grant10

There's a similar thread that I posted awhile ago. Although that was mostly for the Western Cape. https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/105720-toughest-climbs-in-cape-town/page__hl__toughest+climbs__fromsearch__1

Oh crap.

Hahahaha I see there's a dirt jump...

Hahahaha

Hey Heinrich, Some really great photos there! Nice one. I'm in a couple of them, would it be possible to purchase some digital copies?

Yes it is. Still major road works going on the bottom main road leading up to Kalk Bay.

Hahaha I think I also shed a few tears along the way. Especially when we got to the final waterpoint and the guy said cheerfully, oh just another 25-30k's to go. Which is it?? 25 or 30? Don't start throwing out variable distances! This is important!

This was my first Lighthouse 2 Lighthouse and I had an excellent time! Beautiful race, great vibe, friendly smiles all round and so much food. It's a tough event though and 103 kilometres into a headwind will test you mentally! Not to mention those 25km in the sand on each day. Strangely enough and probably fortuitously I had a bad day on day 1 and felt stronger on day 2 when I really needed it. But like everyone else I'm beginning to realise, those last 10k's into Gansbaai along the beach front completely broke me! There is also a 30km gravel road drag in the middle of the race that is mind numbing/heartbreaking/frustrating/mentally disturbing and a bunch of other things - the road just doesn't do anything except stretch out into the distance, with no sections at all to freewheel and recover, you are fighting against the wind all the way, punctuated with corrugated ridges along the way. Tough. It's not a technical race at all (apart from the sand), so don't come thinking singletrack and huge climbs, but it tests you in other ways and you have the privilege of riding on some beautiful pristine beaches with a great crowd of riders. It's also a race tailor made for 29ers. Not that I have one! Thanks to the organisers for a great event. I saw some photographers along the way, anyone know where you can see some photos of the ride along with the official results?

Did C bunch split up much? On Edinburgh? You must have been hammering it to catch B leaders by Glencairn?!

I feel like I'm back in the Matrix. Neo?

As someone who runs a design agency and admires and respects Jupiter's work (for the most part), I don't doubt that this logo (given the high profile nature of the brand) went through an exhaustive process, including focus groups and many many many drafts and was entrusted to their most senior creatives. Saying that though, their brief must have been very restrictive with a tight deadline (nothing new there) because the end result doesn't inspire anything in me. The Cape Epic is the toughest event on the calendar and one of the toughest globally and the new logo ultimately fails in it's ability to inspire and make me dream. It's OK. It's nice. It does the job. I'm not saying the old one was better, (it was too detailed and inflexible for the range of disciplines it was used on) but it did have that certain African edginess about it, the ability to challenge me and say "this is a tough event, are you sure you're up to it?" The new logo says: "Hello this is a corporate event and I work well on anything from banners to champagne glasses." It says nothing to me about the physical and emotional challenges of the race. Someone compared it to the Dakar Rally logo earlier and that is a brilliant comparison, the Dakar Rally says everything that the Epic logo does not. It's simple, flexible and evokes the tough uncompromising nature of the event. It could be worse though, it could be like the London Olympics logo. Thankfully we only have a few more months of enduring that one.

Though, with perfect weather that day...

Sweet, me too! Any ideas what a C group time might be?

Haha it's Grant. The other deVere guy who stopped with you for water is Austin.

Yep, totally agree. I'm in Stars with Mtb_Roadie and was hoping by joining to really improve my times and move up from F, but have realised that for one large club in the group it's about points and position, not time. And so they control the pace and bring back the breakaways. Which I am not necessarily disagreeing with, they are perfectly entitled to go for the wins/points etc. Just a bit frustrating for the rest of us. So it's not the group to improve your times! MTB_Roadie, even though you weren't feeling good, you were still a machine up front!! Good work.

Completely agree. Did a few sessions last year and it did wonders for my group riding and cornering. A mate of mine said one guy in our Stars group spent the whole ride in the drops weaving around and causing stress and then proceeded at one point to unclip and stretch his quad! He couldn't keep his line with both hands on, let alone trying to do a Tour de France yoga session.

Yip, I'm with touristvisa on this, I ended not really enjoying the ride altogether as I watched in horror as guys repeatedly went over the white line on blind rises and corners and I just prayed that I wasn't going to get caught up in something. The Stars also desperately needed a race marshal, that was one unstable bunch today, a lot of the guys didn't have a clue.

I'm racing in the Stars this season and while I enjoyed last weekend's race, today was an accident waiting to happen. Our bunch seems to be hugely inexperienced in bunch riding/racing and I got really angry and tired of shouting at guys who were going way over the white line, especially over Boyes Drive and through the Kommetjie to Smits section. Guys were trying to move up and around over the line on so many blind corners and rises. Why I don't know because no one was prepared to ride off the front today anyway, so it was completely unnecessary to take those risks and put everyone else in danger. There was so much traffic about and we also didn't have a bike marshal for some reason. That's my rant over. I really really hope the guys involved in the crash are OK. I managed to be ahead of it when it went down, but it sounded really bad. @Tiny I kinda enjoyed Military Hill. Offroad tyres would have been good though.

That looked amazing! Hugely envious and an awesome group of dudes to ride with. Nice one, as EigerSA said above, what cycling is all about.

As one member of our team said after the descent down Du Toits - "Probably the best hour of road riding I've ever done." And don't forget that unexpected climb up and over into Villiersdorp. Not the biggest climb, but when you've been hammering along mentally preparing for the Franshhoek Pass climb, and then suddenly you hit a mountain. Not ideal! Must read route map next time...

Not sure about Visserhoek, but you can't do the Mast on a road bike as you have roughly 5km of uphill gravel jeep track to get to the tarred section. It's been done on a roadbike I hear, but I assume it was a cyclocross bike or had special tyres...

Go for it! And let the dailycrank.net know how it went?

I'll be there and have posted on Daily Crank - http://www.dailycrank.net/table-mountain-100-safety-initiative/

That's quite a loop! I'd be sleeping on my desk for the rest of the day.

Awesome guys, cheers for the replies, yeah I left out some obvious ones! I'm just really interested in climbs that could be a real challenge to the heart rate, the steeper and longer the better! Would love to know total ascent and length if you know it. There's also the climb from Kalk Bay up Boyes Drive towards Cape Town. Real tough if you're chasing someone. Short, but can be a killer!