GuyP

LOL, the other madness was us trying to TT the last 100Km of the 300Km last year ))))

Well, there are plenty others to keep you occupied even this year, especially in North America. The Seattle club is full of loonies, not only riding for days in the rain, but up and down the Rockies too! Portugal has just started a randonneurs club, and Pedro Alvez ,who is leading it, has built up some nice routes along the coast and through the north of the country. That sounds like heavenly holiday potential to me! Furthermore, Portugal is not so hard on the pocket as some other potential destinations. He would be delighted to have some SA guests! The more you look up the sport, the more you get eaten alive by all the international possibility!

LOL, only because you do it on your MTB underachiever!

Audax is tiny in SA compared to the UK. Contact Eddie Thomlinson - tet@telkomsa.net, who heads the club. Audax is even smaller in the Cape, but Eddie can give you the right contacts in that respect. As for the Johannesburg gang, some are keen on the 1400Km London-Edinburgh-London in 2013...

LOL thanks @speedracer, please remember to say hi to everyone! No ultra distance yet - audax season has just started, building up to the 1000Km Toronto-Ottawa-Toronto in July. Had the first hard ride of spring yesterday and found cardio was still in good shape, but strength and power need some work now. I enjoyed mid winter cycling with spiked tyres, learning to dress for -13°C with a wind chill up to -30°C, and carrying hot coffee in thermos flasks (anything less would see your drinks freeze) to help keep warm. Saffers are woeses when it comes to temperature - these Canadian guys & girls are strong and hardy

What a crappy day. Glad you made it, with about two hours to spare! That road from Villiers to Deneys is bad enough without dodgy guts!

Here is another interesting one, also taken through my handheld HTC through the telescope eyepiece, of a region of the moon near the great rayed crater Tycho. The resolution on this photo is probably better than 5km, with 2Km being the limiting resolution of my scope. The tricky thing about these photos is holding the phone by hand, with the camera lens hopefully as parallel as possible to the eyepiece lens, and capturing as much width from the exit pupil as possible without scratching the eyepiece!

By far not nearly as good as probably all the above pictures, but I think at least a very interesting one. It is of Jupiter through a telescope eyepiece at low magnification, shot with my HTC, which imo is not nearly as great a camera as came with the later Nokias, and doesn't have anywhere near the adjustment range of it either. The four spots of light around the planet are four of its ~60 moons. The moon closest to Jupiter is just about to transit in front of the planet, which made an awesome sight through the telescope as it cast a shadow on it.

walkerr, mad is good . There's no doubt about it, if you've even the slightest inkling to do it, then just get out and do it! It will change your life forever. There are lots of other ultra distance events around the world leading up to the next PBP in 2015 to cut your teeth on, like the 1400Km London-Edinburgh-London in the UK and the 1200Km Granite Anvil in Canada, both next year. My aim is now to build a fabulous base to be able to do both these rides in comfort, which I think are but a month apart. I have also since found a huge positive impact of having done the ride on your professional branding. While business folk you meet around the world may forget your name over time, they somehow never forget your PBP tales, so it becomes yet another form of professional differentiation, an increasingly critical dimension in an increasingly chaotic and competitive global business landscape! And the camaraderie and lifelong friendships you make from fellow ultra cyclists from 50 other countries is simply unbeatable! Bonne chance!

Glad you're ok though! I've been at the wrong end of a pistol and a knife in bikejackings, as well as two other near misses and I can say that the incidents still affect me hugely. Don't take it lightly that it's probably worth you and your son seeing someone about it...

Not at all, well done to you too! I must have stopped at the Nigel Engen/Wimpy for drinks and food many tens of times this year while out riding!

He was part of the SA contingent, but had a crash during the earlier stages that sadly ruled out his ride!

Well, I was working anywhere between 12hrs and 15hrs a day , so I only had weekends to ride. Then on weekends, it was sometimes nerve-wracking riding long lonely roads in SA alone during the daytime, and I never had the nerve to ride through the night alone, so I was constrained by about 250Km a pop. As part of qualifying though, you have to do a 200Km, a 300Km, a 400Km and a 600Km, the latter of which will take a good 30hrs to 35hrs, depending on things like WIND, and whether you choose to take a quick snooze somewhere as you have a 40hr time limit to complete the 600Km!

It would be easy for FRAIL, and imagine the different type of fundraising he could do in an international context. CHOC asked if I wouldn't ride PBP 2015 in a cow suit!!!

Thanks! It's most-certainly a must do, not necessarily for the pain , but for the sheer camaraderie and the 24hr support of zillions of French spectators. There were 5200 entrants from 55 countries this year! You've just got to get the miles in, not only lots of short 200Km or 300Km rides at a time, but a good few 400Km and 600Km non-stop rides too. It helps to do at least one 1000Km about a month before the ride too, to get your head ready.

The 1230Km Paris-Brest-Paris in August! It was the toughest thing I had ever done, probably mainly because I was so unprepared. Looking forward to doing the next one in 2015, properly this time

I've actually been impressed with the Tektro cantilevers on my road tandem and the v-brakes on my daughter's bike. There's absolutely no point upgrading, unless you really want to burn money. The only meaningful brake upgrade on a tandem would be to disc brakes, which may mean a minimum of new hubs & spokes, new fork and disc brake adapter on the rear if there are no mounts.

Welcome! Some mates and I do road weekend rides on Sat and Sun from my house in Little Falls. We're preparing for this year's charity 320Km in December, and you're welcome to join in the fun. I don't really ride much on weekdays, but it's an arm that can be twisted... Crasher can probably tell you more about MTB in the area than I can.

Maybe I'll see you there, but I'll be taking in the scenery instead of trying to break wheels and shocks again!

From Clearwater, there's a 160Km loop going out to Magaliesburg, turn left at the R500 10Km on the R509 Koster road from Magaliesburg, cross the N14 and turn left on the R41 back to Randfontein. and back on Ontdekkers to Clearwater For a good 205Km, there's a great route from Clearwater Mall to Magaliesburg and on to Derby, and back. You can shorten it by riding from the Cradle somewhere. For more on the Derby route, you can add 32Km by going out to Koster, and stopping at the Wimpy before returning. The road has got a yellow line verge most of the way both there and back. From Koster, we occasionally do the extra 88Km to Lichtenberg, but although the the road is quiet, it is quite terrible!

aah... I've gotta pop in here more regularly!

I stumbled upon this strange pic this morning http://her0inchic.tumblr.com/post/8822196864/a-boy-left-his-bike-chained-to-a-tree-when-he-went

LOL speedracer, epic enough? Making it by the skin of my teeth is still making it!