Shebeen

Unlikely at EXACTLY the same time. Presumably the Elite women will have a shortcut somewhere, then rejoin the race route. There will be some drafting regulation if they overlap. The split argus works because the women finish well before the men - not sure if that is the attempt here or not.

I don't think i've ever seen cycling betting odds so loaded towards a favourite before.

I think you get 0/7 for once!

Agreed. Montagu is an awesome place to kick this off. Well done ACE.

Look I know I look like the idiot who insists on being right, but the fruit never hangs lower than this. I'll let you work this one out on your own. meh. this is all started with me joking in italics. In keeping with the theme of two tech companies suing each other it's clearly gone too far.

scanning through the punters list there some big names down there. including Doug Ryder (assume he's the one from ned) and his boss Ivan Glasenberg. Must have played a part in Pidcock coming to play.

so that's why ENDOMONDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO went down the tubes!

All are 5km, they have to get through a huge rigmarole that includes measuring the 5km course.. that's basically the entire USP. Don't want to sound like a Stravasshole, but pretty sure you're making this up now. Show me one here parkrun.co.za totally unrelated.

Awesome. With so many local options I don't really have a tankwa loop on my top 5 bucketlist, but something to be said for the emptiness and then oasis overnight options.

100% mtb racing has got harder to organise legally, land owners are not so keen. It's a luxury item for many and the field of willing racers is down. There are more trail options out there for those who just want to ride. It's even worse if you look at road races. Gravel, on the other hand must be the only race category on the up. Growth of options year on year. Kind of fits between the two for road access too, uses low volume district road. The one aspect here is that gravel burn is unique. Concept is new, and there are already a few other options announced

First time I have heard someone calling a "parkrun" that is not 5km. Parkrun actually just bought the 5k app the other day too. potayto potarto

I think Strava stays and this is a power play because they both need each other. Apple and Google and Samsung used to sue each other all the time, (maybe they still do), no one wins they just shift goalposts. There's no point strava having their own hardware, they have such a headstart to remain the platform of choice. Whatever garmin puts into connect is fun, but the amount of garmin users who remain off strava is never going to be significant. The big issue for me is that strava just mustn't do dumb stuff. This might be in that category. Their big issue is monetization, and I feel they look at their huge user base and their goals get too lofty. (just like twitter pre Elon). This was a while ago now, but it reinforced why I like strava - just hope they don't cock it up

not with a 90minute parkrun!

@Ibraheem Laher how did it go?!

YES. but it depends what you have and how massive those pistons connecting your knees to your hips are. Topganna with a 66 here.

In hindsight, really should have got the vernier out when i had it all open. Will do. hot tip, thanks Droo. It survived the Muratie Meurant ride, but this is a JRA waiting to happen

indeed. Take the ITTs out and apart from a little patch in 2022 TP has seemingly always had the rub on Remco. https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider-vs-rider/remco-evenepoel/tadej-pogacar/same-race-results but both still got plenty of runway on their careers.

cool. Rumour upfront was that there was a plan to do some serious roadgrading on the route right before stages. anyone know if that still the case? Because we all know sinkplaat is no longer sinkplaat if you have a large yellow vehicle, some diesel and an upcoming byelection.

ja. brownlee coming to play too https://www.instagram.com/p/DPf_lGHDKSI/

Not really. All explained in the other thread linked higher up, mostly from facebook posts by the various actors involved. Should be a big enough story for a news publication to pick it up, but until then no one has done an executive summary for the public to read.

No one (or everyone). One of the better race organisers who clearly got in over his head.

A refreshing change to this unfortunate bait and switch (which instead hooked all the dreamers long term). https://bikehub.co.za/news/the-toughest-mountain-bike-race-on-earth-launches-with-prize-money-of-0361-million-the-munga-r1423/?srsltid=AfmBOooW1-A9woypuJbooube95v7I1K3CmE70uZ-L8iPBRjQiw-sq30Q Kevin Vermaak is clearly a shrewd operator, and spent his restrain of trade period putting together something that worked for all parties. He earned his platform, but still had a lot of work to make this successful.

Africa is not a continent for sissies. I think you might be genuinely surprised that riding gravel for 6 hours a day is not as hard as it sounds.

another update on this one, with Il Lombardia this weekend. While MvDP is obviously not there and Pog has already won it, Remco could tick this one off. But he has to get past TP who did a 48km TT last year.

thanks! I put the hub back together and put it through its paces, waiting for a fatal break - survived a 25km XC trailride - must be overengineered!