Nettie R

We rode on Atlas a few minutes earlier. Hope the guy is ok. Visibility was poor this morning with the overcast conditions.Keep those lights on untill you get home!

Cruised the 50km on tandem. But boy, some of these riders need to wake up: if it's between you and a car in an intersection, the car WILL win; To verbally abuse the motorists and expect them to respect you sharing the road the next minute doesn't work; Riding three abreast is not on. Pity some of these fools will dissappear off the road after the Argus and we will be left to try and gain respect from other road users.

Too many road crossings,leaving irate car drivers, lots of hooting,ignorant cyclists not adhering to traffic rules, drivers swearing at cops who were only trying to do their job. I felt sorry for them. All this race did, was to pee off drivers already not liking cyclists. Can the organisers say 'batch start'? Hell, the entry fee practically warrants this.

Can you guys who recently made the jump from half-marathon to marathon comment on how much effort it took? The Sabie half marathon has watered down from a 45 to a 38km. Or did I choose the wrong marathon to take on as a first timer?

It's also reported the families had made contact with the witness themselves last week. They've also requested an independant authority to take over the investigation. Perhaps now the investigation will gain some momentum.

Last report I saw the families were looking for eye witnesses. The driver of the police car said the tandem approached their car from the front, while forensic evidence showed different. The investigating officer said they made progress but the news report said the police had done very little to date, like verifying the officer's (who was passenger) claim that he/she busy on a cellphone and didn't witness the accident (ie drawing cellphone records) or taking eyewitness' statement. The case was passed to another officer.

Still one of the nicest(and tough) races out there. But what's up with so many cars on the route? Most of them were following the ultra marathon front runners ,with total disregard to other riders,almost pushing us off the tight jeep track to pass. Race briefing was clear about support for these guys, that' s why they have tech zones.

I'm with you on this. Wanted to step it up for Sani2c from this week. Injured my knee(or some idiot girl did) in a netball game last week. . Out for a couple of weeks. Cross training sucks for me.

A rider from the Cyclelab East Rand training group was knocked off his bike this morning @ 6h30 on Rondebult near N17. The driver tried to flee the scene but turned into a cul-de-sac. He turned around and sped back towards the cyclists.One cyclist threw his bike at the car to try and stop him, shattered the car windscreen in the process. Driver was apprehended through quick thinking by Werner from Cyclelab who chased after him by car. The police took the driver away in a van. Cyclist was taken away to hospital and appears to be okay.

It's never the hard core riders who voice their opinion about it. Goodness, if I had to listen to some 'pro' opinions aired on the hub, I 'd have to do without a lot of things that make my cycling fun and enjoyable.

After today's event at the same venue, I agree with you. Rode out towards the N1 and had to go through a stop-go section where road maintenance is being done today. Wtf! One lane open, maintenance trucks, irate car drivers who had to sit and wait for us to pass, out and back. The rest of the road surface is very poor and potholes galore, ankle deep or more. All unmarked. The road surface might not be his fault,but not changing the route because of the road maintenance, is inexcusable. From now on we will boycott this organiser's events untill he decides to take cyclists' safety seriously.

Yip, sorry, I came back on the thread to edit my post! I had a look at the entries again this morning I was sad to see the 60km event's R150. A lot of money for a local event.

Now close to home and not that expensive either. Thinking of doing the 60lm. Pamphlet says 'fast route'. In the same area as Walkerville and their 45km is never a walk in the park for me.

I was at the 'test' ride last year but didn't know that it is open to the public already Saw a lot of springbok, sable, wildebeest etc. Good initiative to generate income for the reserve. Hopefully riders will respect the fact that it's still a working reserve and wild animals will have to get used to cycling traffic as they got very agitated with us there.

I'm sure for him it's not about visibility, bling is in, get it? We stared at him Saturday, he stared at us on the tandem going slow cruising, we all nodded. Live and let live, I say.

Update on the rider that he is still in hospital. Seems like the car's extention mirror knocked him down.

True, I'm one of those offering another theory to the event. Brian's version (no harm meant, Brian) is hear say. So unless the eyewitness comes forward with the truth, we can all just speculate? Some years ago I saw a kid got knocked off his bike on the 70km Sun City race by a tour bus. The kid swerved uncontrolably into the lane while the bus driver was not at fault. Had I not spoken up, the bus driver would have been crucified. Bet the story at the finish line sounded different to the truth.

Accident happened about 5km from the finish on the R57 Sasolburg.

That's over dramatic.Perhaps just an accident and we're a bit sensitive after the week's tragic event. I'm sure the driver would not have stopped to face the music if he intended to run them over. When we passed the scene the rider was on the ground and paramedics were attending to him. He was sitting up and seemed okay, with some bruises on his upper body. The road users were friendly, patient today, passing wide enough, waiting for our group to turn at the turn around point. thankfully. Front groups stayed together and somewhat hogged the road.

Your team must've been an all male team(or majority), 'cause everytime the cheers were loud, it was guaranteed a lady riding past! Your positive attitude was contagious and a lot of people soon joined in to cheer the riders on in the last hour. No shouting over racing lines, passing, moving over etc. And once these faster riders go past, they still have breath for encouraging words.

They should've left it in the Zoutpansberg. Just as I dozed off, this dude came past with the most annoying sound you can hear at 3am. It' not like the scorer auntie slept on the job and they had to wake her. But it's all good, not like I was planning on getting any sleep during the event. Half our team put on their jammies at 10pm and told everyone to have a good night, see you in the am.(like at 6am)

Good thing you didn't try to imitate them. I heard a loud noise in transition and there was one of their guys on his back side, wanted to wheelie and lost it falling backwards. ( - but only after he got up and said he was ok. )

Short sighted, yeah, 'cause when I threw my banana peel in the bushes on Sunday, I may have missed my target by about 2metres.

Bet again. We feed the birds over ripened bananas and apples. We peel them halfway down and leave it on the wall. Birds chow down on the flesh and throw the peel on the grass. I forget about it. I see it one week later, all shriveled up, black and a 10th of it's size. So I leave it. Harm done=zero. Unsightly? Ag please, bigger things in the world to worry about.