Bos

Your story reminded me of a ride I did with one of my school mates who now works at Ultimate cycling (morne) We started riding at 8pm.. and rode up the surrounding hills and out into the plantations.. We I was completely and utterly lost after 25minutes of riding through dongas and shack singletrack.. So the suspence starts building as we ride through a quiet stinkwood plantation.. imagine rows of trees fading into the distance as you ride through a narrow avenue of jeeptrack between the trees. The jeeptrack is flooded 6 inches deep and the only sound you can hear is our wheels riding through the water and some branches cracking as the night time animals prowl around in the plantations around us..To make it worse, the jeeptrack is tightly lined with thorney berry bushes.. so much that one would be unable to get off that road if something came from the front.. which was very unlikely, but It had that Nightmare on Elm street feel... Now put yourself in my shoes, As you were talking about the YETI and the Knysna Elephant.. Its **** scary out there.. Not so much the Yeti and the elies but the people that live deep in that forrest freaks me out most! So the next thing we are going downhill.. the road gets narrower (by now gravel not wet jeeptrack) the bushes and plants on the side of the trail has overgrown the trail somewhat and I have to really concentrate not to get dropped by my mate (Im not even ashamed to say, I was soo scared and wanted my mommy haha) Ok, So flying down this downhill ( I didnt even know we went up a hill ok) getting darker and deeper into this nightmare forrest and SUDDENLY..my nightmare comes allive.. In my peripheral view I notice something is running next to me in the forrest...no bull***t..middle of the blare witch forrest something is rinning next to me and this at 50km/h... think OH my FAAARK!!!!! Now Im trying not to get dropped screaming down this overgrown twisty path/road so I can not really look around to see what it is but I can see bleddie well enough that these things are not only keeping up they are as tall as humans they are black and there are a few of them..Now my dear friend you have not understood the kind of trauma and plain bekakking myself and "not staying calm" I was going through.. these effing things were chasing us! keeping up, Because ones mind can not Identify or comprehend what this would be.. YETI see pictures below.. Now I know you are thinking this can not get worse.. wait for this.. As all of this is going through my very small feeling heart the unthinkable.. With a big skid and "OH FARK" 10m in front of me Morne comes to a stop but Im not focussing on Morne, Im focussing on what is standing 2.5m tall on 2 feet in front of him.. Holy Mother Of GOD this is it we are about to become the product of all our sins and going to pay for not beleving in monsters.. This is reality and Its gone bad... I'll give you time to read...

The Knysna bunch are active and they have some killer handbuilt singletracks all over the show, you just need to know where to look. Best is to go to one of the bikeshops and ask that they take you for a ride. I grew up there and rode those trails from age 15 (1996) till when I came to Cape town in 2002. My folks still live there and I go back all the time to ride with the locals. Frendly bunch. The trail netwerk is so vast I hardly ever find the trails again after riding them with the crew, Its because half the time you take some sneaky singletrack to get there I have only ridden Homtini once in 15 years, theres that much else going on

Not a particularly great season for radioshack is it..

I remember this.. I would have been very Pissed.. I was trainign with a guy who would have raced and he put in a lot of time which a sorry and blame shift does not make up for... Having said that, Its around the corner and might actually be a go this time. Garfield, at least you can go meet the guy and give him a piece of your mind, in person

When compared to Contador who seemed a bit tired after the Giro last year at the tour, I cant Imagine Froom dog recovered any more after his tour which was probably even tougher on his body then Contadors Giro was as he was. And now Froom is up against a fresh Alberto Contador who will make light work of most. Im holding thumbs that its a close afair..

It would have been interesting to see how Froom matched up to Berto If he was fully rested. And on a course with more TT.. Berto will be as fresh as spring flowers but he wouldnt have had any racing (obviously) so it could still be interesting..

I Remember reading a post race interview with Nino after one of the World cups where he mentioned that burry was a slow starter and that he rode like hell out the gate to get rid of Burry. The average world cup race is much more technical than this was so would have been easier to catch up for burry maybe? Burry needs to work on his starts If he said losing 17 odd spots didnt bother him.. It should!?

is there live streaming for this somewhere?

Oh Isit.. Ya The industry has gone through exponential growth in the last 5-10 years with hundreds of smaller companies springing up everywhere.. a real pitty almost that the market has gone carbon bedonnerd.. because this is driving a wedge between smaller companies and the bigger peeps. a lot of guys are francicly scratching to bring out a carbon am bike so showboat around tradeshows but I wonder what percentage of income really comes from these bikes. Obviously in a company like Evil's case this is all they focus on (mid range to DH ) which is already a much smaller segment. Its going to be interesting to see how guys survive..and now that carbon has become run of the mill, what next?

This pic of the EVIL Uprising carbon made me dribble in my pants a bit.. Man I would love to build a dream bike off something like this.. all black with a bit of blue.. ..sigh.. there will oneday be money for "toys" again

I sent you a PM

Holy **** It was massif.. It must be what It feels like in the back bunches of the argus? that must be why the guys take so long..Me and my posse eventually rode to the front as we got tired of balancing. We got to the front by longstreet. hehe Wonder If they anticipated the "mass" Must have been a couple of thousant people?

You serious? The most intense afkak Ive ever experiance were in road races... sitting on the wrong side of the wind, getting blown off the back, chasing to get back on and doing a pull in front. All of the above will happen once every 10 minutes.. Maybe you refer to grouprides? The Break you will be fine, Its an awesome new experiance man, dont let us spoil it. Just enter one and go for it. take a stab at a middle distance (50-60km) and know that it always hurts like hell in the begining, maybe less so than in the early stage of a road ride. Mtbikers try get the group small right from the get go. Get a Scott spark Expert 29. there was one on here for 20k the other day and If you get a retailer who stock them and will give you some discount you should get it for just over 20k. Carbon frame, fox fork, XT components, BOb's your uncle...

That course does look more like a streached xco course.. Pitty as the Brits have good trails but to far from the "village I guess" Burry mentioned he handled the heat better than the rest in Windham where he won his last Cup race. So Im Praying for a scourcher!!

All I have learnt In this years tour is that when Wiggo was favourite, and winning everything, he kept winning everything..Ofcourse we can hope Im wrong..and one of a milion things could go wrong for Nino, but Im afraid If it doesnt he looked stronger then Burry when they have been head to head..

Dude you probably need to get fit as leg strength allone might just make you a sprinter. so train vo2MAX. So do some intervals in the 90% of max heart rate bracket. Anerobic intervals.. google it and stick to it. Do long slow rides to get your aerobic engine running smooth and you'll lose excess weight whilst still at it. THis is more important than a lot of peope think..when combined with hard, hard days Wiggens didnt only learn to climb because of climbing. He lost something like 8kg's.. he was a track cyclist before he became GC ace.. you dont get more leg muscles than that..

Ditto And thin!!

@ GUMMY.. I would love to see our man in a break.. Wonder why he hasnt been in any? Or did I miss him the times he was ?

I Find I cant sustain more than 10hours a week for to long. In fact mostly even when Im training hard I dont do much more(not saying you wont benefit from it) Its just very hard to have a balanced life, wife social life and be fair on people around me when doing more than 10 hours a week. I got to a 2:54 argus time with roughly 10 weeks of specific and well structured training. I was aiming for a 3 day stage race 2 weeks before the Argus, so I followed a training programme for stage races. I read Joe Friel's training bible and trained according to his "crash-training" plan. I customised it to the period I was willing to spend in a structured plan :10 weeks 3 weeks Increasing time in saddle (BASE) 2 hard weeks followed by a recovery week (build 1) 2 harder weeks followed by recovery week(build2) one week taper before event. If one is not aiming for one specific event, does one just keep putting in those "build " weeks around a month before bigger races and keep the volume up inbetween? I would like to know how thee guys putting in 20 hours keep track of riding or does racing become your intensity training and the rest of the time its 5 days riding 3-4 hours a day to keep the miles in the legs?

Wouldnt that be refreshing.. All I know Is that Nibs will not take Cadel in the TT. I think he needs 1:30 over him to have a chance. I would love Nibali or Evans to use the 1-2 Skyy scenario to their advantage. They need to attack Froome, forget about Wiggo.. at least be cleaver and fight for 2nd. It might be interresting to see If Skyy can maintain this pace through an entire tour..

A long time I did carry a10kg backpack though. I left ceris at 5am. Got to "op die berg" which is 40km on at about7am.. waited for the shop to open, bought food and set on to the oasis. There is another 15km of tar road before getting to the dirtroad, from there It is 50 km of dessert. the first 20 odd Km is pretty flat but gets hot! I hit this around 11 in the morning, and In Feb that is already 30deg..I arrived around 2pm..broken

Keen to do that. My only Cederberg expedition was riding solo from ceris to Cederberg Oasis and back over 2 days in the middle of summer. I almost died. ran out of water 2 hours before the finish.. no cellphone reception, no people no shade. As jy dom is moet jy ***. the last climb before the oasis was this beast..and then back up the next day. but there are about 5 of those, Including Gaydo pass on the way out of ceris.

Unbelevable.. that is weak..

Yebo.. And that you cant go attack all day long every day because you dont have the gummyberry juice to get you to the startline fresh tomorrow. So the guys have to be more carefull how they use their chances. I heard Chris Horner talk about wattage in an interview yesterday, and he was goiing on and on about numbers.. The guys know how long they can sustain a sertain wattage before they blow and have to look at that.

Not a chance that such a big group will go.. Yesterday was made possible because the first 70 km was flat and they could build up a lead. today there is 14km before the first beistmeister Climb..