sometime

On the assumption that your cheap bike lasts a year or two. If not your justification is fatally flawed. Also as a previous poster pointed out, people are buying these "cheap" blank carbon frames that weigh more than quality SA sourced aluminium frames. Once again the flawed assumption is that any carbon frame is better than an aluminium one.

Apparently none because you have to spend R20k to get that plus a fancy spray job with a recognised brand on it?

Depends if you're happy driving a Geely in the first place and also if you're happy doing so at 2/3 price of a Polo?

Easy does it. Insurance is about insuring against an insurable event - so you fall and the frame breaks, your policy covers that (?) and you claim. No difference to an SA brand. I'm talking about a warranty claim. The bottom bracket isn't secure in the frame, the headset comes loose, the carbon starts delaminating after 12 months of use etc etc. Then what? Your R6k is probably gone. For the record my way is buy a quality (Chinese made obviously) carbon frame with lifetime SA warranty for less than R9k.

Agreed but the big difference is you get local support for each of those brands. Import a blank frame yourself directly from whoever at a discount and then good luck trying to satisfactorily resolve any quality/warranty/longevity issues with the manufacturer in China. If you have no problems with the bike then great - if not then I'm afraid your discount to a locally supported brand disappears immediately and you're now paying to ship your frame back to China to TRY claim the warranty ( get it repaired/replaced/upgraded). That will take weeks nevermind the logistical & language issues. Me I'll pay the premium thank you.

Plenty of people would Plenty of people compete at 85+% of max. FWIW I rode this race at 86% of max so I did not find it easy at all. You can improve places by being faster and avoiding the congestion. I went from being a top 150 finisher last year and being caught in congestion, to being a top 100 finisher this year and no congestion. Maybe this is semantics but to me these races are accessible to more people (which is what the promoters want) because of the relative lack of distance and altitude but that's not to say they're easy.

Any marathon MTB race is as hard as you want it to be. If it's flat then go flat out the whole ride and tell us you still think it's easy? Anyone who rode that race at 85%+ of max heart rate will tell you that it's not an easy race - same as any race where you get out of your comfort zone and stay out of it the whole race regardless of altitude gain or distance.

Etiquette is appropriate and most of what has been said here is common sense. But at the end of the day if you want to avoid the frustration of being caught behind riders who can't bunny hop a Lego brick, then you need to up your game on the flats and the climbs so that you're riding at the sharper end of the field where these problems are minimised. If you can't do this then you need to accept that sitting behind Miss Daisy, with a saddle bag the size of a coffin and walking the single track with their bike between their legs, comes with the territory.

Quartz is always cheaper than the real thing

To be fair they did change the route and I think this year's route was an improvement on last year. Unfortunately stupidity is very difficult to plan for - they had two inbred brain donors try take a loaded quad bike across the bridge. The race keeps improving so hopefully within another 3 years it should be perfect

I gave both kids and the dog a big fright when I shouted at the TV as he crossed the line. Very exciting to watch - well done Greg! Damn I wish I had the balls and skill to ride a bike like almost anyone of those DH guys!

WTF?

Looking at those photos reminds me how much I hate bottlenecks and how much more I hate queue jumpers. It also reinforces the need (for me anyway) to be seeded high up Note to self: Keep training hard throughout the year, ignore those eveil voices wanting to keep you in bed on those cold winter mornings, always race has hard as I can in seeding races. All the gripes are understandable and the organisers need to do some serious introspection on everything from the initial seeding, the start layout, the bridges, potential bottle necks, route marking, marshalling, cold (not warm) drinks at the water points and the number of racers a route can accomodate. Fortunately for me I did this race last year and didn't enjoy anything about it so I arrived with no expectations beyond getting some much needed race pace training.

Jules 21st overall in 2h36 - well done!. As a matter of interest what gearing were you running? Methinks that winner's tattoo at SSWC has got its eyes on you!

To be honest with all the dust, ruts, rocks and bricks in those first few km's I didn't pay too much attention to bike detail. It was silver, SS and way faster than me. Respect to all you guys who rode that route on rigid bikes. My decision to fit a rigid chromo fork on my SS (wif v-brakes) is going to come back to haunt me at SSWC. But hopefully I won't be feeling too much pain after the first "water" point

It seems quite a few of us missed the split at the approx, 49km mark where the 70km turned right away from the road running downhill along the R21. I was unashamedly sucking the wheel of a tall strong guy on a Tallboy and we also hooked up with some youngsters riding the 40km route and put our heads down on that downhill. There was certainly no marshall calling the split which is poor. Looking on Strava it seems that we did about 3km less than those who did the full route. Apologies for those that had to pass me again. I should probably add about 5-10 mins to my time for that shortcut.

I don't know how you guys running rigid SS coped on tht course? I got beaten up on my geared hard tail. Running my tyres too hard didn't help either. I think it was Jules on a silver Niner came past me early on at a huge speed and towards the end as I was starting to fade badly another one passed me. Jcmeyerss - you the guy with the black beard?

Wow!

Gotta love sweeping generalisations. Probably half the Epic field finished on Schwalbe. Bronze medal at Olympics running Racing Ralph. If you're running regular Schwalbe tyres and not the Evo Snakeskin version then you have only yourself to blame - everyone know they're hopeless for SA offroad conditions.

Based on the sounds of things starting in A bunch certainly had its advantages.today. Apart from the bottle neck at the timing mats at the start and the resultant crashes (including Cherise Stander Taylor!) my ride was bottleneck free and the bridges were all still in one piece. Sorry to hear the race wasn't great for some. I must say though that it was a big improvement on last years route. Hopefully the organisers keep learning and the route keeps evolving.

We have a holiday/weekend house just outside Parys so I do a lot of my training there. I know those roads very well including the loop out to Skandinawiee drif. We've probably passed each other a few times on those roads. Enjoy the ride!

Buy the Momsen for R13 000. Buy an inbred frame and rigid fork for R3 500. Sell the Momsen frame and fork for R4 000. Sell the groupset for R3 000. Buy SS cranks chain etc for R1 500. For R11 000 you've got a great bike.

Linden Cycle were also selling GT Peace for similar money recently.

Short and skinny I'm sure. The rest - you knows?

Nice bike! What divernick said - take the wheel out of the fork, spin it in your hands and look if the wheel and rotor wobble and are therefore bent. If not then there's an issue with the skewer/fork connection but unlikely if it's a thru axle. BTW how much do you weigh?