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Had to look hard at this but spotted a tiny leaderboard in the middle of the page. Current positions: Neil Beltchenko: 608.88 mi; Alex Harris: 598.53 mi; Jay Petervary: 596.56 mi; Seb Dunne: 585.25 mi; Dylan Taylor: 559.20 mi; (0 minutes ago) -- at 02:21:20 AM (MDT) 06/15/15

Check your DM (direct mail). I will send you a number of a mate of mine who collects old bikes and restores them

One other issue was the storing of bikes after the bike wash at Mackenzie and Jolivet. On day 1 we spent half an hour scouring the bike park looking for our bikes. There was no system as to how they put the bikes back into the bike park after the wash. Had we known it would be such a disaster, I would have waited for the bikes to be washed (or even washed them myself) and then followed them to storage. We actually did that at Jolivet on day 2 so that we could find them easily

Not on the Trail. The Red Bull stand was after the floating bridge on day 1

The good: 1. Jolivet was amazing 2. Two-ply toilet paper at Jolivet - AWESOME 3. For a self navigation route, there were ample additional route markers 4. The food was excellent 5. Farmer Glen being everywhere and responding to email queries after the event in double time The bad 1. The beggars on route on day 3 2. The clothing in the boxes was a debacle - sizing was a mess and nothing fits 3. No luggage straps in the boxes to secure your lid. One of our boxes was dropped and the whole thing broke open 4. Being asked to pay extra for semi-decent coffee. I paid online and at registration they had no record of my payment so I had to pay again and then claim a refund after the event. The coffee was not that brilliant, they had machines going down and this increased the queues 5. The finish is a shambles. Nowhere to load up vehicles, have to park far away up a hill

Clearly were not on the Trail as we had those giant red balls bumping into the bridge

I sent Farmer Glen an email about the women feeling unsafe on the ride and he replied very quickly as follows: "We are working on footage taken of various groups of obnoxious youth. The affected communities are outraged with this behaviour of individuals and will help us identify and discipline the culprits. Fortunately we have had not serious incidents and are working on a better solution at these hotspots" This is why I love this race so much. Farmer Glen does not just ignore problems and sweep them aside. He deals with them. WELL DONE!!!!

This is by far the most serious allegation levelled at the Sani. Moans of cold water and poor jerseys pale by comparison. I really hope that this can be resolved before next year.

Here is an observation about Jolivet that most seem to have missed - two ply toilet paper in the bogs. Massive winner!!!

Good luck Kevin

Petrol station and use soapy water on the tyre to help it seat. It is not easy but after lots of persistence, it is possible

HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF - rear swing arm has just been delivered to LBS. MASSIVE thanks to Grant Usher at Sprocket and Jack and the guys at Probike (Scott) for pulling this rabbit out of a hat

More stressed about the crack we discovered last night on the rear swing arm than I am about GPS, fitness or health. Running 260km alongside your partner is a damn difficult ask

Shhhhhh. Your secret is safe with us. We won't tell anyone

Who is Viola and why are you only telling her??

E in the trail

Sounds a bit pricey to me. They were brand new in 2012 for R23k

You know Sani is close when you look on the Eskom load shedding schedule and the Sani dates appear

Isn't that the fence line? How the hell are guys walking their dogs up there??

I see there is a guy in Australia who completed the challenge by climbing an 11 metre climb 806 times

Awesome post. You left out one thing though - how old is your old body?

Ventolin inhaler is also listed as being on the safe for use list in terms of SAIDS list.

Similar experience - riding past those lions one of them started to run alongside me looking at me. I glanced up and noticed that the gate that the lion was running towards was open!! My heart leapt through my gullet and then I saw that just beyond the open gate was another fenced in area. For that split second I actually thought that the lion was busting out.

Wrong. It was the double breasted mattress thrasher out of its natural environment

Spoke to the Cyclelab guys - they are busy trying to arrange the municipal street sweeper machine