tinmug

I tried to find more info on this event, and instead found two nuggets of gold and a dodo. Evidently I didn't search hard enough. Route profiles? Map? Photos? A woolly mammoth? Anything at all?

I don't think the oval-wheel concept will catch on.

Whatever I did apparently looked spectacular. My clavicle broke into three pieces. My fingers reached below my knee cap. A friend – who could not drive – fetched my bakkie then drove me to my sister (who could, more or less, drive). She burst out laughing when she saw my shoulder. First patient at a prominent CT hospital's new emergency ward/desk/whatever. They cut up my t-shirt, gave me something to swallow and the power went out. No really, the whole ward lost electricity (back when Eskom still had excess). The generators never did kick in and I was treated under candle light. Long story short: I needed an operation to set things right. Even that didn't go to plan as the surgeon lost the middle bit of my clavicle (after some digging around they found it way south of my heart). After the op he told me they inserted some titanium. Which needed to come out weeks later (no mention of this beforehand). After they pulled the titanium out they told me the operation was pioneering and highly risky (drilling blind next to aorta, or something like that). For the next 20 years I had discomfort carrying a backpack/scuba tanks out the water etc. Now that I am old and difficult everything is back to normal, except I don't do spectacular things on a mountain bike anymore. But I can shoulder a backpack. What did you want to know again?

Any maps (or Google Earth files) available of the route(s)?

Do you have any accurate sizing info for these? (A cut-out template would actually be handy, buying gloves unseen cam be tricky)

Gates: have a zero motorcycle (somebody ahead of the strongest rider leaving LEAVE CLOSE throw-away signs (could be as simple as a large red cable-tie ... ideally more visually prominent for those, erm, not drafting and a little more fatigued) on applicable gates? My understanding is, that for the most part, the gate saga largely only applies to part of the route. Now if Alex happens to need a zero motorbike rider ...

Thank you all for the links.

Where/how does one track the Munga?

She. Ite. Are the riders okay? Bikes okay? Have more info: where in the park? Under what circumstances etc?

Presumably no carbon frames.

It's difficult to read the TITAN RACING from anything beyond 50 km away. They really should've made that bigger.

A handful of photographs here. http://typographica.co.za/gallery/yce2018/yce2018-003.jpg

(From a snake expert I know) A puff adder can strike an inflated ballon three times before you will see it deflate. Sobering. Cobras (and most others) will almost always try like hell to get out your way. Puff adder couldn't care rocks. Mole snakes can also be fairly laid back in human presence. Puffies worry me the most. And don't think you're safe of you ride at night. Going looking for that SA snake app right now (and thanks for the tip).

Thanks Wet Ears. At the time of writing they still had blue (black a little more expensive).

While I have never dealt with Cycle Lab, the few occasions I have ordered from the CWC online store has been nothing short of 110%. Well done and looking forward to many more purchases.

Hello. I am old and fat and new to cycling in the 21st century. Some obscure arrangement of cheese holes had my clutching a mountain bike with my name on it. Then I bought padded pants and shoes with metal triangles at the bottom. And a beer cooler for my head. While I haven't straddled a bicycle for several decades I do ride a motorcycle. I was just old enough for the BMX craze that hit SA in the 80s and not too old for the mountain bike craze soon thereafter. Then life hit and, well, here I am just starting to slow down a little again and wondering how I ever managed to sit on a saddle for hours on end without pain killers. But hell it's fun.