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i just wonder how a 120mm bike even with lock out is working for the Nino. As for this track - really hard but very smooth. I'd like to see XCO raced on more gnarly tracks - you know as rough as the Tokai jeep track where the rocks are sticking out. You could use a gravel bike on most of the track bar the slithery descents which are bum puckering.

A rather inauspicious first race for the new Scott bike... wonder if we will see Schurter back on his old bike in France?

That was a deserving win that had me cheering. He took it easier up top and had more gas for the bottom. Clever racing. Deprela is a bit too young but he will get there unless he breaks himself too many times along the way...

Live timing of qualification is available on the UCI website. Junior men are at it now...

Weirdly I have big blank spaces on my browser where you guys have posted videos... Track looks wicked. I suspect the racers will be better equipped to deal with it than at worlds and hopefully it wont be quite as slithery on race day. That second stump section is going to see lots of fails too.

Ya, hurry and get your teams in, they left it very late with the PB league...

Scott bought Bold and have taken on their idea of an internal shock. It looks cool but is it as easy to work on as an exposed shock? 120 travel and low BB - they've gone upduro with this one.

I am enjoying the Assegai up front on my Enduro. It rolls surprisingly fast and as I may have said in my previous post, its almost as if it isn't there. I was thinking about this the other day. The MM gives feedback - i.e you can almost feel the knobs biting into the dirt which I like. The Assegai just does its thing without that much feedback. It may just be the fact that my MM was on a different bike and I haven't been able to compare it with the Assegai on my current bike, but either way, I'm very happy with it as a front tyre.

And Nino will not still be winning races at 40, like Greg is going to ????

The OP asked about entry level HT bikes not the latest LIV super carbon geo tuned stuff. Just to get the thread back on track and put my initial comment in perspective. *I am married to a woman and have some experience in sorting out bike fit for her. Most bikes, especially cheap ones will need adjustment, be it to bar height, stem length, seat shape and width.

Yes, when it suites me.

I think you actually need to look at data. In the first world, bike prices have not shot up because of Covid. Yes there are shortages and perhaps second hand bikes are now more sought after. You now get a far better bike for the same or less money than you did 10 years ago in the USA or Canada when prices are inflation adjusted. Pinkbike did a comparison a week or so back. SA is a skewed third world market that is heavily influenced by currency fluctuations and possibly price gouging by retailers. Would be interesting if any industry insiders can comment on mark ups on new bikes.

There is very little to be gained, if anything with a women's specific bike at this level. Just make sure the bike fits her and is fit for purpose.

I saw some people complaining on STRAVA re the very slow eBikers getting in their way on the fun DH single track at Tokai this weekend. And here is one of those things we need to get used to - even more barely competent riders on the mountain who are now able, with the benefit of 250 watts, to make it up the mountain, only to be going very slowly back down. R150k and 250 watts does not a competent rider make. ????

Impact with what - a car? FFS

IMO - Unfortunately, the solution is going to be very hard to achieve. The issue is not that they don't listen. They do, but then proposals are ignored and nothing happens. The reason is that as it is structured, SANP is not really capable of swift decisive action or practical concrete actions that would not only generate revenue but goodwill as well. SANP is not geared at running a large urban park like TMNP. They want to run it like a game park and the solution requires them not to run it like that for the most part.

You're a humorous fellow. Keep up your crusade, its the only one here. (*placing reliance on "journalism" like N24 to get the picture is like believing the ANC is getting tough on corruption)

But I also think you're making things up. What "escalation and continual antagonism" are you referring to? This incident happened a year or more after Dlamini and there are not daily reports of antagonism or incidents between rangers and cyclists. Do you even ride or hike on Table mountain?

I also noticed that while riding up there a while back. weird. From a FB comment it sounds like the Cork Tree rock smashers have been at work elsewhere on the trail below the Cecilia parking lot. Anyone have a spare game camera we can install in a tree to catch these morons at it?

Quite so. The Dlamini incident has probably led to more aggressive behaviour from visitors towards rangers I suspect.

Thanks for the pic uploads Tim Brink. It is bizarre that someone actually believes that this kind of vandalism is okay in the name of trail building. The main rock garden line has been largely neutralized - almost zero skill required now. How do people ever progress their riding if some idjuts dumb a trail down to make it easier in a ay that permanently alters it? BTW SANP have confirmed that they did not authorize, pay for, or do this themselves.

The reason people are frustrated is because , well you know SANP. lest we forget- The work they are undertaking is relatively minor in the bigger scheme of things. The jeep tracks are fine and that's just about all there is to cycle on there anyway. There is some danger from falling trees but tracks under the trees in question could be closed off rather than the whole area. if someone then got a tree on their head it would be their fault, just as it will be now if people transgress. People are gat vol of the government and other money sapping government organizations like SANP regulating their lives in ways that make little sense. ( think bizarre lock down regulations and a closure of many weeks for TM when a few weeks should be sufficient) Added to this is a perception that SANP have been very bad at managing the park, milking it but spending as little as possible and that they permitted this fire to occur through poor management and clearing. By way of example: Jonkers burned to the ground a few months ago and was partially open within 2-3 weeks if I recall. There is an element of paranoia about SANP's closure of fire ravaged areas. When it came to Tokai we were only allowed back in there after a letter TokaiMTB penned ended up on Alan Winde's and then the park managers desk. The letter was necessary after it appeared that SANP were reneging on their undertaking to reopen on the date they had agreed on. Looking at the long history of SANP and its track record of poor management, bad public relations and red tape second to none, I'm not surprised people behave badly when confronted with seemingly pointless restrictions on access. This is peoples happy place after all and SANP are preventing access. Added to this is the fact that some people who should know better have been accessing the closed areas and have probably encouraged others to do the same by their behaviour leading to additional confrontation. (This should not be read as condoning idiotic behaviour like assault on rangers or any other illegal conduct and is merely an attempt to balance this thread with a dose of reality as far as SANP are concerned)

I asked if anyone knew them... Their type is easy to identify.

A while back the Kirstenbosch section of the traverse between Newlands Forest was repaired. A slow speed but not hugely difficult boulder garden was flattened out and it looked as if some rocks had actually been removed as well as some filler added. I recall a comment at the time that this route was now even more gravel bike friendly. This was done officially and loudly proclaimed at the time. Last week I rode a local trail on SANP land, not Kirtsenbosch. I've ridden it for over 20 years. Its not very tech in general but has some fun sections and there have been B lines around the gnarly stuff for years. I have noticed the tech lines being gradually smoothed out with some laterite clay gravel. It hasn't bothered me too much as the rocks reappear over time and the tech difficulty increases again. Who has been doing this work is something of a mystery. Nobody ever owns up to it and SANP have confirmed its not being done with their permission. These trail "alterations" reached a new low last week. I was heading down the trail and about to ready myself for the trickiest rock garden outside of Tokai on a legal trail but something was amiss. The entrance rock was lower and the gaps between roots had been filled in with soil and branches. It had been turned into a highway. A closer inspection later in the week and messages from other riders confirmed that several boulder and rocks had simply been hacked to pieces, some of these barely even in ridden portions of the trail. The rock shards bashed off the rocks were either left in situ or thrown into the bushes. There was always a B line around this section and its hardly needed as the rock garden has now been ruined as a technical challenge. for a mountain bike. Speeds will increase downhill hugely and because the trail is bi-directional, the risks of accidents is increased. If anyone knows who is responsible for this illegal activity please message me. I'd like to have a word with the perps and try and understand what they though entitled them to vandalize what is one of our iconic tracks in the area. ????

I guarantee his legs were like jelly after that descent...