Minion

Map and elevation comparison of 2008 and 2012 through town. 2012 is the rightmost curve, in red.

2012 was shorter than others, but longer than 2008 and more hills. 2012 started lower down Maxwell drive, had the climb up Joe Slovo and finished further up Maxwell. 2008 had the whole M1 climb, but the Joe Slovo climb is longer.

I think it was the shortest the race has ever been. My GPS had it at under 91km. They put in a flat section through town and reduced the climb up Witkoppen (it used to go past Northgate, instead of turning right onto Malibongwe). The finish was also closer to the Jukskei river, removing even more climbing from the route. From 2009 onwards, they added more climbing and distance back onto the route.

I'd say just ride normally with the Powertap for a while to get used to it. Look at the numbers, but don't let them control you. Download the data and see what it does. Once you've become used to how the power number fluctuate you'll start getting a feel for what certain intensities feel like and can start doing more targeted stuff. All power programs I've seen will give a target range, rather than a specific value, for very reason you've mentioned. It's relatively easy to hold power between 85% and 95%, but difficult to sit exactly at 90%. Edit: In my experience, I find it easier to sit at what I think is a constant effort and then glance occasionally at the display to adjust that up or down as required. You're training with power, not by power - don't become completely governed by the numbers on a second-by-second basis.

The data capture philosophy for a PM is to record as much as possible. You can always delete data you don't need after the fact, but you cannot re-create data that you didn't gather in the first place. So to answer your questions: OFF. It's very important that you use 1s recording with a power meter to get correct values for normalised power and training stress score. Smart recording uses a variable recording interval. OFF. Again, you need to record as much info as possible to get correct values for TSS etc. Not all training software handles gaps in data (created by pauses) correctly. Doesn't matter. This one only affects how average fields are displayed on the device, not the recorded data. Yes: any zeros will be included in the displayed average - not pedalling lowers average cadence, stopping lowers averaged speed. No: zeros are ignored - displayed average speed and cadence will be higher. I like to use 3s averaging: it gives a good balance between immediate feedback and smoothing. When training I look at PWR 3s and Lap NP in addition to lap time, HR, lap distance, cadence and time of day (on an Edge 800). I have a separate page mainly for racing with total time, total distance, Power - kJ/work and speed.

Yes they can. Just make sure you get good brand replacement bearings (e.g. FAG/Schaeffler, SKF, NSK). Cheap Chinese bearings will not last long.

If you go to the Action Photo site, you can browse photos of unidentified riders (e.g. ones like you without photo stickers). You might get lucky and find a pic there.

It's much cheaper to lose it from your body (if you've got 3kg to lose). On the other hand, going from a 10kg to a 7kg bike you may get other improvements such as better wheel hubs and bearings or better tyres. These will also increase your speed on flats and downhills.

Could work, but you'd have to enforce some kind of rule that says if you drop down from your assigned batch, you're not eligible, otherwise you'd get guys dropping from A down to, say, G, just to win some prize money.

I've had exceptional customer support from Garmin (and posted about it here a few months back), even better than the good (at the time) customer support I received from Polar when I had one a few years ago. I think it's a bit unfair to criticise Polar for a lack of spares. I reckon it would be difficult to find spares for any consumer electronic device that is seven years old. That's the price of progress. The comparison with VW is a bit spurious. It's relatively easy to measure and make generic copies of those spare parts, while the nature of mechanical components means that a part that fits a 1980s Kombi may still have been in use when Kombis were discontinued and may still be in use on a Polo or something today.

Whatever you eat the night before a normal long ride.

I'm sure you can get it cheaper, but...: http://za.rs-online.com/web/p/adhesive-activators-primers-debonders/0473405/

If all else fails, apply heat. That'll burn away the super glue, at the risk of damaging the paint and even the metal parts if they get too hot.

The GSC10 attaches to your left chainstay and detects both cadence (from a crank magnet) and speed (from a wheel magnet that I presume they're referring to above).

I should have worded that a bit better. The calculation I suggested will be valid only if you haven't updated your FTP in WKO+ during that time period.

If you can get average NP, your can work out average IF by dividing NP by FTP (assuming you didn't change the FTP value entered in WKO+ during time period).

Here's the old spreadsheet and webform: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArEkDBvTf9KcdGp5WEZxT0xsS2lGbnBMQVJPUFJPMkE&authkey=CP2lkm0 You're welcome to make a copy for this year. I'm a bit short on time to fiddle with it at the moment.

You can sort of get this with IF. It's NP/FTP, so not percent but it is the ratio.

I think that's pretty doable. On last year's (apparently harder) route, over 50% of D managed a sub-3 and almost 30% did sub-2:55. If you miss the last batch, you can still shortcut through the suburbs and rejoin the route after one of the cut-off points. I did that a couple of years ago and joined up by Dunkeld.

That's really cool. I've gotta try it.

I'm in the camp that says you only take on debt for items that won't depreciate (e.g. houses) or are basically essential for modern life, but are usually unaffordable with cash (e.g. cars for transport to work etc.). That said, this is pretty sage advice. The spending and debt habits of large numbers of South Africans make the knee-jerk 'no loans for luxuries' response a reasonable and prudent generic recommendation. I can, however, see the point the debt could be taken on if it is based on a reasoned decision and that the repayments can be comfortably serviced (including if rates were to spike in the future).

Wow, I'd hate to be in your position where the debt is so bad that you can't even afford punctuation...

Unfortunately not. Look at the classifieds section. It's extremely rare for someone to get more than 50% of the initial value when selling second hand. This is especially true for carbon MTBs since buyer are weary of potential issues with second hand carbon frames.

I've noticed a bigger problem. I think you may be using the wrong groupset...

Or not.