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Velouria

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Everything posted by Velouria

  1. 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!
  2. 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!
  3. 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!
  4. 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!
  5. Yup - the Nibali of Italian MTB. And we have a pro triathlete:
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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...
  9. 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.
  10. 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...
  11. 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
  12. 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...
  13. 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.
  14. 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!
  15. 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.
  16. And season 5 started yesterday!! (I think it's better than The Body Guard)
  17. We must have ridden around each other that year then - I had a little personal battle going on with Johan and each day (when we were firing on all cylinders) it would be a bit of a tit for tat grudge match. He really used to annoy me because he would block anyone that wanted to pass, he'd ride 2 or 3 metres behind Yolande, creating a bubble for her to ride in. And, as you can see, he's a big guy that, while he's a monster on the flat, doesn't go uphill as well...
  18. 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!
  19. I did 2010 with a slower partner. And to anyone who things riding slower is easier, you're wrong. I'd rather have a balls-to-the-wall, sit-on-the-rivet ride than a slow struggle. Cut off calculations are a daily consideration, and I remember a few occasions in 2010 where we were less than halfway on the course, with less than half the time left. The scenarios going through your head are torturous - at what point do I leave my partner and make a dash for the finish? Do I push and pull him, only to have to do this again tomorrow? What works better - the carrot or the stick? (Does anyone remember the kids on the dam wall outside Ceres throwing apples at the riders below - my partner does, as he was hit squarely on the back of the neck - in that small gap between his helmet and his Camelbak. I had to do everything in my power to stop there from being a murder out on the route) (And while I'm remembering, that was also the year where the Aussie died in his tent - RIP) I did figure out one thing towards the end - a way to level the playing field. 29ers were just taking off - I'd had one for 3 weeks, but I had been to scared to ride the thing at Epic, just in case everything fell apart (me, not the bike). But, I had a change of heart with two stages to go. Going from a full sus to a 29er hardtail slowed me down enough on the climbs and the technical descents, and also gave my partner a good pocket to hang onto on the flats. And finally, we clicked as a team! (The first real Epic stage I did without a Camelbak - what a difference)
  20. Funny you should say that - I do in fact do have some race reports from back then (I haven't read these stage reports in ages, so I apologise beforehand) Start here: https://www.velotales.com/2008/04/cape-epic-prolgue.html I might have lost the Camelbak and gotten a 29er, but you'll never get me to lose the bar ends!!
  21. 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)
  22. 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!
  23. 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.
  24. I love Epic when I am riding it, and I hate Epic when I am not. I have a story about how my partner almost didn't make it - way back in 2008, the last of the Kynsna to Lourensford routes. We were in good shape. The point to point format suited us well - we're capable mountain bikers, but the masochist in me also loves a long dirt road. We had high hopes of a top 50 finish. We'd put some decent miles in (we'd ridden Epic the year before with different partners, and pretty much had the admin and routine of Epic waxed) and we were in good shape going into the first ever Epic Prologue. Not my favourite format of bike riding, but we did ok, despite my partner having a slight mechanical towards the end. My partner didn't say anything, but something wasn't right. The next day was Kynsna to Saarsveld, and we knew to ride slowly, ride within ourselves etc, and we mostly did, but once again we both suffered from mechanicals, a freebody that didn't want disengage, and a jockey wheel that didn't want to turn. Again manageable problems that we could deal with. What we couldn't deal with were the cramps that my partner was experiencing. Like little mice running up and down his legs. We got our massages, we recovered well, fixed our bikes, and started Day 2 with high hopes that our bad luck was behind us. Saarsveld to Caitzdorp. We started off well again. Bikes were finally working properly. We had a good morning. And then we hit the big climb of the day. Back in those days, portaging was a thing. You kinda knew that Dr Evil was going to send up some unrideable climb every single day. You either pushed your bike, or pulled the adventure racer move and put your bike on your back. And so we started pushing. Except my partner wasn't making much progress. He hadn't popped, or bonked - he just pretty much ceased to exist. Like his life force left him. And it was hot. Super hot. My happy place, but my partner's kryptonite. Somehow we got over that mountain. I either relayed the bikes up, taking one 100 metres up the trail, running back down, and taking the other one two hundred metres up, or, where the trail allowed, pushing both at the same time. I still fondly remember him asking me for some water (we had Camelbaks but he wanted water). My camelbak was dry, we had 30kms to go, and I was doing cut off calculations. I had 3 quarters of a bottle of water, which I handed over. Instead of drinking my precious water, he took it and poured it over his head. I was so mad, but he was quickly forgiven when I tried to offer him a pocket - he couldn't even hang on to my pocket. I had to push, and even then, he could barely turn the pedals. He was truly broken. We eventually finish the stage, do our chores, recover etc when his wife comes over and k@ks all over him. His Camelbak was still full. He had barely had a sip from it all day. I was also k@kked on and given firm instructions to treat him like a puppy (it was way before any of us had kids) and check every 20 minutes that he was drinking. We took the next stage super slowly. So slowly that I think 80% of the field went passed us. So slowly that my mind wandered off and I had a stupid fall on some loose gravel, taking off skin on my thigh and banging up my knee. Again, cutoff calculations needed to be done. The head hang is my partner's tell when it comes to suffering We finished the stage with the sun low in the sky. I went about my chores (back then you had to wash your own bike!) while his wife insisted he see someone in the medical tent (a tip from the inside - if you want them to see you sooner, vomit. No one likes a vomiter. And so my partner did a strategic vomit, although I don't think his body needed too much convincing). They kept him for 5 hours, gave him 3 drips (I think) and discharged him after everyone had gone to bed. Funny story - he couldn't find his tent - he'd only briefly seen it when finishing before going to the medics - and no matter how many times he tried to explain to the security guard that he was looking for his tent, the guard couldn't help him when all he had to go on was "it's red". I had taken a sleeping tablet and had earplugs in. His phone was flat. His wife was eventually called from the wive's guesthouse to come and show him where his tent was. We started the next stage not knowing what was going to happen, and also saddened by the news that @J Wakefield had had to withdraw, having faced his own demons for a few days. Epic is tough, and takes no prisoners. We got through that stage in decent shape, and then slowly started to ride where we should have been all along, sneaking in a couple of top 50 stage finishes. Epic is what you make of it. It's tough. It's emotional. It's exhilarating. The memories I have from this race alone will make for great stories one day when I'm old and cantankerous, as I sit in my lounger, recounting my experiences to my grandkids... The finish in Lourensford
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