aquaratza

I haven't tried Assos but reading this threads makes me want to . I've tried Endura (2x of them), Specialized (2x), Pearl Izumi (1x), a local brand I was sponsored with (OTR Designs) (3x) and Ciovita (4x) bibs. The Ciovita bibs (Supremo) have been the most comfortable for me so far, but the others have also been pretty good. I was apprehensive about the OTR bibs but they've actually been very good. The Pearl Izumi was terrrrrrible - I was uncomfortable with that after a ride around the neighbourhood haha. I want to throw away the Pearl Izumi bib (been ridden once) but I feel that would be wasteful, so now it just hangs around ergh. Chamois cream is useful...

I think the GX Eagle is probably the best value proposition; from my experience it is clearly extremely durable, doesn't feel plasticky, has the better bearing vs bushing in the shifter (lower resistance), etc. and doesn't cost insane amounts. It seems like a reasonable economic compromise. My NX chain is rusting a bit, but the GX still looks new. You can mix and match components (GX/NX/etc), which is nice.

I have one of these tools; they're SUPER light and really well made. Fun to assemble too. Mine came in handy during the W2W.

I have both an NX Eagle and 2x GX Eagle systems (on different bikes and across different wheels). The GX system has about 3100 km on it now and hasn't failed in any way (original chain too and there isn't enough play to warrant replacing the chain, crazy right?). The NX system is much newer and far fewer km (600km currently), however, it survived absolute hell during a rainy weekend on the Wines2Whales Chardonnay event. That thing was dipped in mud multiple times. No issues after the bike was cleaned. Maybe my bike shop is just very good.

Hi I was at Contermanskloof earlier today and took some slowmo videos of people doing some jumps. If anyone's interested you can find the footage here : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1607vY11CSKsK-Z8-vkqW5ZA2CN5-uwUQ?usp=sharing

I would also like to know ^ The results website indicates 11 teams finished - which seems incorrect.

The dinner time presentation... particularly one of the speeches/presentations given by a representative of the headline sponsor. Did I mention the cycling was fun?

Thanks man, we only decided to do it 2 weeks before the event ahahahahahaha

This was my first W2W and I got the feeling it was a bit of a money-making scheme. My friend and I had a great time because the trails ROCKED, man we loved the trails. I originally wasn't keen on the Day 2 "hamster wheel" but I think that was my favourite day now. Loved the forest trails. Huge diversity. But, as Quagga said, the water points ran out of a few things. Sweets are the devil's work . Even though they've had bad weather in past years they didn't adaquately provision for it; walkways were trashed (bare mud), outdoor areas were unusable, public areas leaked. The trails were wrecked haha. Despite the weather there was a shortage of brake pads; everyone was hunting around for brake pads, like people at a rave looking for drugs. The "luxury" tents were funny - I got my pass off bikehub. The showers would run out of water. When they did work someone would open a tap and the showers would go from fine to burn hot or freezing cold. This happened countless times (lesson is to just not shower for a few hours...). It's camping, I get it, and it was fun, but for the price you pay it wasn't good. I couldn't believe people had paid R 7.7k (?) for that. The normal tents looked wet and wind swept. The luxury tents were fine, but I'm really glad I packed a sleeping bag (despite the tents being supplied with bedding). Good points: (1) The trails were *awesome*. The actual cycling was fantastic. (2) Woolworths catering during breakfast, lunch and dinner was luxurious. (3) The trails were very well marked. (4) Staff and volunteers(?) were really friendly and just lovely. There's a general sense of the event media concentrating solely on the pros. Commentators talk non-stop and insincerely punt sponsors - imagine being able to talk to your friends without shouting the whole time. Lessons learnt: (1) Stick to smaller events (like the Houw Hoek Cycle Tour) (2) Don't stay at the venue, it's not worth it. (3) Taking all manner of spares is not paranoia. A luxury toilet: Luxury showers: Bag drop on day 1, before the wind swept away the gazebos: A luxury tent: Baptism of mud to get a bike mechanic: I struggled to find info on the event beforehand, so hopefully some of this helps future n00bs like me ^

I'm sitting in a tent now after riding today. It was very wet and fairly windy. A lot of the "trails" were rivers... but it was fun. My team mate's bike has no brakes left haha. Finding brake pads has been a problem, luckily I had two spare with me, but I don't know how long my bike's brakes will last now. The main facilities area is pretty marshy, flooded in lots of places. It's very wet. The finish line was a ghost town, just a disembodied voice welcoming us. Fun ride but facilies haven't been good.

These replies fill me with *great* confidence. Let the GEES flow? ahahahahahaha

100% rain forecast haha Can anyone suggest the best clothing (anecdotal) for an event like this? Any tips and tricks, especially for the weather? I'm a n00b. I'll pack extra brake pads A waterproof windbreaker looks like a good idea? Neoprene shoe covers probably? Light?

I have two bikes, both 2016 (Specialized Camber and Stumpjumper). One of the bikes came with an X01 cassette/derailleur/chain/shifter/etc. and the other came with a Shimano 2x10 system. I replaced with X01 system with a GX Eagle - it has been AWESOME. This bike has an XD hub on the rear wheel, so it was possible to do a simple GX Eagle upgrade. Haven't looked back. I've put 2900 km on this bike, everything still works beautifully - and this is after multiple knocks. The LBS says the chain is in excellent condition. The Shimano-based bike (Stumpy) had a Shimano hub on the rear - so it was incompatible with the GX Eagle cassette. I swapped out the Shimano system (which was nearly brand new) with an NX Eagle shifter/derailleur/cassette, which I got on special from CWC for R 3600 I think. That too has been AMAZING, a significant upgrade over the Shimano system the bike came with. The Shimano derailleur says "XT" on it and the shifter says "SLX" on it. I love SRAM. SRAM RAWKS. There's almost no difference in shifting feeling between the NX Eagle and GX Eagle imo. Both are awesome systems (and you can mix and match components). I love riding both of them.

I bought a bike recently - the guy was emigrating and the bike still had his Tygerberg MTB Club board on it. Even though he was leaving the country in two days time he still took the time to hastily remove his TMTBC board - not because he thought he needed it but because he cared about someone unknown cyling on the club's trails with his credentials. I thought that was pretty decent of him. also lol @ UNWANTED GIFT

Haha, yeah, looking forward to it. We planned on doing it sooner but on the day we hired the second bike the Katoomba line had track work on it. I was last in Australia 2 years ago and between then and now there's been a mini-revolution in cycling. Maybe I didn't see it before but this time round you see bicycles and facilities for bicycles everywhere.

Hey SlowManiac, apologies for not responding sooner, I must have gotten distracted. Thanks for the advice. I landed up taking one bike with a view to hiring a second bike for my partner in Sydney and Cairns. So far so good, my Stumpy 29'er has survived the CPT->JHB->SYD->Cairns flights without a scratch wooohooo! I thought I was mad taking a bike with me but I haven't regretted it so far. I'm using an *economical* Chain Reaction Cycles bike bag. I have a Scicon bag, but it exceeds the Qantas height dimensions. So far the CRC bag has been near-perfect. We took the train out to Katoomba and did the Narrow Neck trail - very easy, some light climbs, AWESOME views. The bike we hired in Katoomba was terrible though - Frankenstein; badly resprayed hardtail thing with no back brake and a dodgy groupset - for anyone reading avoid "The Flying Fox" in Katoomba. On a related note: taking the front derailleur off a 2x10 bike does not make a good 1x10 bike We went out a day later to Loftus and then cycled to Waterfall via Lady Carrington's Trail, which was very pretty. So cool taking a bike on the trains haha. This time we hired from a guy in Sydney and he gave us a very fancy 2018 Commençal Meta bike. Jet black with silver text. Huge rotors. Super cool. Highly recommend CranksWagon (Jay). I'm hoping to give the Oakes Fire Trail a go on the way back, which is more downhill apparently. They say "the train is like your ski lift". Just arrived in Cairns, bike's ready to go. Will hopefully try out Smithfield MTB park tomorrow. (Katoomba lookout) (Hired Commencal Meta 2018 under the canopy of Lady Carrington's Trail)

I started doing low carb (not no carb) about 2.5 years ago. I went from 115kg to 85kg. I also had other benefits like no more sugar crashes, no more heartburn and better dental health. Haven't looked back

I have a Wahoo Bolt/Roam, which handles all but one of my sensors (power+cadence, HRM, muscle O2, etc.). The Wahoo, up until today (!) couldn't handle my Garmin Radar, so I also carried a Garmin Edge 25 as a radar display unit. Wahoo literally just added support for radars now, so I can do my next ride without the Edge 25

I don't know why but your Mongoose looks awesome! Clean, and cool rear suspension design.

I bought a used, charity-sale, all-carbon 2009 26" Scott Spark 30, complete with rear remote lockout, for R6k. It still has an ABSA Cape Epic sticker on it from 2012. I have two 29ers too, they're all fun to ride. The 26er is harder to ride, less forgiving, but its a good teacher. I souped it up through the LBS (Eugene/CycleInn) with new shifters, Racing Ralph tyres, a Lynne dropper, a proper saddle, new front chainrings, new cabling, new pivot bearings and CrankBrothers pedals . My bike computer costs more than the bike It rawks

Yeah @ hot. I've been to Cairns before, mostly for diving. I'm going back again for more diving but figured I'd take a bicycle with this time haha. Dive, cycle, dive, cycle MTB in Queensland seems to be heavily controlled in that there are only a few MTB tour operators/hire outlets (seems they're licenced by the government) and they charge a lot for bicycle hire (the equivalent of R 1000 per day). So far good options in QLD seem to be the Smithfield MTB park, Davies Creek and Atherton MTB trails. There's also the Blue Mountains, "near" Sydney, which seem to have some trails. I was just curious if anyone had experience with these areas.

And on that bombshell, wow both Meerendal (Dorstberg) and the top of Contermanskloof (path to the transmitters) were an absolute dream to ride yesterday - so manicured . Thanks TMTBC!

Some time back, when I was very new to the club and MTB in general I rode from Durbanville central and back via the mast and Traverse (I had discovered that a bicycle could do more than 5 km and was pushing it). I wasn't on any of the mailing lists at the time. I had it in my head that sunset was the cut-off time. I rode back via the Traverse, clearly later than I should have been and encountered THE DOGS of BALDOUR, who decided I must die. The lady with them managed to recall them and I shouted a thank you as I quickly departed. I'm now on the mailing lists #confessions

Michael101 is active again under a different username : https://www.bikehub.co.za/user/146322-good-bike-%E2%80%9Cnew%E2%80%9D/

I've been testing bicycle light, computer and GoPro battery runtimes haha Exciting but also scary.