Velouria

I always say that riding the bike is the easy part. Being the brains of the operation is the hard part. I think doing it unsupported solo should be a separate category! (My only advice would be a very big cooler box with 30 premixed bottles!)

It's been such a long time that I think I am a noob all over again! Watching a solo rider pass another rider (not a common occurance) is like watching a Formula 1 overtake move in super slo motion - the whole procedure takes about 3 minutes! So, I can afford to be polite and have a whole conversation - in fact, I often enjoy the company, the slower pace, and the distraction. My passing phrase is "Hi there - passing on your left/right when you get the chance", followed by a "Thank you", and it seems to work like a charm

Maybe this is just the sort of event we need for us to learn how to be civil to each other again. I've never had an issue, both as someone passing people, or as someone being passed. As long as both parties are polite and patient, the course provides enough space to pass. "Please" and "Thank you" have an amazing effect in miraculously widening the trail. As for the E-bikes - the purest in me isn't convinced, but if we want events like this to continue, we need numbers, and if the numbers are riding E-bikes, so be it. I think I would take the E-bikers over the trail runners - at least we have a few more things in common.

And boy do we have a few stories to tell Busy working on it

I'm quite sure this is exactly why they invented the lap timer. Now I really need to know what you have against the lap timer... I've spent 10 minutes trying to figure this out and I'm clueless!

Some years it works out perfectly and we are indeed a well oiled, Quick-Step Floors like team with a pace line to die for. Other years we get it a little wrong and we end up looking like Group 4G at the Cape Town Cycle Tour trying to a clip in on the start line without falling over!

Our team has a strict "No Team Rides" rule. The only time we ride together before the event is the ride to the start line. I think I've only met 4 of my teammates... But, 3 members got together this year and did Four Passes (after suffering FOMO when they saw The Savages do a team DC Four Passes ride). At least we have our first item on the agenda for the fines meeting!

Thanks Az - I saw those photos from Cape Classic and was wondering what they could do in 2 weeks. To be fair, that old bridge was in such a state I'm surprised more people didn't write off wheels when crossing it!

Yup - the Nibali of Italian MTB. And we have a pro triathlete:

We've got this guy riding for us:

I've ridden on that road at least 159 times at all times of the day. Because there is no shoulder, I find it to be safer than most of the routes I ride. As a cyclist, on a narrow road, you become part of the traffic, and motorists take the appropriate action. It also restores my faith in motorists - we can all get along if we each do our bit. Part of my strategy when riding on that road is to thank the motorists that give me room as they go past. I'm not really waving at them - I'm showing the guy behind me that I am appreciative of the space the guy in front of me gave me, and 9 times out of 10, the guy behind me gives me space too. The really dangerous part is riding on Broadway Boulevard from Strand to Gordon's Bay. In their wisdom, the City of Cape Town painted bike lanes that are narrower than my handlebars and the effect is that motorists expect cyclists to ride in these debris-strewn strips of tar right next to the gravel shoulder.

Zandvlakte is at the exact position where you start to wonder where the hell CP2 is. It's pretty much the spot where the lead group starts to splinter every year at the end of those rollers. It's an interesting decision - maybe to try to bring CP3 more into the race? Maybe trying to break the front group up earlier? Or maybe there is just more space for everyone when rush hour hits.

Just you wait, bar ends will make a comeback. And I'll ready for that day! Talking of toe clips - I have a bike that needs a pair. If you have any contacts...

I did my PPL at Vanderbijlpark. Flew a bit out of Springs while I was still at school, and then was based at Stellenbosch for about 10 years.

Yup - it certainly lived up to its name. Sadly, after selling her, it was involved in a crash and burned up. The two pilots survived...

I used to own a Piper Tomahawk. That thing used to bring the most seasoned of instructors to their knees with the mere hint of spin training. It didn't really "drop a wing". Instead, it would flip over like an excited Labrador wanting its stomach scratched. And then keep flipping over. Violently. While the intention was often to do incipient spin training, we'd often do the full monty. As soon as the plane stalled, off she went! Two and a half rotations and a couple of thousand feet later there would be a rather clammy looking instructor sitting next to me

An Alu hardtail is THE perfect bike for this event. A triple chain ring on the front and you'll be dropping all the guys on single chain blades at around 50km/h. As for the roads - they might not be smooth and fast, but they'll still far better than they used to be. It is afterall, mountain biking...

I get a certain sense of delight in telling those around me that they are already in their lowest gear when I hear the frantic attempts to shift to an easier gear.

It's bad enough being chicked on the way up the climb (I'm at least used to that), but the last remaining part of my soul left my body when Jo came past me, going the wrong way!

This is a great little event. I say little in that it's still finding its feet, but give it a couple of years and it will to Joburgers what DC is to Capetonians. It's a deceptively tough route - and not just on the body. The concentration required to avoid all those potholes is quite exhausting! Will I be back? I think so - it's a long way to go, but this event is only going to get better. Well done to everyone who finished, and a special well done to those that didn't get off the bike through the Golden Gate reserve.

And season 5 started yesterday!! (I think it's better than The Body Guard)

We're in. We have a core couple of people from our almost victorious DC Mixed team, consisting of a few Capetonians, and a few Joburgers. (The Capetonians are a little nervous about having to ride in the thin air!!) But, we've hit a snag. One of our ladies has pulled out with post-Epic complications and so we're now on the hunt for a fast lady. If anyone's keen or knows someone who is looking for a good fun day of hard bike racing, give us a shout!

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a local crash investigator who was giving one of the subjects during our Com Course. His take was that Boeing and Airbus (and more correctly the US and France) had very different design philosophies when it came to building aircraft. In the US, the pilot is like a god. Just look at their history - The Right Stuff, test pilots, astronauts etc. They design a plane that a pilot can fly because the pilot can handle everything. Give him the tools, and he'll navigate his way out of every situation. Whereas in Europe, the engineer is like a god. The designer and creator of things. Pilots just steer their creations. If you want to do something complex, you automate it. You create a system that can do it and don't rely on the pilot. Now sure, both approaches have their pros and cons. But somewhere in the middle is a sweet spot. In the case of the 737 Max - I'd like to believe that this is Boeing realising that modern jetliners are complex machines and that they are only getting more and more complex with each iteration. So they put a system in place to deal with that complexity. Except they did it on the cheap, and as an optional extra. As sad as these two crashes are, at least the aviation industry sits up when there are incidents like this and fix the problem. If only other spheres of our lives were as rigorous (imagine if there was as much outrage over the Easter carnage on our roads as there has been of the Ethiopian crash, and we actually did something to stop it from happening again)

Well, today was the wakeup call - kinda like rewatching The A Team or Airwolf from the 80s. I was full of hope and excitement about my commute this morning, hoping that I could recreate that special moment, only to be totally disillusioned with it all. My Monday commute may well have been a dream after the let down that was this morning!

So, I've ridden a stretch of road between Somerset West and Technopark in Stellenbosch 575 576 times (since I've been on Strava), of which a large percentage of those trips being my commute to work. Yesterday, on my 575th time, I went slightly faster than I've ever been before. One of those perfect days to be out on a bike, where everything just clicks into place. Decent legs, motorists behaving, a solid tailwind, green robots. A near perfect 9.5kms. Life returned to normal today with crazy motorists, red robots, and dodgy cops. Still, I'd take today over a trip in a car anytime.