TyronLab

With the Transbaviaans 19 weeks away it was time to start my training in earnest. I've got the endurance portion pretty much under control, but with our goal time of 12 hours I'll need to focus on my climbing speed and consistency a lot. Luckily, I scoped out a great training hill at Thaba the last time I was there. While its only 800m long, it has 90m of vertical ascent, with the last 200m being at 16% average gradient, mostly jeep track with the steep bit paved. Perfect for Fangs and MAC training! I had the rough goal of doing 1000m of elevation gain, so I set out to do 10x reps. What I didn't consider though was that I'd done a moderate roadie ride on Wednesday, a quick roadie ride on Thursday and ran a PB 5k of 25:14 on Friday, so when I woke up on Saturday my legs were pretty stiff already. Thaba's bokkies made the warmup nice and pleasant and kept my spirits high on the way to the climb: And some fun descending gave me the adrenaline shot I needed to get to the climb feeling great: I had never ridden this climb all the way to the top with the steep bit included, and only realised on my first rep that the mix of gradient and stiff legs meant I had to stand and grind it up there.... ten times. I felt good for the first two, OK for the middle six, but absolutely demolished by the last two. I feel sorry for whoever saw me doing the last rep as I was grinding it up there, grunting, hoesing, poeping, swerving, anything but walking. I had a sit down and tried to capture the ascent with this photo. Right at the top, feeling absolutely busted after riding just 30km (with 1000m climbed though). Still a few trails to explore at Thaba, but once again proved to be ridiculous amounts of fun!

There are a few groups that frequent the Bedford loop, the one I used to ride with being Bicycle Line (starts in Benoni). Group I'm riding with now starts in Sunward Park though. BL group is usually pretty big and well attended, with multiple speed groups every morning. Friendly enough, but don't expect anyone to wait for you if you get dropped or have a mechanical, I've been dropped by them on a few occasions and rarely has anyone stopped to help or have me catch back up.

Giving the local roadie groups some hell on the Hulkbuster in roadie mode, all pumped up to 2.1 bar, would you believe. Found a great morning group that starts 2km from my house, at the right time, with a great bunch of guys and gals and a decent mix of easy-goers and racing snakes. Been having oodles of fun in the random intermediate sprints to the next robot or the top of whichever incline we're riding up.

Does this count? It's only got a 120mm fork, but the 3" tyres make it a virtual 135mm bike which is squarely in trail bike territory. Just still needs, nay, demands, a dropper. Also, one day when I'm big I'll own an Evil. I just can't get into coloured grips. I'm all for colour matching (my bottle combo in this pic was forced due to clean bottle availability, bottle game is usually on point, darling) but grips have to be black.

My heart is still pining for that bike... How are you finding the Aggressors and on what IW rims are they mounted / how square are they? I've been considering them for the Stache as a replacement for the 3" rubber. Ideally they'll have less rolling resistance than the Chupacabras (XR2 as they're called now) with a bit more bite for cornering. I've got 46mm IW rims, which are probably too wide for the 2.5" even with the WT casing, which is why I'm asking about the overall shape.

Just... Wow! Stunning pic dude!

If you rode any of the blue trails at Thaba on a rigid ss and didn't walk 99% of them you're a ******* monster that deserves a free beer at every bar he ever visits. Do share more detail about this experience?

Dunno, it had the same little Tour sale board as all of the other Tour sale items. This was in the Boksburg store yesterday though btw. The cashier did call one of the sales guys over and mumbled something, but the board was pretty clear that these shorts were on sale.

Thanks for the tip, will do. I have noticed though, looking from the outside in, that moto guys evidently love looking like sweets store adverts. The general design language is LUMO TEXT SHAPE AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH.

No need to say sorry. I have maintained since my days of riding Moto-X in my teenage years that I would have done a lot better at that and BMX if I just either cared less about my physical wellbeing or could just switch off the "what-if" portion of my brain. I've been afflicted with middle-aged panic since my early teens. If I could find someone to guide / coach me I'd absolutely love to clear one of those dirt jump lines, but as it stands the barrier to entry is ridiculously high and my medical savings account ridiculously low (thanks a lot new adorable baby!).

Wow, those jumps are in great nic! I have a group of dirt jumps less than 2km from my home (anybody that rode BMX in the early 2000s in the Boksburg area knows about the Bokkie Park jumps) that used to be ridden and maintained daily by the local dirtbags. There was either a massive drop in popularity, or the community got involved in getting rid of the "teenage scum" that would hang around there, doing what teenagers do. In any event, they're still there and still seem mostly rideable, but there's no warm-up line. It starts with 5ft and instantly increases to 8ft tall near-vertically lipped gap jumps with short approaches and very little room between them to get yourself set up again. I took a wild tumble there in my youth when I trained a regular into one of the smaller jumps with 0 experience. I still ride past them from time to time, imagining the Hulkbuster sailing through the air, me doing a monstrous whip aboard it before the middle-aged fear of hospitalization kicks in.

Popped by Cyclelab and Sportsman's Warehouse and ended up with: Fox Ranger Lite short for R799 https://www.cyclelab.com/product/fox-men-s-black-ranger-lite-baggy-shorts Capestorm Switchback Tee - R249 from Sportsman's Warehouse https://www.cyclelab.com/product/capestorm-men-s-black-switchback-tee Scott Traction glove - R379 from Cyclelab (slightly different print to this, mostly black) https://www.cyclelab.com/product/glove-lf-scott-traction-grn-orng-f Had a short ride with the new threads yesterday and I'm super happy. T-shirt is well fitted, feels like a quality piece of kit and has a handly little storage pouch on the side. Very well ventilated. Waistband is slightly elasticated which stops the shirt from riding up. Seeing as I would have spent R200 for any t-shirt I'm stoked that I got a cycling-specific, black, well-fitted shirt for that money. I had wanted to get the normal Ranger short, not the lite, but they only had light grey and blue in stock. The Lite still feels plenty durable, nice and stretchy, and the inner kicks ass. Didn't have any issues with the shorts riding down or catching on the saddle and the fit is perfect. Very happy with this as it was the short I originally wanted. I had wanted a pair of Ranger gloves as my previous set has served me really well, but they only had up to M in stock and I'm a ham-fisted orangutan. I even looked at the female-specific ones but even they didn't have my size (I'd totes rock that purple). Ended up with the Scott glove which looks great and feels decent, if very lightweight. Miss the suede snot-wiper (or, according to them, "glass-wiper") and the suede portion in the thumb-to-hand-join area from my ranger gloves. Scotts should work well in summer though as they're super breezy, great if you want to feel like you're riding gloveless. Final verdict TBD. Overall with my 20% Vitality discount at Sportsman's, the Tour sale at Cyclelab and using my R75 MyCycleLife voucher I ended up shelling out R1303 for shorts, shirt and gloves which I think is fair. Lets see how they hold up after my first tumble! Thanks for all the inputs broheems.

Which is why it's called The Hulkbuster!

Thanks man! Green bikes are cooler (its just, like, science...), and I seem to be oddly attracted to buying them. Its not super bright in person due to the satin finish of the paintwork, but its loud enough to get noticed.

First roadie group ride in months. Awesome bunch of guys to ride with, loved having some company and some of the impromptu sprints. Great weather this morning (no warmers, yay!). Off to the trails tomorrow!

Yawza! My last (and only) Bump CD was Bump 4 or Bump 5. I was all up in that peroxided hair, Hawaiian shirt, shark-tooth-necklace jam (I was 13 at the time so totally excusable). You have a deal! It'll be a pretty polarizing experience when I do get down there as I'll either be riding around with: A 380W FTP, 4th place 36One placing, Lycra clad, S-Works Epic riding beast (family member, buddy, and TransBaviaans teammate)A flannel wearing, BMX-for-Argus riding, shredder beast (you) Will all the girls laugh at you if you used a 26er tube (I'll let you ponder which intention of this joke I'm aiming at) Begone heathen, begone! I've had the all-black Fox Ranger ensemble (lets be honest, the créme-de-la-créme of fancy rock 'n roll riding attire) in my cart for a while, but my stingyness refuses me to proceed past the "Chekout" button.

Do you even facetious bro? I should have Comic Sans'd. I was pretty handy back in the moto-x days of my youth, and I was getting there with the help of the dropper on my previous bike, but I'm still some ways away from being able to manual a set of rollers with true style (a-la Blake from GMBN). This new bike needs a dropper, badly, but see initial post in this thread regarding budget. Don't give a flying nutsack what the rest of the trail users think, this is purely a personal choice. There are plenty of matchy-lycra dudes that out-tech me on their worst days and plenty of fancy-biked, fancy-kitted ex-golfers that ride their Santa Cruz's on the trail's access roads more than the actual trail. I need to impress neither of those groups. I'll definitely check out Cape Union Mart though, I used to wear flannel shirts almost exclusively so I'm no stranger to looking like a lumberjack (back when that was the defacto Metalcore-listener attire, along with the Justin-Bieber-before-Justin-Bieber-was-a-thing haircut which I thankfully could never achieve).

See, there's my problem, I need an education in radness as up until a moment ago I thought of throwing shapes as doing this to the tune of a Bump album (remember those?? Is Bump still a thing?): Thanks for all of the inputs guys, keep 'em coming! I'll definitely check out Enjoy as that short seems pretty dope. Other than that, it seems its off to Mr. Price we go! As an aside, I'm happy to carry all of the stuff I generally carry in my jersey pockets on my bike, I'm just not sure what to do with my phone. With my penchant for longer rides and falling over I'm concerned that I'll have an S9-shaped hole in my leg and a broken screen in short order if I keep it in my pants.

I'm transitioning more and more into the trail / enduro (if you could call anything Enduro in GP) side of riding, and as a result I'm looking at getting some new kit to offer me a bit more protection from flora and my weekly meetings the ground (I love me a good front-wheel washout!). I'm currently using: Old bib shortFitted lycra road/XC type shirtNormal casual cargo short over bib While this doesn't work too bad, there are a few annoyances with this setup. The cargo short gets soaked with sweat pretty quickly that doesn't want to evaporate and rides down continuously as I transition between sitting and standing. Also, the toight XC shirt looks a bit dof with the baggy short and is pretty flimsy (easily gets caught on branches / shrubbery and offers no protection). Now, I've been scouring online shops and bike shops, but can't justify spending R1200+ on a short and shirt that I wear once / twice a week (****, I can't justify it even if I wore it every bloody day), that is most likely going to get damaged / dirt stained pretty quickly. Any suggestions on cheap alternatives to "proper" mtb kit? I've got a few pairs of bibs that I'm happy to wear with a second layer of clothing on top, so don't need to really worry about shorts being padded. Open to suggestions / opinions. TL:DR How do you look like this: With a budget of this:

Great pic! Is it just the angle of the photo or are your bars angled downward? I have a buddy that's set up like that and my wrists hurt just looking at him riding.

First ride with friends in months. Had an absolutely awesome time giving the roadies some grief on the Hulkbuster on one of the hillier routes you can ride in our area. The banter and jokes, perfect weather, and messing around on one another's bikes all came together as one of my best rides ever. Had a go on a friend's GT Grade gravel bike, and couldn't believe the difference it made in comparison to my Stache climbing up Edenvale's main road. I set my 2nd fastest time while not really pushing hard. That just gave me more fuel when I was back on my bike and pushing them up Linksfield and Sylvia's pass . I even lycra'd up in my matching Build It kit for the occasion! I just realised that we're either the beginning of a bad joke or a snapshot of the "Rainbow Nation" (sans non-penis-owner). So a boertjie, a coloured, a Zulu and a Portuguese dude walk into a bar...

I had the funniest mental picture of a new female bike rider, white tekkies, helmet tilted too far back, retired gym outfit on, nervously twitching up a hill at 50rpm and a Savage-clad roadie blasting away from her shouting "HAMMER HAMMER HAMMER!"

I'm also chomping at the bit for that. Daugther's only 4 so still working up to it but seems to have radness bred into her (don't know from where). She tried to ramp a driveway kerb the other day by just going full pelt and smashing into it. Unfortunately misjudged it and ended up ramming into the pavement kerb. Bail, scraped knee and tears obviously ensued (as expected), but what I didn't expect was that she got back on her bike while still sobbing quite vigorously and kept on riding, stukkend knee and all, without me prompting her. I nearly shed a tear out of pride! She maybe inherited my lack of balance and general coordination, but it seems she got some toughness along with it (I'm hoping that's also from me).

In my personal experience, its about compromise and being considerate. I try to be home by 10:30 / 11:00 latest on weekend rides to be able to spend time with my family when they're actually awake, and gauge my start time accordingly. Generally this means getting going at 04:00/04:30, so as to not be an inconsiderate jackass I lay out all of my kit in the bathroom the night before so that I can get dressed without waking my wife. This is also a little mental-ninja for me as on the occasion I wake up and am not lus I know I already went through the effort to get my kit ready, might as well get up. Its also the quietest time on the roads and trails. It also allows me to get home stuff done and help with the kiddos the rest of the weekend. Everybody wins with that small time compromise. It surprises me how many guys think I'm "forced" to do these things. Why the hell did you get married and have a family if you don't want to spend time with them? The best time to do this is on a weekend as everyone's at home and happy. That's why it baffles me when guys don't get it that I don't want to ride to some coffee shop and have brunch with a bunch of semi-rando's for 45min before riding home. Or they just don't want to wake up early so rather spend an entire waking day at a trail having a dawdle and a chat. I happily married to a strong, independent woman that don't take no crap, and yet we've had minimal to no ructions about cycling and its related time and expenses. Maybe I'm just lucky and/or antisocial?

I'm sorry, I can't get over how incredibly dope that paisley print, Chinese-collared blouse of his is. Might be the next trend in Endurobro fashion to replace the tank / flannel combo.