TyronLab

Chapter Five The calm before the storm The soft crackle and grind of rubber tyres rolling over gravel, a sound I’ve luckily always found soothing, was the background music to the arithmetic that was going through my head. My original idea was to have a quick power nap at WP2, get to race village 1 early on Saturday, have a good 3-4 hour sleep and be out of there by midday. Half the distance, half the allotted time spent, leaving well rested and ready to tackle the seemingly flatter second half of the course. I could manage 12.5km/h with one leg while reading a newspaper, I thought. As solid a plan if ever there was one. That plan, evidently, was no longer on the cards, but the roads were playing along for a change. This is, as good a place as any, to discuss the route, and its surfaces, for those misguidedly looking for some advice amongst these words. While it may seem obvious, it is worth remembering that five hundred kilometers is, to put it bluntly, a moer of a long distance. One of the most under-appreciated aspects of South Africa is that, should you point your compass in any direction and travel 500km you will undoubtedly end up somewhere that looks vastly different from whence you had come. This is evident in the variety the Munga Grit’s route serves up. You get to experience a wide gamut of surface types, textures and gradients. Twisty singletrack. Farm borders where the path you follow is only differentiated from raw veld by the incessant compression of tractor tyres. A smattering of the Cradle’s pristine paved roads. And finally, gravel roads. Lots and lots and lots and lots of gravel roads. You’ll bounce over chunky, rocky, bone crunching mountainsides, better suited to the rolling rubber noise factories strapped to the underside of mall-bound Jeep Wranglers than bicycle tyres. You’ll glide along silky dirt highways that seem to flow like brown rivers over the undulating countryside. You’ll criss cross left to right like a drunken sailor looking for that elusive smooth strip amongst the jarring corrugations. Brown, grey, and green gravel, rainbow-coloured shale gravel, pebbles, mud, standing water. There’s a surface perfectly suited to every type of bike from svelte carbon road bike to a burly bruiser downhill bike. Ride what you have. It’ll suck in some bits and it’ll be great in others regardless of which steed you bring. The ride to RV1 was thankfully of the dirt highway variety and mostly uneventful which helped me keep an average moving speed north of my target. I had realised that the speed I could travel at was a function of the road’s condition more than anything else. On my bike, I was playing by the road’s rules, not the other way around. I was feeling awake (enough) when I rolled into RV1, so I would skip the nap, spend a bit of time having a good meal, getting my cooked rear brake pads replaced, charging my light batteries and attempting to still skidaddle by midday. I had a slight hiccup when the magic smoke left one of my battery chargers, accompanied by a bang that startled the whole RV crew. “Nevermind” I thought, “should be fine, my lights should last even with one charged battery”. I left RV1 marginally ahead of the cutoff marker. The time I’d lost to the muddy bog that morning would be sacrificed from my sleeping time, but that concession meant that I was still mostly on plan, if a little worse for wear. The sun was out, there was a cool spring breeze at my back, and a few kilometers of tar road leaving RV1 would mean I could give my appendages a break while still making steady progress. WP3 was luckily only 62km away, a comparative stone throw, but within those 62km lay the most physically demanding bit of riding of the entire course, the much-agonized-over 18km climb. Interestingly, the infamous 18km climb was probably my favourite bit of riding of the entire route. It was a rollercoaster of steep, shale-covered climbs littered with square-edged rocks jutting out of the gravel, seemingly designed by mother nature for the sole purpose of causing pinch flats, and blisteringly fast, smooth descents. This rollercoaster weaved its way through lush farmland, flower-filled meadows and bubbling streams. It was the stuff gravel bike commercials were made of. I was in a groove, the miles were steadily ticking away, and I had started to find some rhythmic zen after the staccato barrage of the first half, arriving at WP3 just after sunset feeling optimistic, although mildly concerned. One of the ascents on the 18km climb What the Munga does so well is force you into a situation that is so far removed from your normal day-to-day experience of life that you’re hopelessly unaware of how unprepared you are, regardless of how anal your plans or detailed your Excel spreadsheet(s) were beforehand. The “unknown unknowns” as CarloG put it. When’s the last time you had to charge your light battery during a ride? Or find a place to sleep at the side of the road? Or have to shove marmite sarmies into your back pockets to fuel the next seven hours of riding? During a Munga those situations, and your lack of planning for them, becomes face-palming-ly apparent.

Chapter four Dragons = Mud When I finally stumbled into WP2 in the early hours of Saturday morning I was physically and mentally spent. Nine hours had passed since I had left WP1 in great spirits, and the Grit’s next gut punch had come in the form of deep, gelatinous, all-enveloping mud straight from the bowels of hell. Initially it was a bit of spray, a few wobbly crossings, and Bob’s your uncle you’d be out the other side. But as the rain continued so the puddles turned to dams, which turned to marshes. The wobbly crossings became more wayward, the depth you’d sink in became unrideable, and before long we were all resigned to walking after taking an unpreventable dip into one of the aforementioned marshes. While I was thankful when the rain stopped, this caused the marshes to turn from sloppy to sticky. So sticky that I couldn’t push my bike more than a few meters at a time before both wheels would lock up completely. This would then need to be cleared out with a MudStick™ (I considered hoarding and selling these to passers by at a stage as it took me some experimentation to find the perfect MudStick™) before you could carry on moving. There’s a bike under there, somewhere Push, clog, MudStick™… Push, clog, MudStick™… scream into the void… Push, clog, MudStick™… This agonizing cycle repeated itself for hours, granting me disappointingly little progress for the effort I was putting in. My average speed plummeted, and after hours of demoralizing struggle the sight of the two Munga Grit yellow flags outside WP2 finally beckoned. As the gracious host at WP2 handed me a warm, moist towel and a freshly air-fried mince vetkoek I immediately flopped into the chair nearest to the crackling fire and attempted to update my wife with a voice note. I abandoned the first two attempts as every time I’d start recording, tears would well up and I wouldn’t be able to mumble out two words. Some of the other riders there had pulled out of the race already, due to failures of either the mechanical, sense of humour, or stubbornness variety. After scoffing down more vetkoeks, two Super Ms, a banana, and fistfuls of biltong I waddled to the closest bed, peeled off my shoes and socks, and proceeded to oversleep my 45min timer by an hour. Even though this was not part of the plan, I had desperately needed it and felt at least somewhat reinvigorated once I finally got up. Well, as reinvigorated as you can be after having the worst mud hosed off of you and having struggled for twenty minutes with a stripped frame bag zip. “The worst is now behind me” I ignorantly thought as I rolled out of WP2. “I’m somewhat clean, I can pedal my bike again, my tummy is full and the sun is theoretically rising behind the clouds”. Two hundred meters down the road from WP2 I unknowingly made a slight navigation error, as many others had before me judging by the number of tyre ruts in the mud. The purple route line I had been religiously following on the GPS thus far indicated a sharp left turn. Little did I know that this muddy bog I believed I was required to turn into to follow that purple line ran parallel to a fresh, solid gravel road just five meters from it. Crucially however, these two paths were split by a three meter tall fence. A few meters into the bog the push, clog, MudStick™ cycle had restarted, and continued for 2.5km until I reached the point where the fence I was following was met by another fence. It was at this moment that it dawned on me that I was ever so slightly to the left of that purple line, which was indicating I needed to proceed ad infinitum in my current heading. Unless climbing the said three meter fence was part of Mr. Harris’ sadistic plan, I was on the wrong path. I considered climbing the fence with my bike slung cyclocross-style over my shoulder. I considered just trying to huck it over the fence. I even considered taking inspiration from the warthogs I’d seen the previous day and tunneling under the fence. In the end the only option I really had was to retrace my steps, trudge back through that brown bile the earth had belched up, and go around that bastard fence. An hour and forty five minutes had been wasted on this slight miscalculation with effectively zero progress made, and had put me right back in the defeated mental and physical state I had entered WP2 in hours ago. As I returned to the point I had made the wrong turn I was faced with a literal crossroads. To my right I could still see the yellow flags of WP2, and knew that just beyond them was everything I needed to silence the screams from my basic instincts. All I needed to do was take a short stroll and all my troubles would melt away. No more cold. No more wet feet. No more wading through what I imagine Satan’s underpants would like after he’d had an expired curry. To my left, the remaining two-thirds of this journey, which held no promise of letting up on the pain throttle. I was cold, everything was covered in mud, I was behind schedule and I was toast. I had hit my lowest mental point. This was it. Rock bottom. Standing there, at that crossroads, I had a good, hard, ugly sob. Why was I sobbing? Because it was hard? Most certainly it was, but that wasn’t reason enough. Because I didn’t want to disappoint my family? Partly, even though they had been nothing but supportive of my batshit crazy decision to take on this adventure. No, I was crying like a heartbroken teenager because all of the superfluous, pampered, overstocked and overindulged luxury and remoteness of modern life had been stripped from me. There was no one to blame, no one to delegate to, no one to ask for help and no one to whine to about how unfair it all was. It was just me, standing there in the mud, raw. It was real. It was right here, it was right now, and it was entirely in my control. The dragon was standing over me, snarling. I rolled onto that smooth gravel road a few minutes later, yellow flags at my back, having realised that throwing in the towel was never going to be an option. No matter what lay ahead of me, it couldn’t be worse than knowing that when I was put on the spot, when my mettle was well and truly tested, that I had chosen the shortcut. The easy way out. The dragon had been slain, the pedals were turning once more, and the chase to catch the cutoff marker was now officially on.

Chapter Three A hooligan without a cause Race day had rolled around even sooner than I anticipated and before I could re-check my Excel spreadsheet for the twelfth time, Mr. Harris was staring at all 120 of us and proclaiming, with an unnerving twinkle in his eye, “Here be dragons”. One rushed breakfast later and we were all huddled together in the start chute. Any World War II movie that depicted the D-Day beach landings (Saving Private Ryan is a prime example) would be a worthy parallel to the palpable tension, sense of impending doom, and nervous excitement for those that were unhinged. We were those poor souls on those claustrophobic landing crafts, minus the death and screaming Germans thankfully. I got a number of odd looks aboard Thunderhorse (my bike’s name if you were wondering, every bike worth its salt has a name). Even before the starting gun I had heard from my fellow riders (as I would many times during the ride) “isn’t your bum going to hurt?”, “that thing doesn’t have any suspension?” and “jirre look at those tiny tyres”. As we set off I ran through my laughably simple plan again. “Just average 12.5km/h while you’re moving, and you’ll have ten whole hours in which to sleep, eat, poop, faff etc. before the 50 hour cutoff” I reiterated to myself. “If you feel up to it, go a little quicker, but don’t push, you’re only racing yourself and that little green bastard cutoff logo”. It was at this point, barely into the double digits of this ride, that the first spanner had been flung by the Munga, and my gusto had graciously accepted said spanner into its works by not sticking to my own plan. On one of the first proper descents I had realised that I could give my average speed a much-needed increase by tapping into my inner hooligan and giving it the beans. The fact that I was overtaking some serious dual-suspension machinery with relatively little effort quickly added some fuel to my easily ignited adrenaline fire. Descent done, riding high on the dopamine injection, I was quickly dealt my first gut punch by a fellow rider that flagged me down, telling me I had lost the bottle out of my seatpost bottle cage (which had only been installed and tested on ride Numero Dos) some 5km ago at the start of the descent. Thankfully after only climbing ~2km back up the descent, now riding alone, one of the medic vehicles provided me with one of the numerous bottles they had picked up on said descent. To whomever lost their yellow Powerbar bottle, know that it may have saved my life, and I’m sure the universe will be repaying you in kind soon enough. Where the road ends, the fun begins The first 75km up to WP1 went by without much fuss as I settled into a decent rhythm, with the exception of one punishingly steep climb that revealed my bike’s primary weakness. It wasn’t the fact that I didn’t have suspension, that just meant that where the dual-sussers could ride anywhere and over anything while sitting down I had to be a lot more active and calculated in my line choice, piling on more fatigue. It wasn’t the fact that I had smaller, less grippy tyres, that was balanced out by having some decent technique and having a solid helping of cement for breakfast. It was the gearing. With a 42/42 granny gear I had to get out of the saddle and grind out every climb over 4% at a knee-seizing 60rpm to try and keep my effort level controlled. Conversely, those with mountain bikes with a 32/50 ratio could sit and spin up those same climbs. While this meant that I could still pedal at 40+km/h without running out of gears, those opportunities were rare enough that if I had to change a single thing to my bike, it’d be a smaller chainring up front. Be that as it may, I managed to ride most of the climbs and hiked those I couldn’t. Lesson learnt, get on with it. (Frankly, I’m just as surprised as you are that some practical advice has emerged from this). I was feeling positive, I was having a blast, the road conditions were mostly easy gravel roads in acceptable condition and I was ahead of my target average moving speed. It was between WP1 and WP2 (75km and 187km) however where the second, and arguably hardest, gut punch would be dealt by the Grit. This would be the longest single stretch between feed stops on the route, it would be mostly in the dark, and the rain had started to fall with increasing consistency. If you had to ask any competitor what the hardest part of this entire experience was I would wager the overwhelming majority would glare at you with a tinge of PTSD in their eyes and simply state; “the mud”.

Chapter Two No good story ends with “...and then everything went exactly to plan”. I want to give some context as to why the optimist deserved the slap. My only bike was a rigid, steel-framed 650B gravel bike. I had been riding exclusively for fun since January’s cancellation of this year’s Transbaviaans, not having ridden a triple digit distance (road or otherwise) in one go since then. I owned no on-bike storage other than two bottle cages. To say I was physically and logistically ill-prepared for what lay ahead would be a gross understatement of the situation. Yet, knowing that life had given me a great set of lemons (ahem) I realised that this, this was the time to get to making lemonade. So, with some parts old, some parts new, some parts borrowed and some parts bought on a Takealot special, I embarked on two preparatory rides. One to test the bike and bum, the other to test the paraphernalia that I had just bolted to said bike. I wanted to at least know that the bike and I could still manage a moderate pace, on a rough 5hr off-road ride, and not spontaneously combust. So I did that on prep-ride Numero Uno. I had also wanted to at least know how to work the borrowed GPS, what the mechanics of navigating with it was, and how my already substantial bike handled with 8kg of Outdoor Warehouse bolted, strapped and cable-tied to it. So I did that on the road based prep-ride Numero Dos. That’s it. If you’re looking for an extensive guide on training, nutrition, packing, bike-setup and handling advice you’ve come to the wrong saloon, compadre. Here the plans are made up and the points don’t matter. To advise anyone to follow my lead would be borderline unethical. Thunderhorse in Munga “ready” guise. With that being said, some part of me believes that this reflects one fundamental truth; the weakest link in the chain between the start and finish Portals is, more often than not, the willingness of the meat bag between the pedals and the handlebars to keep on keeping on. I’m not discounting catastrophic mechanicals (more on those later) forcing you to be added to the dreaded list of scratched riders. Maybe I was just lucky? I do however know that, unless both my wheels turned into molten gloop, this boer was making some plan to drag himself and his bike over that finishing Portal. I mean, I had packed four cable ties, what could really go that wrong that it can’t be fixed by four cable ties?

Chapter One Origins My interest in Ultra-distance cycling started not through my conscious instigation, and I’m certain in no small part due to Google understanding my inner workings better than I would care, or want, to know. As if by some cosmic fluke, within five months of buying my first big-boy mountain bike I had completed a 947 and was entered into the following year’s Transbaviaans. Hardly the vision I had, after watching hours of full-face-helmeted maniacs rip down Canadian mountains, when I had bought that first bike as a “cheaper” way to fill the motocross-bike-sized hole I had in my tail whipping heart. Yet I came, and saw, and conquered that first ‘Baviaans, even though its 227km had, mere weeks before, still seemed as insurmountable as the mountain the route crossed. I had for the first time in my life really extended the boundary of what I thought I was capable of. In preparation for climbing the aforementioned mountain I had been exposed to ultra cycling in my periphery. Images of strung-out, mismatched masochists carrying most of the Outdoor Warehouse on their bikes. Tales of rides orders of magnitude larger and longer than I thought in the realm of possibility outside of stringy drug addicts zinging up mountains every summer in France for a yellow jersey. Diving into this rabbit hole I had discovered, and was instantly ensnared, by Carlo Gonzaga’s brilliantly captured preparation, and eventual conquering, of his first full-fat Munga. It also introduced me to Mike Woolnough, who I had the honour of meeting during my Grit, and his encyclopedia of ultra-cycling knowledge. Should this… whatever it is… bear any resemblance to those fine works, I would not only see it as a form of undue flattery, but as evidence to those authors that their writings had been echoing in my mind throughout my own Munga journey. After committing those insightful and entertaining paragraphs to memory I had given myself a guilt free, excuse filled goal. “One day, when I can afford the entry, and the right kit, and the right bike, and the kids are bigger and I have time to train, maybe I’ll try this Munga thing out”. That “one day” came two weeks before this Grit, when a family member casually asked whether I knew about some race happening in The Cradle in October. Their company had received a sponsored entry, so they were looking for a rider. She knew I rode bikes, would I like the entry? The optimist in me had already sent the “I’M IN!!!!” reply before the realist in me had a chance to slap him on the back of the head. Yup, that’s a PVC frame keeping that poor soul’s head up during the 4,800km Race Across America

Introduction The End of the life you once knew. "Don't come early" I voice note my wife in a defeated but accepting tone as I trundle out of waterpoint four just before eight o’clock on Sunday morning. 409km from the starting Portal and, more to the point, 104km from returning to that same Portal now repurposed as a finish line. My battered mind had managed the rudimentary sums and had read, and re-read, the writing on the wall. Even at my initial goal moving speed of 12.5km/h I still had eight-and-some-change hours to pedal. That meant barely getting to RV2 by the time Mr. Harris had hung his last medal, shook his last hand, and had sounded the death knell to the hopes of those still on the course, mine included. "Get here at two. I'll probably be arriving in the sweeper vehicle after that. No need to sit here and wait for nothing. Love you three lots.” I sign off as I bump and grind my way up the barely used cattle track leaving the waterpoint. It, as with many of the features of the Munga Grit, can’t be sufficiently described unless you’re in the thick of it. It’s just a few lumps of grass. It’s just a path through cow dung reluctantly cut by the riders preceding me. It’s just a mild upward grade. Taken in isolation these are just barely inconvenient to even a modest weekend warrior. However, place them all in parallel, and have this situation be only the most recent episode in the season of gauntlets, seemingly placed by design to be directly adjacent to every “resting” point, and these inconveniences quickly add up to a blunt but effective punch to the gut. What makes this experience so special though is that, after every devastating blow, it stands back and opens its palm, giving you a “let’s see what you’ve got” gesture so perfectly embodied by every cheesy Kung-Fu flick villain. It gives you that opportunity, that chance for a perfectly timed parry, around every corner and every muddy bog. Taking it, though, that’s up to you.

I'll be attempting a @Carlog inspired ride report on this, but needless to say it was a life-alteringly tough challenge. Scraped by with a 49h42m finish time. Only 67 of the 120 starters finished

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated! I'm definitely not unaware that there's a mammoth task ahead of me and that I'm going to be in the deepest hurt locker I've ever been in. Luckily, that still sounds like fun! I only have the gravel bike at the moment, so I'll be throwing on a 48mm rear tyre to match the front one for a bit more cush, and a wider gravel bar for some more hand position options. Other than that, a saddle and top-tube bag, two extra bottle cage mounts (going to be using the luggage rack space on the fork for those), power bank and a spare light battery are what I'm planning on procuring. Oh, and borrowing a proper cycling GPS from a friend.

So I've been offered an entry into the Munga Grit Cradle 2021 by a friend who has a sponsored position open. Now, I've been threatening to enter this race since it was announced as I'd love to do it, hoping that it'd push me to enter the full fat Munga, but funds for the entry haven't been on my side so far. So I'm super excited about this opportunity, but I'm not exactly trained to peak fitness at the moment and its two weeks away. I can probably go out and do a 100km gravel ride with some mild/easy climbing in 5 or less hours or do a 2h45m Suikerbosrand loop at this stage for some context. I wouldn't be looking at getting onto the podium, just finishing (even looking like death at 49hr59m, I don't mind). I've completed a Transbaviaans before (with a very unfit teammate) in 18hr. According to Intervals.icu I was at a prak of 45 fitness then, 37 before the race, and I'm at 30 now. People generally consider me a relatively tough SOB (with a hairy 13 year old's face). I also only have a gravel bike at this stage (a Rook Scout) that I've slapped some 48mm wide GravelKings onto and converted to tubeless. So, to the questions / advice from those with maybe some more experience: Am I mad for even considering this at my current fitness? How possible is this ride on a gravel bike? Keep in mind I ride a lot of MTB trails on my gravel bike so I'm used to pushing it out of its intended scope. What are the basic supplies/equipment I need to consider? I already have some Trans ready lights, probably need to slap a bottle cage or two extra to the scout. Pretty sure with some charging at race villages I could stretch my 735xt watch to do the whole race, and I'd probably use my phone for navigation. Can borrow a prpper Garmin cycling computer if need be. Any comments/suggestions/advice would be appreciated!

You can get these for R50 at Decathlon, and they work a treat. What's more, they have guide indentations that you can use to bend the "wings" down. Makes them contour to the fork nicely, and makes the horizontal piece flat and not round. Looks lekker! So lekker that I even added one to my gravel bike (with a bit of custom trimming). A bit of moto is always welcome.

Well done dude! That's a proper time up there. I usually take it easy up to the first pitch up (~30m before the boom on the first sharp right turn) and I've managed a 6:15 PB up there on the Hulkbuster which was, coincidentally, also yesterday. If ever there was a place I wish I had a skinny carbon road bike under me it's climbing up there! It's a pretty relentless hill but always a bunch of fun. The photo op halfway up is the GP equivalent to the ever-present Chappies stop photo for the WC guys. If you're a cyclist and you've ridden up there you must have taken at least one photo there. Exhibit A and B from yesterday: EDIT: Looking at it now, the bright red kit with the bright green bike makes me look like either a watermelon or Santa, weight dependent.

Man that thing is awesome! I'm yet to see an Evil that I don't love. Managed to find a bargain at Cyclelab this weekend. Was in there to buy a chain, ended up walking out with a smidge more than I bargained for . I'd been wanting to try something a little more svelte but aggressively knobbed, and as it happened they had ordered some 2.6 e-Agarro's for someone with an ebike, but hadn't had much interest in them otherwise. After a quick google I found that the e-Agarro and the normal Agarro are pretty much identical. I still asked for the discount from the R699 asking price, but the sales guy dejectedly told me that they hadn't marked them up right and they were being let go at cost basically (should have been R1400 a tyre). Let's see how they run on the stock 46mm rims. Profile still seems round enough, lets see how it goes when it tastes dirt! The Hulkbuster is now leaner (in profile at least, weight is unchanged by my gram-accurate saddle lift) and meaner. Also, I'm rather fond of the green lightning bolt on the tyre that matches my bike... Before: After:

Drivetrain be damned, those types of super wet and muddy rides oftentimes end up as the most fun. Treating your bike like a 4x4, seeing what you can manage to ride through / over, so much fun!

If they space out the start and don't have a bunch start I see the Trans as being dangerous health wise, well, for the 90% not racing and just riding to the finish. What I'm concerned about though is making the trip down to PE, and being told hard lockdown has started and I'm stuck away from my family in JHB. It sucks as my training's been going well, but the greater good and health of the society has to prevail.

I need that Castle water bottle in my life.

That looks like the little waterfall at the start of Modders (ahem, Taroko..)? I'm keen to head out there this weekend. What's the trail's condition like? After the heavy rains it must've been a bit slip 'n slidey on a gravel bike...

To Suikerbosrand for a bit of wind, drizzle, and tempo/threshold climbing. While I'm not totally cooked, I'm definitely medium rare. The toughest part of the double loop is the knowledge, while riding the first loop, that you're going to have to do every climb again. Pretty proud of myself pushing the Hulkbuster around that place in 2h44 solo. When the event organizer saw me and my bike he did a double take, looked at the other waify-carbon-aero-helmet attendees, and gave me a "Seriously? Sheim" look. This grass is generally supposed to stick straight up out of the ground. "Maagies in, wys die tande, en maak darm of jy oraait is."

Glad to report back that I survived, and actually surprised myself a bit. It was luckily quite cool and overcast, few spots of light drizzle, which at least made the heat a non-issue. BUT, the wind..... Man oh man, that wind. Luckily it being a circular route it balanced out somewhat, but the portion with the rollers after the climb from the parking lot was horrendous. Coming down the Mineshaft I was pedaling to keep at 40kph. Still, managed to take 16min off of my previous best time (which was on a much more efficient bike, and with a push up the Scorpion road climb) and did the first loop in 2h44. Started cramping a bit 20km into the second loop so slowed down a bit, but managed to finish pretty strong. The group I was riding with were all maer dudes on maerder bikes, so I got dropped on the way to SBR and was solo for the whole ride basically. Deffo going back for a proper double loop (think I could have managed it with this ride, but 6h15m of riding seemed like plenty for the day).

Anyone riding the TCN Hillclimb challenge tomorrow? single loop, and double loop from the Circus, full loop, then a big loop, back to Circus. ~129km with 2300m climbing. If anyone else is riding the double loop, I'll see you there tomorrow! First time in a while at SBR, first time attempting more than one loop. Using it as a gauge of my fitness for 'Baviaans in January (if our Eastern Cape brethren stop coughing on each other and it actually happens that is).

I don't know what's shorter, die broeke of die kouse. Siesa!

Ja nee, we were there last year too where my brother-in-law bonked hard on the first fang, so I ended up sympathy-walking a lot from there, and the whole way up the MAC, until he and two others out of our 6-person group retired. We had the last rays of sunlight at Langwater, and were in total darkness from there. So I got to really experience a lot of the kloof in detail in the day hiking, and a whole lot of pitch blackness. A change is as good as a holiday, so I'm excited about the new timeslots. We're staying in Willowmore, so will most likely jump in the 5am start. Interesting thing is that we should be in the thick of the climbing when the day's at its hottest (hoping for a 12hr finish). The thing about this, and training for a goal time, is that its so far outside of a normal ride that you struggle to gauge whether you're fit / strong enough. Lets hope I'm doing enough!

Anybody doing the SBR double loop "race" thingy on the 28th? I'm pretty excited about it. Only ever done single loops, and always with someone who bonked prior to the last big climb (or, in one instance, being the guy who bonked), so excited to see what its like when I can go at my own pace. Out of interest, what's the yearly permit at Thaba NSBB? I've fallen very much in love with that place, and having a yearly sub might save me some dosh.

That first image gives me flashbacks of the MAC in the Transbaviaans. Except by the time we got there it was the middle of the night and freezing.

I think the paint job kinda spoils it. The red's a bit much, especially with so much gold (ahem, Kashima) on the rest of it. While that's cool and all, it's not really impressive. The engineering behind the individual parts is impressive, that's for sure. But there's no skill in buying a bunch of expensive parts and bolting them on. With that being said, I don't know why, but I need rope spokes in my life. Maybe its just jealousy as my dik gat would break the axle spindle off with the first pedal stroke (I am 3kg over the weight limit).

Went and got a voluntary ass-kicking at Thaba yesterday. Managed to ride up the brick road on the Twin Tower climb seated, which I didn't manage previously. Also smashed a bunch of PRs on the downs, but I'm pretty sore from my shoulders to my pinkies today. I'm starting to get more comfortable with this bike on the descents, and have realised it has a lot more headroom than my skillset allows. Just let the brakes go, don't manhandle it, and just let the monster truck bounce and ping and drift all over the show. It's the Motley Crue of bikes, rowdily hurtling forwards in a very loud, very rough, semi-out-of-control fashion unexpectedly quickly. So, this https://youtu.be/NrOemQaEJGU but with bicycles. Still haven't explored all of the blue routes, but I've covered probably 70% of them. This photo doesn't do it justice, but this is a super tough little sharp climb (which are littered all over the blue trails). So tough but so much fun! And in Jozi, even our mtb trails have traffic.