before and just winged it with a bit of advice I got from you Robert. This time around it is with three guys I know and we ride together 3-4 times a week and have a solid plan and mutual goal long before the race. This is going to help a lot I think!

The race sold out already

That was fun! My first road race ever and even I could tell there were some people that rode k@k. One guy with an orange motion energy kit on his BMC were all over the place the entire race, people shouting at him as he swerves and switches on them.. Dodged a flying empty beer can at some point. Guy next to me got a burst tyre and he and the guy behind him went down early on in the race. Started in Batch C-E and finished close to the front of the batch with total chaos ensuing with the wannabe sprinters not giving a flying f... about the peoples safety around them, pushing people off onto the gravel! Flippen hell that stressed me out! Averaged over 37kmh for the race.

Haha jip also in two minds about when to enter. And still trying to get a lekker team together to try and go for sub 11 hours

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Got my first roadbike two weeks ago to do my first Argus next year. I have a sub 3.5hour Argus in mind, but I realize there is a lot of work that lies ahead of me to achieve that. Entered this Sportive 8 event, will be my first road race, plus the one next week, in the hopes of getting a bit more used to bunch riding. In MTB races we have a permanent MTB board for Racetec races.. How do the numbers and tags work for road races? I'm assuming I'll get it the morning before the race? Do I have to keep the paper number I stick to my bib for the next race as well?

Wow this was insightful to me! I'm the guy spending way to much time on Zwift and mountain biking haha.. But to be fair, I only got my first road bike last week. Jeez I still have a lot to learn before I take on something like the Double Century(maybe next year). Clearly there is way more to road cycling than just the higher cadence compared to mountain biking!

I'm quite surprised with the lack of training most people are doing for this event! Around ten of my mates, all riding in different teams are doing this and doesn't look to phased about it.. some of them last sat on a saddle at Trans Baviaans, some did a few spin classes the last month or so, and the rest did their first sunday cruise in months this past weekend. The one guy at our office told me this morning that their aiming for 9 hours after this weekends first team ride! The only mate actually training for this is riding with Team Pure Savage..no surprises there I guess.

I was looking around on Aliexpress for carbon stuff to start a road bike build. I asked one seller a question about a frame that looks exactly like a S-Works Venge. He replied by email with his website that needs a password to enter and a whole new world suddenly opened up! On the website he has a bunch of frames from several manufacturers where you can choose your custom paintjob or paintjob that looks just like the original frames. He also has wheelsets that looks like ENVE, ZIPP and some other big names. I ended up ordering a carbon wheelset from him based on the ENVE SES 4.5 wheelset with DT Swiss 350 hubs for R8000.00. You can mix and match to your needs.. Tubular, Clincher, tubeless, internal spoke nipples, depth of rims, your preferred hubs etc. Once you have agreed on your build through email, he sends you an aliexpress link where you can make payment and track your order. I'm a bit skeptical about how this is going to turn out, but so far it has been a pleasure dealing with this guy. Based on Aliexpress reviews I can see he's been doing business since at least 2011, so that might count for something. PS. He doesn't want to share the website and password to wide, so drop me a PM if anyone is interested.

Here's the MTB routes for Sunday... And the strava route for the 40km: https://www.strava.com/routes/22547924

Still waiting for a Cape Town event...

I think that was a particularly bad batch puncturing on normal gravel roads though.. Fitted a new Aspen since then and done about a 1000km on it, including a stage race on sharp rocky single tracks with zero problems so far. But I do ride them a bit more gingerly than my previous Ardent 2.4

Anybody looking to sell their ticket at say, I dunno, half the original price because of the weather..I'd happily take it off your hands

Spoke to a trail builder in the area that knows him well. Apparently Delvera/Dirtopia is not making any money and is considering closing down entirely, or at the very least not hosting events in the future. Events costs them money, they are not making a profit with events and solely rely on sponsors to cut the costs of events. I was hoping that they would at least strike a deal with them to include their trails with the new Winelands Trails Membership, but that will only by Hero Adventure Trails, Paarl Adventure Trails, Wild Boar Trails, Boschendal Trails and Banhoek Conservancy.