Paul Ruinaard

I ran a set of cyclocross/gravel tyres on my Roubaix on the ally DT Swiss R470 rims. Worked really nicely. I cant remember width but it was fine for even quite muddy consitions - depending on the tyres of course.

Robbie Hunter was eventually the enforcer in the bunch - not to be toyed with. From the Woes Rand.

Magene also looks like a good option. Compatible with Garmin. Ask on the Temu cycling goods alias. Lots of good info there. And keep us upadated on your experiences

maybe try giving a location - there is a lot of bush in the country. Which bush in particular.

Very well Priced and specced. Now do I need that much power and torque 💪💪💪💣💣💣

Ah okay i see - nothing on their site - some good prices though in comparison

Sorry dont know outer - is it a brand of MTB Bike. Personally a bit careful of warrnaties and spares so i would wnat a big player to be involved.

So seen as though every emtb now seems to have a DJI Avinox variant or motor + the launch video was **** in Paarl, does anyone know of when and via which dealers they will be available to us?

Hey but its your consitutional right to cycle wherever you want and in whatever time slots. And whatever happens the cyclists are right (even if wrong) and are protected by force fields of viruosity that will prevent any harm happening to them. #feedingtrolls

Just FYI to your point Burry died 13 years ago.

Well said. As per ususal your photos lead me to the the question of why cant we just enjoy it all? For me that whole stretch of road is going to be done without the joyful abandon i used to view it with. Its a bt like doing a chicken run now. Amongst one of the most beautiful stretches of road I have had the privilede to ride....

Yo - step away for a bit and this thing takes a life of its own. Happy Friday So thanks for some of the voices, maybe to reiterate this is a healthy debate and needs to be discussed so its lekker to see it all being chewed over. FWIW my mental health is also related to cycling - without it i would be dead many times over. Not sure how many times i have dodged a bullet on the bike as well but thats a different discussion. As a lighty i can always remember the sheer sense of liberation two wheels gave me and independence. I have never forgotten it. I ride bicycles and motorbikes and trace a large amount of my sense of freedom to two wheels and the kick it gives me. Literally my happiest place ever. I am not a joiner nor an advocate - i leave that for other people and will happily add my voice but i dont do my work like that so hear me out. I also like to. have a contrarian point of view to highlight the other sides - maybe to a fault. I always come back to the things that go along the lines of "repeating the same experiment and expecting a different result is the gravest sign of insanity". So what do we do now and what do we do next to make it different and to learn from what has happened. How do we avoid another bad news post and get righteously indignant about the injustice and also the fact we could have been the name on that post. My strategy is to avoid risks or manage it as best posisble. Thats what I always advocate. It has stood me in good stead and so i will try and work out my balance. Again i dont think anyone is wrong - we are all really dealing with it in our own way. Tjeers

Hahah no one is wrong we are just having a difference of opinion and a healthy debate. Nothing personal.

yes agreed, that is a given - so knowing that there are dangerous drivers all around you, do you contnue assuming all are safe and that you will be okay or do you change your behaviour accordingly? I agree the drivers are dangerous, so how do you reduce the risks you are exposed to with that. no question around that and really not deating it.

again substantiate mate. I have been here for many years. I think i have about 30 plus years on bicycles so may have had some expereince so your statements are pretty wild. More on motorbikes. But I am happy to ask dififcult questions and ruffle feathers. I am tired of seeing all the outrage and posts. Motorists arent changing their habits and the people are still dying. Rides, petitions, ghost bikes, memorials - how has that all helped to reduce the amount of people dying. Sure cyclists have rights and we are entitled to be there. How has that helped? Drivers are still drivng drunk and the authorities arent really doing much. Taxis still do taxi things. All the same - no changes. More cars, more danger. Has the amount of danger we are exposed to in the last 30 years increased or decreased from a cyclists point of view? I can tell you i would happily do non road closure races in the past in Jhb and all over. I would not do that for love nor money now with the way things are. All i am asking is that the cycling communty gets their heads out of their collective behinds and starts to recognise the situation they are in and act accordingly. I suggested people change their behaviours to ensure they reduce risks. But like i said its your choice to do this as you see fit. And i think it is your right to do whatever you choose - believe me you are welcome - but do it with awareness. If you choose to ride where its known to be high risk because other road users are not really interetsed in respecting your rights as a cyclist then you may have a bad outcome. you only neede to look at all the public comments to see that the public arent really interested in your rights as a cyclist in fact they are very much anti you. Take that on board because that is the reality - as much as we dont wnat to acknowledge it. We as cyclists are seen as the problem. All the posts about the fact we are husbands and fathers and the like is true, so why not just do soemthing to ensure you are more likley to walk in the door and be home after your ride than become a statistic.

So there are lots of people who are sensitive to the people who died and therefore are emotional. I am not commenting on any specific case or on any of those strings. You will see i never alluded to any of them. Happily state its horrific what has happened. I can add plenty to your list and still it carries on. People are getting killed. Thats not changing Thats very tragic. And no one is doing much - other than ghost bikes and outrage and complaints. Still the deaths continue. All i am suggesting is you do a solid investigation of what happened and ask the questions around what could have been done to avoid it or you will repeat the outcome. I am not suggesting what i am saying is popular nor anything to do with your rights etc, but if you do reduce risks you also potentially avoid more deaths. Simply put, if the traffic on that road or any dangerous road reduced statistically the likelihood of deaths would decrease. You make your own choices in the workd mate but in this case simply avoiding hot spots and esnuring you are not in the line of fire usually is a start.

yep agreed but thats the extreme. You can do a lot of things to reduce your risks and accept your environment is hostile in some respects. By going to the extreme case you ridicule the point. Every safety protocol is reliant on ensuring you eliminate all the things that can go wrong. Simply put you do that until the risks become acceptable to you. You can complain lots about your environmemt, drivers, the police, the govermnet etc and thats fine but it is clear none of that is changing and in fact its getting worse and more risky. If you dont take this fact in to acocunt and change your behaviour your risk of an accident increases. FYI I am 100% in agreement with you on the above in terms of lack of anything being done but you would not find me near those routes in a cycling bunch unless it was with total road closure. Thats what i have dcided to do.

Okay that quite a big statement you are making there without any substantiation. Which victims am I blaming and in which context do you make your allegations? I didnt blame any victims, rather I have asserted that cyclists can do a lot to clean up their shop and ensure they limit their exposure to harm which would mitigate risks. Are you alledging all cyclists and accidents related to them are victims? Always remember that those that ignore the past and history are destined to repeat it.

I would disagree vehemently with your last statement. Cyclists are very large contributors to the issue. Further, unfortunately you cannot behave like you live in a utopian world, when you clearly dont, and if you do you will impact your and others safety. I agree that the roads in the city arent safe so do you then inisst on further using them or agree to make a different plan. I have been riding MTBs and gravel on moat road routes for that exact reason. I am still out there cycling and enjoying myself and the ride is as much fun. in fact sometimes more.

So some things that I saw straight after this happened still blows my mind. On the way in to Paarl at 6 pm down the R 301 in peak traffic on Tuesday evening a kid and his mate are riding inside the narrowing yellow lines on MTB. He is riding hands free sitting up and texting as he pedals alongside the traffic. After all this debate and discussion on how to fix things you need to start with that. I would suggest that if he had to avoid a motorist in an emergency he would be toast and then its all the motorists fault. Sorry I think that the cyclists are a lot to blame. Riding in wide bunches across the yellow line as there is safety in numbers. There is even more safety in always staying in single file and giving space in the yellow line emergency lane for its actual use - emergencies. Large bumches on narrow roads that are heavily trafficked are just stupid. Like we hear - cars, bikes, motorbiles, busess, delivery vehicles, taxis and dog walkers, pedestrians and all other manner of obstacles are in the same space. Why not just avoid it all together. Eventually in Jhb i just put my bike on the rack and drove to the venue be it the cradle or N Farm etc. I have grown tired of all the people who insist on enforcing their rights to be in dangerous sitautaions. You also have the right to be in war zones and enforce your human rights there, but you will likely be at a very much large risk of becoming another idealist who is now a statistic. Darwin's laws of natural selection are as immutable as gravity. If you are stupid you will be more likely to remove your genes from the pool thereby improving the chances of the clever folks to succeed and breed. Everyone suffres from survivor bias.

Thanks - thats a really good explanation of what happened and how the circumstances trnaspired to create a lethal cocktail which can happen really easily. Do you think there may have been potential for a better outcome if the cyclists had ridden differently at all? Anything they could have done. FWIW I am just asking to see what the learnings are rather than trying to apportion blame. I ride in bunches and often see herd mentality in them and am very aware that this leads to some bad decisions. I also ride motorbikes a lot alone and am always aware that the potential for a situation to become lethal quickly always exists and therefore you need to always try and remove yourself from the risk. Just curious to try and see if one person's demise can create learnings for others. We can be and are rightfully horrified by what happened but we need to learn from it to avoid repeating the same mistakes, if possible. Not saying there were mistakes as well.

Too many dead cyclists and too many crazy drivers along there. I dont for one moment disagree with your sentiments wrt the location and its safety potential, but it is really clear that the circumstances surrounding this area are showing it to be very dangeous. My bias says therefore never go near. I abide by an internal philosophy saying those that run away live to fight another day. Its worth trying to understand what happened and if it was a set of freak circumstances that transpired to create a dangerous situation or whether there are things that should be learned from it. My learning seems to indicate that pretty much anywhere taxis are driving early moring or evening with lots of passengers at high speeds and with urgency is a bad place for cyclists to be especially in bunches.

Can anyone explain what happened here. It seems like it was a tight section of the road and there were cycling groups on both sides. One group was being overtaken by a car and the taxi then overtook the overtaking car and ploughed in to another oncomig group? Is this kind of correct. Just trying to work out how this all happened and if there was a clear mistake or negligent act by the taxi i.e. solid line or the like? It looks like there was an overtaking line on the road. I also dont see accurate descriptions or any claims around who was to blame - or not specifically. I know the cause of the death was the taxi hitting the cyclist but was the taxi clearly in the wrong and the cyclist in no doubt in the right? Was the group spread out i.e. large group, or were they in the yellow line. Lots of conflicting stories floating about and just trying to piece the facts togethre to see what could have been done to avoid similar incidents in the future. Lots of emotions but you need to know what happened and see what could be done for others to avoid similar. Personally i will not ride that road ever but i do ride in similar settings so would like to know.

Now that is a good question which I have been wondering what the answer is. Its a bit off topic but its also an interesting discussion. Maybe some data geek that is better than me can answer it for the CTCT this and last year. But truth be told ts basically a function of the type (or power of the motor) of your ebike and the amount of battery power you have got. As well as your ego and wallet size. they seem to work in synch. Option 1: Lots of battery with big powerful bike like an eMTB Specialized Levo Gen 4 Sworks or a DJI Amflow. I know of someone who can build a piggy back battery for the current Specialized Levo MTBs that will give you close to 1500 kw/h of battery whch has been used for race to sea in off road guises. That motor is in the 800 watts output and 100 n/m of torque Given some mods i.e. slicks, a 38 chain ring and some bigger gears (9 on the cluster) you could make one of them very very fast and also maybe pre position a battery booster pack halfway and then its just a function of battery power. We are not even in the DJI Amflow part of the word which is over 1000 watts. Also many folks in CTCT used 2 x batteries - change near Simonstown. Option 2: Given a strong guy on something like an e road bike without any fancy chages to limiters and the like you could go quite quickly. Specialized Creo with the SL 2.2 motor gives you 320 Watts on Turbo and then with a range extender it will give you a rnage of something like 130kms. Another range extender out on course and you have a lof of gas and a bike that will be able to happily sit in any high speed bunch riding. I reckon a sub 3 is achievable in secnario 2 and in 1 you can build something pretty crazy and then get really fast. I am old , not that thin and nowhere close to my peak but on my Creo 3:20 is pretty much in reach with a good bit of effort. Those 20 minutes can easily be shaved off with a big strong guy on the bike. So Sub 3 is basically an easily done thing. The examples of this that are worth knowing about are Joris Ryf who is/was the emtb world champion who did the wine 2 Whales on an ebike (Specialized Levo) with no limits and i think a massive battery or many batteries - total time FOR THE WHOLE RACE was i think less than 6 hours. Thats the whole course. All three days. That was a year or two ago. You can assume his bike had no governors and was approaching an MX bike or a Talaria. There is another dude who is bagging all the ebike KOMS in Paarl on the mounatin i have seen on Strava (wont mention names) who seems to have a lot of battery and no limits on the bike. Some of his KOMs he is claiming has 36 kmh ave up to the mast up on paarl mountain and the gradient is probably average 6% and higher in some places. That is crazy - he passed us going uphill like he was on an enduro motorbike. Many segments he has identified he now owns using this approach. Its a function of a.)power output and b.) battery - not really much else - you need to be able to point it and see where it goes. There must be someone who has gone full gas on an ebike for laughs and put up something like a 2:40 for the CTCT or something way under 3 hrs.

Things that need to change at CTCT: - Number collection and expo. Let you print out your own number and stop wasting time and effort taking you to an expo that is really a waste of time. I would even pay extra to avoid the schlep to walk through the expo at high speed. Nothing new or that i cnat google that was there. - goodie bags. So much a waste of time and money. Dontae this to charity. Others?