xak1

Can still enter Friday night and Saturday morning.

Stay away from high pressure hoses in cleaning bay. They do have some normal hoses. I was amazed at how the people ruined their bearings with the high pressure hoses - luckily the normal hoses were not popular - so no bottleneck there.

Crossmarks may not be the best choice, as you have 103km singletrack which has a bigger chance to be wet than not (I think only 2 years has been dry). Kenda Karma's, Schwalbe Nobby Nic's, Maxxis Ignitor's are better choices for this race.

Just take normal precautionary spares, i.e. tube, derailleur hanger, cable ties, maybe disc brake pads (if it is wet). First stop had good bike spares available - in general organisers are very helpful to get you back on the road again. Food is excellent, and you do not need anything more than they give (except if you have very exotic taste). There is a 24 hour snack table with donuts, milk, cold drinks, fruit, coffee, etc.

Never lost a bottle with them, but the area where the bolt fastened onto cracked and broke over time (two of them).

Don't do that many events, but best organised and friendliest goes to Sani2C, best "unknown" is the 2-day Baviaanskloof race organised by Fat Tracks in PE. Hell and Back is also good, and although not everybody's kettle of fish, the Trans Baviaans is "magical".

I have been running Monorails for 3 months now - UST version. Excellent tyre - better in mud than Crossmarks, rolls fast (difficult to say if they roll faster or slower than Crossmarks, but my perception is that on hardpack, they do roll slightly faster) and have not had issues with grip on loose stuff. They are also about 50g lighter than Crossmarks.

Jaco Rheeder and Heimer Andersen won it again in 10:06. Second was Charl Keett and Raynard van der Hoven, 6 minutes behind (also tri-athletes). Third was last year's winners and in 9th Raynard Tissink, the Iron Man champion, in a first MTB race for him. His partner, Louis de Villiers phoned him last Monday as he lost his partner - I think quite a decent result for a first MTB race. Weather was not as good as last year, with headwind all the way. The new finish is also slower than previously.

Raining at present over route. Expecting about 10mm to 15mm until tomorrow. Willowmore will go down to -5 degrees overnight - it will probably hit zero just at the start. Winds SE 20km/h - will be riding into it then. Conditions are not good for a fast time.

Cables - I have had similar issues (and many others) with RD in past. In the end in 99% of problems it is to do with cables and housing.

Do not have experience on their wheels, but on some other stuff such as bar-ends, quick releases, crank, etc. This stuff is well designed and individually manufactured in Italy. It is extremely high quality (and also expensive), and in general weight-saving has been achieved through design and manufacturing methodology.

Think Specialized is signing him for XC, as Killeen is getting older. Sauser is only guy that can be competitive at XC and Marathon.

Sunlight liquid applied with a spunge and compressed air.

Heard that Burry will join Specialized next year.

Hope's are good - will probably rather go for them than Am Classics. XTR's are also good and affordable - although not cartridge bearings (this is actually not a problem, as they have very good seals).

I looked at both, but decided on the DT 240's - they are more expensive and weigh about 30g more, but they are very reliable. I have picked up quite a lot of negatives on the Am Classics (check www.mtbr.com).

I am very happy with 355's. Rims weighed as follows on my own accurate scale - including rim strip, valve, DT Swiss 240 hubs and 2/1.8 DT Revolution spokes x 32 on each wheel: Front: 680g Rear: 780g Very happy with them - wider profile has definitely given me more stability on rough stuff.

E-mailed Stan on this. Here is his answer - I am heavier at about 80kg. It's not the flex of either rim. It's your weight. Heavier riders must run a wider rim to stabilize the tires better at lower air pressures. I would recommend the ZTR 355 rim or possibly the ZTR Race 7000 series wheel set with a slightly larger spoke on the drive side. But the race rims will not last forever. I also make a 06 Race rim that won the cape epic with Sauser.

Some "cheap" weight savings: Any foam grips, but Extralite is only 16g and is very comfortable and not a compromise on reliability. Seatpost clamp - most bikes have failry heavy seatpost clamps. Extralite, Tune, KCNC all make reliable light seatpost clamps. KMC Chain saves about 40g on XTR. Chainstay protectors weigh up to 50g.

Does anyone know if there is a MTB skills clinic or schools in Knysna/Plett area?

The finish is at Mentorskraal - it is on the road that links central Jeffreys to the N2, quite close to the N2. I am not sure how they will take the road to get there. They can either stay right at the Jeffreys/Humansdorp split (where a lot of people got lost last year) and stay all the way on this road to the Hankey/Humansdorp road. When you turn left on this road, you pick up a gate about 1.5km on the right side. This is a dirt road that goes under the N2 and ends close to Mentorskraal. If they keep it like in the past and continue left at the split, one will still end at Zuurbron for cp 6 - from there you will still pass cp 7 as in the past, but once on top of that small little bastard of a climb (although they have filled in this road), instead of going left, you can continue straight and link onto the same dirt road that goes under the N2 to Mentors (I think this is probably the most likely). The last option is to continue as in the past all the way down to the tar road, but instead of turning into Jeffreys stay on the old Humansdorp Jeffreys road (will be a bastard of a climb at the end of 230km), get to the new traffic circle, go right around it and end up at Mentors.

If I remember right, the game of golf decided to ignore doping totally. After some serious accusations by players in the game, their governing bodies just chose to say that it does not happen - a bit like the Catholic Church on child abuse (although the Pope at long last acknowledged this). I know some players in some of these other sports mentioned - doping is happening in all of them. How can a rugby player that weighed 73kg when he first played for the Springboks 10 years ago, now weigh 94kg (all muscle mass increase) - physiology does not allow for this to happen in a natural way. Again, I would like to see stats on the number of non-invasive and invasive tests being done per year on different pro-athletes. I read somewhere that national rugby players only get about 3 blood tests a year. Pro-cyclists probably get more than 50. In the end cycling is one of the few sports that is serious about cleaning up - the others are too scared to open that can of worms.

It is a myth that an alu frame is stronger than a carbon frame. As everything in life, the answer is not straight forward. A frame is only as strong as its weakest point, which on an alu frame is where it is welded. Same for ti frame, with the added complexity that ti welding is very specialised and baically consists of heat fusion. Theoretically carbon should be stronger in the areas where an alu bike is welded, but it also depends on how the carbon is composed and overlayed. Carbon fibre is a composite material, so recipes differ. Carbon has superior strength in one direction, that is why they use different overlay directions on frames. Carbon does, however, not have great impact strength, i.e. when something sharp hits it hard. As it is a composite, with a molecular structure which consists of a hard and soft matrix, it would generally not result in a catastrophic failure - that is why you see it cracking not in a straight line. The bottom line is that I think a well constructed carbon frame with good overlays and a good composite structure, will always be stronger than an alu or ti frame (as the weld will always be weaker). In a fall, carbon may pick up impact damage easier, but it should not have any risks of fatigue cracks as you see on welds in alu frames.

In my opinion it will take away the Magical and Untamed aspect.

What do you mean - Epic is the original Horst link bike.