Velouria

Don't you dare knock those pants! I have 3 pairs and love them (although I think I have only ever unzipped the legs once in 10 years!). Don't you guys on that side have Table Mountain cops or something that you can call? Good on you for waiting for the slow guy - we're so busy fighting with each other on the Hub that we often forget that we're in all in this together...

To be fair, I think I could have taken him. Even though I've never thrown a punch in my life. It wouldn't have been pretty, but I was ready to let the fists of fury fly! I was upwind, and it smelt like I'd crossed paths with a craft brewery still perfecting their brewing process. One well aimed shove and I'm sure he would have over-balance and fallen on his face. And tying in with the chat we're having on the other thread, this was me mountain biking. I feel much safer on the road, even with no shoulder! Motorists, in general are decent people. Some of my best friends are motorists.

I had a bit of an encounter on the new gravel bike path next to Annandale road (outside Stellenbosch) yesterday. A guy saw me coming (I mostly ride alone), jumped down the 2m verge and blocked the path. I saw him, and stopped about 20m short of him and asked what he wanted. He started listing his Christmas list: Food water a phone . . . Luckily, a passing motorist saw the scene unfolding and stopped. The guy took a look at the motorist and moved aside slightly. I took my chance and bolted past him, waving my sincere appreciation to the motorist. Definitely a new place to encounter trouble (and this was after I'd sh@t myself seeing a 1.5m snake an hour previously).

The last 2 years I've done it on a 2x11 with a 38 on the front and a 9-46 and not needed the smaller chain ring on the front. There are plenty of sections where a bigger chain ring helps, and a 10-50 should be more than enough! I say 34! Yup - it is. Speak to Kevin and get yourselves organised. I suspect there are a couple of people eyeing that title!

That's exactly how I know it's the festive season. Not from the mince pies on the shelves, or the sounds of Boney M blaring from every shop, but by the sudden increase in glass on our roads (both from accidents and alcohol bottles). I hope your day has since improved...

Only 5 times I'm skipping 36One to have one last go at a 24hr, another event I've retired from on repeated occasions!

You can't even compare this to 100Miler (no offence to Meurant). 36One is in a different league - not just in terms of hardcoreness, but in terms of organisation too. The vibe, the scenery, the riders. A really cool event. That I won't be doing again any time soon! It's Oudtshoorn, nothing is far from the centre of town!

As the crow flies - yes. It's quite close. But it's not the same venue. about 20km out of town in the middle of nowhere! If I was in your team - I'd like to be taken to and collected from that checkpoint. Assuming that you're doing the full event as a 2 or 4 man/woman relay, you'll probably only be handing over at the earliest 2am. (There is also the added complexity of getting to the first checkpoint if you're a 4 person team).

We took two riders off the Hub (from 5 applicants)

I think our coffee conversation with him must have lasted about 2 hours. He told us he didn't like the taste of coffee while drinking Monster mixed with vodka. WTF?! (Monster and vodka seems to make him fall apart too)

It took a little longer than planned, but here is my DC race report https://www.velotales.com/2018/11/the-double-century-2018.html

As one of our riders said going up the second sister: "If you're not blocking the wind or pushing a lady, you're not contributing. F*** off to the back"

That's where you're wrong. Riding the DC is only one half of our selection criteria. Sure, you need to be a decent bike rider, solid, strong, team player and blah blah blah... We also have an additional selection criteria. You have to stay for the Saturday night festivities. We're a team that exists for just over 6 hours. Many of us have never met until we see each other on the start line for the first time. We then race as hard as we can. And sometimes we do well. But the really fun part of the whole weekend is getting to know each other off the bike, and often to revel in the glory of the day's bike racing. So no, we don't just look for powerhouses. (And without giving too much of our strategy away, the powerhouses only look after the ladies for about 40% of the ride)

We have the opposite problem - finding riders is 90% of the battle. (Finding the right riders...)

Exactly, 12 strange people with nice silver medals, and loads of common stories!

I still maintain that riding slowly is WAAAAAY harder than riding fast. And I'm quite sure I'll suffer from a sense of humor failure long before the finish line

Well done to the winners, and to all my teammates, but second still sucks. Being the first losers is pretty ***, especially when we had such a great day out there. But, just to put it into perspective - we had a guy in our team who had been trying for four years to crack a podium, and he finally did it. Seeing his joy and happiness made it all worth it. It wasn't first, but it is still quite an amazing achievement. And hopefully a motivator to try a little harder next year!

Sorry for the late reply - I'm away on a business thing which is cutting into out race report writing time [emoji33] We had a good ride, and I'm quite sure in previous years it would have been good enough for a win. Somewhere out there we lost 66 seconds (looking back at the splits, we were up by about a minute leaving the last stop). But that's bike racing. Not bad for a bunch of guys and (amazing) girls who had never ridden together before. Which is EXACTLY why I love this race so much - complete strangers coming together for one day and doing something special. And having fun. What an awesome event, and well done to everybody. Especially the 11 other strangers that made up Cape Cycle Tours. Race report to follow soon.

It's going to take a very special person to dish out money to be on the receiving end of a beating. I say this because that's exactly what happened to us last year (although no money changed hands). One solitary DiData rider - Nic Dlamini - single handedly managed to put 11 of us into a very very dark place. We had the rather interesting situation where riders were fighting to NOT be on his wheel. The sneakiness of the moves we pulled to avoid the spot of death got quite creative. Skip a turn at first. Pretend your number was coming off. Need to tighten your shoe. The fake bonk. A tactical vomit. A foot in your spokes. We did it all! And heaven help you if you got your Shleckchute timing wrong and ended up as rider number 6. A very k@k place to be!

And, as luck would have it, my commute home was just as interesting. I knew that I was in for an exciting ride home as I took my bibs off the coat hanger, only to feel that they hadn't dried a single bit! The only thing worse than wriggling into cold soggy bibs, is putting on a cold soggy heart rate strap, followed by a cold soggy cycling top. Thankfully, my socks were dry, as I'd worn them all day (although I suspect something nasty is probably going to grow out of my shoes in the coming weeks!) I thought a howling South Easter was going to be my biggest problem of the ride. One of those breezes that if you don't pedal on the downhills, you stop moving. As I got closer to the Helderberg mountain, the sky started to get grey and icky again. I thought the rain was going to be the worst part of the ride, but since I was already mostly soggy, it wasn't. That special award, once again, for the 2343rd day in a row, goes to a motorist. One of those motorists that hold the mistaken belief that only cars should be on the roads, and that anything else is an annoyance and a hindrance. Aaah - the joys of commuting...

I'm curious - which podiums are Pure Savage going for? And that has to be a kiss of death - nominating the top 6 before a pedal has been turned in anger!

It is easier to negotiate with my 4 year old about bath time and the number of "Treehouse Detectives" we'll be watching than it is to negotiate with the gate ooms and tannies. I wanted to go into the bike park to put my helmet on my bike, but I was trying to go in via the exit. No amount of flattery, begging, or hissy fits got me anywhere.

I washed my bike yesterday. I should have known that trouble was on the way. The weather report is for some cloud about this morning. A light southerly breeze. Perfect for a gentle cruise to work. I set off. Sky looks ominous. It's ok - cloud never killed anyone (except people in aeroplanes I suppose). Two kilometres later and it's starting to spit. But the forecast was for no rain - I can will this moisture away! Another kilometre and it's pouring. In my wisdom, I didn't pack my clothes in a packet, just in my cotton drawstring bag which is on my back. And I definitely didn't pack in extra socks. I can't see, my glasses have fogged up, and are covered in rain droplets. So I take them off. I still can't see - anything over 30km/h and rain drops are hitting my eyeballs. And then it happens. That moment when you feel the water ooze down your soaking socks into your still dry shoes, and start to pool directly under the arch of your foot. For me, that is always the worst moment of riding in the rain. The moment when you're truly soaked! Luckily, this moment happened to coincide with me hitting the back of a traffic tailback. No matter how k@k my ride is, the pleasure of passing stationary cars is enough to make my day. And there must have been stationary cars for about 500m. I'm almost at work when it hits me. The construction site next to our office is going to be a mud pit. And the road to it is going to be a mess. And my clean bike is definitely not going to be clean anymore. And I'm probably going to have a mud stripe on my cycling shorts and drawstring bag. And I'm going to have to wear wet, muddy socks all day. I can't wait for the ride home

Naah - he'll be fine, as long as he doesn't sit on the top tube!

I suspect it's more about them having jurisdiction over Kevin. He still needs to comply with the rules under which he was found guilty.