Francois Pienaar

Did you pay VAT or additional import duty when you ordered?

Baie dankie hoor! In case you were wondering. ESI grips don't work on this bike as the remote lock on out attachment doubles as a grip clamp. Will have to make another plan post Sani. The standard grips are pretty hard (no issue for full fingers, but eina without).

Let go of my trusty Merida HT and jumped onto this beast. The Scott Spark 930. Sani here I come!

I see you have dealt with this before. I see your point re: VAT etc. Also didn't see the out of stock. I will happily support you when you have it in stock.

How is that the same or cheaper than CRC? Btw, don't think your prices are too high, let's just stick to the facts.

Great pricing.

I've done wines2whales, bergnbush and transbaviaans on the hardtail. I find the hardtail just makes certain rides more uncomfortable, for example - Crater Cruise, Mountain Trophy etc. Having said that, If I had the cash right now I'll buy a dual sus 29er. Merida 3000 Carbon, Scott 910 or Spec Epic.

Coolio, moving on. In terms of Knox / Bell, I think they can take it considering most of the local talent will be at the UCI XO World Cup events. Not sure about Johan Rabie etc though?

How was I attacking? I'm really surprised that you can say that (them having sponsors...) Let's all calm down.

How can you say that? They were 24th overall?

I"m not complaining about the route, but look, the first stop for the Ultra was stupid. A bottleneck so close to the start is just not great, surely a small bridge would have completely cleared out that section. Then, onto what I expected and what I got. Well, I've "heard" the Crater Cruise is more like a road race, so I was expecting a lot of district road. From that perspective, I was actually happily suprised by the variety en route, my only complaint was that you had no food at the 25 or 50km water points. I'm not asking for a buffet, but a little potato or ring donut to keep me going would have been awesome. The 93km water point with cold coke and oranges was a total life saver and I LOVED the river water point as I had a full on swim. If I do the Ultra again, I'll simply be sure to take more food with me as I blew as a result of not eating enough before the 70km mark. Then when I reached the 70km water point, I was so low that I struggled to eat. Picked myself off the floor, marched on and eventually finished in a painful 7hr. Tough day at the office, lessons learnt. Bring on W2W.

Ultra entered. Gonna be a goody. Expecting my transbaviaans XP to assist.

nov 2013. Ask,moderators to turn odd replies.

Until you have cash in bank OR have at least made contact and arranged a drop off point, keep taking offers.

Nedbank sani2c @ryann1999 @fhpienaar We're sorry we can't give you more specific feedback The emails are all sent out by today. https://twitter.com/sani2c_scoop/status/50204180271598796

I spoke to them this morning. They seem to be in the process of finalising the list. So at this stage it seems like no one has received any notifications. Apparently there is like 1000+ riders on the waiting list for Trail alone.

Any chance of a route profile?

My take is with technology making bikes so light, back shocks so stiff, I believe if you have the cash, the option of DS is a must for SA Marathons and Ultra Marathons. Look at what the front of the bunch are riding on. Apart from Kevin Evans almost all the top guys ride rigid dual sus super light bikes.

Sadly solo riding is not great. At times, there is no choice, but ja, I try to stick to super MAIN roads when riding on my own. Sigh, the world we live in.

I would love to confirm, but unfortunately I wasn't there the day. HAHAHAHAH

HAHA, sure.

I saw "Francois Pienaar" on the list...

Links to the goodies please.

It's my first. Pretty happy with where my training is, BUT, I changed my bike on Monday night. #Gulp. I've gone from a 26er dual sus to a 29er hardtail as I just got a brilliant deal for a new bike, so couldn't resist. Took the puppy out for a 45km spin this afternoon and I'm very happy. My friend did the race in 13:30 last year, we conservatively hoping for 12-15, just taking it easy, riding within ourselves and our heart rate. We did say we'd like to get over bergplaas before it gets dark, but let's see how the wind blows.

Never mind, found it on the website. #FacePalm.