sometime

That's a great time on a SS (actually on any bike). FWIW last year's 5th Vet was 4h09. 3h55 would've got a 2nd Vet and 35th overall. Show us what you can do Pieter!

Under 4h10

He did say a good time? I see you weren't far off that on the SS

Under 4h15

Understood but I was responding to the question of whether there would be a difference on a 29HT vs. 26HT.

Anyone managed to cycle the entire length of the steep climb in the reserve? I know it's do-able but each year I try but I run out of legs/lungs before the top.

On those long, flat, bumpy district roads the 29er HT will make a big difference

They do grade that road every year so maybe it'll be done before the race. I train there on a regular basis so I'll give some updated feedback on the road conditions soon.

Parts of that route, particularly the last 15km of district road, were heavily corrugated when I rode there a few weeks ago. No fun at all on a hardtail and even a DS is going to give you a workout.

I find 94.7 a much tougher route than Argus even if it's shorter in both time and distance. As you say there is seldom time for a proper recovery before you're on the next incline/climb whereas Argus allows to a few places to hide in the bunch and recover.

I also have the Canon 50mm lens which is use on my 350D. Great lens but I've just never been happy with the camera. I tend to be lazy now and do all my pics on my compact Canon S95 which with f2 on the short end, IS and full manual control gives some really good colour saturation and sharpness in low light. But it's not going to come close to a 7D with a f1.4 lens.

Nice! Was that shot with a prime lens? I see you shot at f1.8 at ISO2000

Some sensible, practical advice from Enticement - well done!

The Hub can always rely on you for some inane input.

Oi! I recently fitted dem Bones to my SS. Don't tell me this 2 weeks before I plan to ride drunk at SSWC in the Drakensberg?!

160mm Shimano XT ice-tech rotors should be all you'll need. I've cooked my Elixir 180mm front and 160mm rear brakes on fast descents. I swapped to SLX brakes and XT ice-tech 160mm rotors and have never had the same problem

Agreed - I bought some nice whitewall RR for my single speed from them. Great service and great price.

45 grammes difference between NN and RR. NN get's 6 stars for grip on Schwalbe website vs 4 for RR. Speed NN get's 4 stars and RR 5 stars. Following your logic you'd be better off running the Rocket Ron's all round - low rolling resistance and light?

The NN front and RR rear is a very popular combo both locally and overseas. I changed from RR all round to this combo and found the NN to offer more feel in terms of grip levels, and to be more forgiving in a wide range of trail conditions. Put simply the NN is close to the RR on dry hard pack, but for me if I encounter wet/muddy/variable conditions it outperforms the RR. Running both in Snakeskin is essential.

This Hub's a funny place entrenched with double standards that would make any politician proud. The Hub's inner clique has a simplistic pack like mentality - question one of their own and they'll round on you like Marikana strikers would a white Lonmin executive. But if you're just another service provider who didn't provide a service for one of them (for whatever reason), and you accordingly try withhold some monies you feel you're entitled to, they'll also round on you. Only this time like Jeremy Clarkson on an environmentalist driving a Prius towing a caravan at 80km/h on the freeway. In my view both parties are in the wrong. The OP has chopped and changed for which I feel JB is entitled to keep the deposit, but when JB had to cancel through no fault of the OP, then JB should have refunded the deposit.

Pedant!

Mate if I'm getting someone to go into battle with me (your choice of words) then I want to know that they know what it takes to compete day after day at a certain level. I can get a Virgin Active personal trainer to get me physically strong and fit enough for Epic. But Epic is probably 40% physical and 60% pyschological so I need my coach to also be able to help me with the latter. I'm sorry but if you haven't done any multi day endurance events (doesn't have to be cycling) then I'm going to be a little reluctant in retaining your services. Maybe you can do the job without having done the event but you need to build up a strong track record of various clients getting great results before you can make the claims you've made here.

What's your personal best Enticement? How many Epic's / multi-day MTB stage races have you competed in? If you have, then what results have you achieved?

My bike:

I ride that bike. It's a race frame with race geometry. Relatively steep head angles and short chainstays make for a short wheelbase. This gives it very 'sharp'/responsive handling which offset some of the supposed negatives of the big wheels but it may initially feel a little twitchy if you're used to something with a more relaxed setup. It's around 1.1kg for the frame so not as light as frames like the Scott Scale at about 900g, but it offers superior tyre clearance to the Scott and is a lot cheaper (assuming of course you could buy a Scott frame only). I built my XL framed bike up with no fancy components at 11.1kg. It is a relatively hard ride compared to some of the other carbon hardtails. It doesn't have niceties like enclosed cables but that shouldn't detract too much. I've done about 2500km on it in the past 6 months or so with not one problem. Lastly if you buy from a dealer you get a lifetime warranty on the frame. To me there isn't a better bang for buck 29er HT carbon frame on the market. For the record I'm not a Giant rep. I also own a Scott Spark 29er, Scott road bike, Raleigh tandem and Trek SS.