sometime

No - we were heading down a long fast district road downhill (after the very bumpy mielie field section which was just after the tight twisty single track in the 'forest'). There was a left turn into the veld halfway down the road with no markings on the road, no marshall and just a turn sign on a roadsign and some barrier tape stuck to some grass. I had my head tucked down doing 45+km/h with my partner watching my wheel behind me so I/we missed it completely.

Thank goodness he passed me half way through the first lap - if I had to listen to that for another 2 hours I would've got seriously grumpy.

We also missed a turn but luckily only did about 3km extra. The route marking was poor in places and I also have a major problem with advertising a race as being an 80km and it ends up being 'only' 67km.

Results: http://www.waterpoint.co.za/sites/default/files/results/2012-04-14%20Results%20-%20USN%20Mountain%20Bike%20Cup%203.pdf

It was a really good race - given the location I certainly didn't expect the singletrack to be as good as it was - fast and flowing. It was also great to find those doing the 30km race being aware of the 60km riders coming up fast behind them and either getting off the track or keeping their lines - thanks guys! Thanks aagin to the rider who lent me some lube on the last lap while he was bombing his tyre. Feedback from all my mates and one of the podium finishers was just as positive - I'll certainly be back there.

Thanks - I'm very chuffed with it and it's very quick! 11.1kg all in - XL frame incl. pedals, bottle cages and a mainstream component mix. Plenty of place to lose weight if I was that way inclined, but I'm about as far removed from a weight weenie as you can get (20+ years of riding competively and this is my first carbon bike!).

My new race bike: Giant XTC Composite 29er

It is a very nice route and I think the race deserves more support from Gauteng MTB'ers - but it seems the organisers don't do enough to promote it on sites like this? I'm running 1.8bar tyre pressures on large volume tubeless 29" tyres and didn't feel like that was too low (I weigh 85kg's). Having said that the route is rocky and I chose to sacrifice some pace to avoid the worst of the rocks. I don't like the finish either - having to find your way past very slow 30km riders on very narrow single track is no fun but this problem isn't unique to this race. I had a big fall after trying to squeeze past someone which exactly what I did last month... I'm clearly a slow learner. But it is nice to ride this route every month and be able to compare your race pace on the same route each time - I did the same time as last month which was disappointing but I'll be back in May to hopefully take some time off that.

There's a little water right at the finish when they take you on a zig zag purpose buillt singletrack course next to the river. But when I say a little water I mean crossing a few puddles, otherwise it's typical Free State bushveld, farm tracks and district roads.

Dirtmax in Parys on Sat 7th. I did the 60km in March - nice little route with a good mix of track and conditions

Scott Spark Expert 29 er for R29k + R5k on a decent wheelset.

Any guesses at which bike (brand & model) was the most popular out there today?

Any idea when results are coming out - Spectrumsport website has been down all day?

Good race - well orgranised, great conditions, nice challenging route but frustrating as always when the different races share the same finish. I know there are practical considerations which make it very difficult to have a different finish for each race, but why put the single track at the end of the shared finish route? Surely if you have to share a finish route do it on an open road with space for everyone to get past?

Anyone know what the track conditions I like there after all the rain they've had?