stratus5

Sean, notice the big smiley behind the kick butts statement and the singular picking on City Cycles. It was meant as a very friendly jibe to another club that we often see in passing. Your named list would beat us hands down, but that is not the point. I just thought it may be fun if some clubs took up the challenge of riding as a club in one of the non-league groups. Probably something similar to the way the DC works. The hot riders would be in league leaving the rest of the less serious riders to have a bit of fun interclub rivalry.

I suck on the hilly races ... way too big (95kg). The same applies to the outriders team. The blue train only works during the flatter races as the individual differences are too big on a very hilly course and the group quickly shatters. Most of the outriders are seeded E or better, but we started in G so as to include more members (and go up Hels in a more controlled manner). We had not realised that we could catch the leading STARS and in so doing, mess with the results. That being said league groups are not supposed to hitch onto faster groups coming through? Lesson learned ... if we put together a fun team for some of the flatter races, we will start ahead of the STARS. If nothing else, Gerard Genis's invaluable contribution to the outriders has been to get some of the non-league riders to enjoy the benefits and fun of riding in a well organised team. Hopefully some of this will rub off and we can get some of the other clubs doing something similar. We often see City Cycles with large groups on their training rides for example. We know the Outriders would kick their butts in a team event :>)

You worked like a dog ... Really deserved the win ... What you will find is that because of all the extra work STARS makes you do, your strength will increase dramatically without you really noticing (because you are normally pulling on the front) When you get to a race like the Argus(and 99'er) and the work load is more evenly shared, suddenly you find that you are cruising within the bunch and the moment a group of strong riders try a break, you are able to join them and make it stick. The wheel suckers tend to fall off as they have not really worked all season :>) Its a subtle change, but will bring a smile to your face and make the pain and frustration all worthwhile when you experience it. Best of all is you may not even notice that the group has shattered behind you until you see the results. I got the bike second hand here on the hub. Nobody wanted it and I got a good price. I added the Shimano C50's to it and it completely transformed the bike ... it had looked quite ordinary with the easton circuits.

I rode CAT3 last year and that is essentially what the STARS group is this year. Swore never again. Most of the riders (Cedar very guilty) have the mindset that they are either sprinters or climbers and that is all they will do. So you have a bunch of essentially very strong riders that will do no work for the entire race, saving themselves for the sprint (witness the first two on Sunday sprinting for the line) or the nutters who climb each hill at an insane pace and then drift straight to the back to recover. The handfull of bigger stronger riders do all the work on front, but it only takes a race or two before they get pissed with the whole silly game and ease off on the pace. The group then slows way down. There is the difference between league racing, with team stategy and position being the main aim vs the rest of us who are racing for time. STARS has a mix of these goals so never really works well. Thought they were going to can the idea after the disaster that was CAT3 last year? I started F/G (Outrider, red Cervelo) and was surprised at how quickly we blew through the STARS and how few of them (2) would do any work up front. When we caught D/E they were crawling and again only one or two would do any work. I suggest that some of the Hub members in the STARS get together as a team (at least eight of you). Wear some sort of kit that identifies you and then organise yourselves into a unit that works together, similar to what the Outriders are doing. You will work harder overall, but can control the pace up the hills. The wheel suckers will benefit, but it can be very rewarding and much less frustrating. Your times will improve If you continue to race in STARS with the current chaos, its unlikely that you will get times good enough to qualify for the real league in spring. One off the funniest side effects of a well organised through and off at the front, is every now and again a wheel sucker gets caught up in the rotation and cant find a gap to duck off before they reach the front. The increasingly frantic attempts at trying to get out of the line always brings a smile to my face. Like a rabbit in the headlights :>)

99'er uses different seeding from PPA. Similar to Burger seeding method. Dont think they even look at your PPA results?

I was told at school that we all came from the top of a mountain in Turkey? There have been no ice ages since that point in time ~4500BC. I'd hate to think somebody was lying to me?

Not that funny, but might elicit a smile or two My link

Ghost rider still there. Was 2 min faster than winner at the Burger. Ghost not as quick as last year though, drugs clealry taking their toll.

PPA publish their seeding rules on their website. The negative was because they did not follow them and would not explain how they were doing the seeding last year. They over did it and cleaned out A-F so much so that only a handful of riders were left that did not race league. One only has to look at the SA champ winning a PPA race and barely scraping into a B seeding at the start of this year to see how heavy handed they were. Now they are being less anal about the phantom winning time, everybody's seeding is improving back to where they were again. They are not going to get much positive feedback because of all the secrecy around exactly how the seeding works. If they were more transparent people would criticise less. I have gone from an F -> C and everybody I ride with has improved by two or more groups. Clearly somethings changed, but PPA are not saying what?

The PPA considers the winning time to be 2:13, not the actual time of 2:15 for seeding purposes. 2:13 is supposedly the time the top riders in SA would have achieved had they ridden. Nobody quite knows who these mystery top riders are as even when Darren Lill (SA champ) competes, the winning time is lowered. The beta of 0.94 is relative to the Argus. This implies the Burger is 6% easier. Cape Cobra etc will get a beta of 1.2 or more.

Burger got a bit clobbered with a beta of 0.94 and the mystery rider two minutes faster than the winning time.

I have V brakes on the tandem (~160kg), but not happy with the stopping power at all. Are there special brake pads for a tandem? Will try replacing them as a first effort.

No, that is Dec 21, 2012

Your joking right? The Quran .... the one that says Jesus is only a prophet, not divine? You accept that truth? That Mohammed went to heaven on a winged horse? That all infidels must die? Show me one archeological reference to Moses? One piece of solid evidence thats not in a religious text. The Jews have been digging up the Holy land stukkend and they have found what .... nothing, nada nyet! The Egyptions must have come off the Ark surely? Rather odd that these meticulous record keepers dont have a single (not one) reference to Jewish custom or history recorded for the entire exodus period or earlier. In short I have done the reseach, thats how I know there is no evidence. Now show me your evidence

Then we better ban 29'ers as well

Sorry, cant resist. Lets start with Moses.... There is absolutely no historical evidence for this greatest Jewish leader of all times. No inscriptions on stone, bone, bronze, clay tablets, papyri or any mentions in place names or in traditional legends in the area, other than in the Bible. Even though Moses is far younger than well documented Egyptian, Assyrian and Sumerian rulers who left us monuments, statues, pictures/hieroglyphs and an abundance of inscriptions. You claim to have knowledge or proof of the remains of the tablets or is that just religious speak for its in the bible? This is lying for Jesus. Most religious peolple might believe you on face value, but a rational person will be disturbed by the lie. Moses was a swine. His tribe supposedly slaughtered 3000 people on his orders when he came down the mountain with the tablets for worshipping the Golden calf. Written on his tablet were the words "THOU SHALT NOT KILL" Clearly God had not made much of an impression at that point.

I think you would have to agree that where teams break rules that jeapordise the future running of this event they should be censured? Why have any rules if you can cherry pick them? I might choose a differnt rule to break, like getting towed by the team car. Ah, cherry picking the rules, reminds me of another thread LOL.

I had a Lance Armstrong moment near Robertson. After sitting on the saddle for too long, I could not feel my right testicle

I dont think you guys need bother about enforcing the rules. There will not be a DC next year. We were asked very nicely to adhere to certain rules during both the managers and riders briefings, but it would appear that many riders are both deaf and illiterate. As you are aware the DC was almost cancelled this year, but management managed to persuad the traffic authorities at the last moment ... So WTF were so many riders doing on the right hand side of the white line. Are you retarded? The rules are clear, the race is in jeapardy and yet entire teams were slip streaming faster teams even if it meant riding three abreast to the right of the white line. On the Montague road we had a bunch of FIVE teams all slipstreaming group 241 (I think). Half of them on the RHS of the road. One team slip streamed us for nearly 25km on the into wind stretch after Robertson. Its a team event! So you if you all cheat as a team then its OK? Is the the cheating somehow diminished if you spread it out amongst 12 of you? Its time organisers take us by the balls. Each team carries a "gopro" type camera and if teams are cheating and you have video confirmation, then its instant disqualification. I know for most of us its a "fun" ride ...this is not about the result, but about the actual continuation of the event. If its canned, you know who you are.

This thread has really blown apart... What we need to bring about some sanity is ... The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch The instructions for its use can be found in the fictitious Book of Armaments, Chapter 2, verses 9-21, "And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O LORD, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy. And the LORD did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu... . And the LORD spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it." http://youtu.be/nzrc5Zbclpg <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nzrc5Zbclpg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Clearly those aren't your mormon friends ... LOL

I am in Oyster Bay, just West of St Francis from 27 Dec to 6 Jan. There are quite a few tracks between Oyster Bay and St Francis. They are very sandy if it has not rained in a while, but I think the area has had quite a bit of rain the last few months. The area is demarcated for the new nuclear power station, so is fairly sparsely populated. Dont think anybody minds bikes or hikers in the area this time of year. I have attached a Google Earth photo of the area. Most of the tracks run within a few hundred meters of the coast. You can see them clearly if you have Google earth. Dont use the main sand roads beyween Oyster Bay and St Francis. Its tempting, but they are hectically busy, very dusty and the cars drive like maniacs along this stretch. Once you get to Oysterbay. If the tide is not too high, there is a lovely 5km ride along the beach to the rocky point. There is some virgin territory to explore here further west, but think it may be too sandy.

Saw this on a news24 blog ... LMFAO if true "A story from a friend of mine - so its true. This friend of mine works with a woman who has a 14 year old highly functioning autistic child. By all accounts he is a lovely kid, just a big one and one who does not quite live in the world we all do. So the mother is at work one day and the son phones her at 1:30. Clapping his hands excitedly he says ‘Mommy mommy you must come home’. ‘No my love, you know mommy only comes home at half past four and its half past one now. ‘No mommy’, clap, clap, ‘you must come home now.’ ‘My boy, I can’t.’ ‘You have to mommy,’ clapping frantically, ‘I caught a troll.’ ‘No you didn’t. There is no such thing as trolls.’ Child getting distressed. ‘I did mommy. I caught a troll. Come home now.’ So the mother tells work that her son is getting into a state and she has to go home and sort it out. Mother drives home and finds her son besides himself with excitement. Much clapping and exclamations of catching a troll ensue. ‘Okay my boy. Calm down. What did you do with the troll you caught?’ asks mother in an attempt to sort the situation. ‘I put him in the cupboard’ says boy, flinging open the under the stairs cupboard. And there, huddled in the corner is a very frightened dwarf Jehovah’s Witness who had come knocking on the door only to be grabbed by the large 14 year old as his captured troll.

I am posting this without permission, but thought it was hilarious and worth sharing.... From one of the Outriders who fell in Atlantis during the West Coast Express: "Yesterday had some surreal movements (real Quentin Tarantino stuff I'm afraid) . Whilst laying in a pool of blood (I didn't realize I could bleed so much) a car stops next to me and a chap starts shouting at me that this is my punishment for riding on Sabbath. At the same time all I can hear are more riders crashing behind me on the same patch of diesel. All this was happening whilst the mobile doctor was pulling on his latex gloves and tell me "no glove no love" with a big smile on his face. "

Not sure, we know it can be done as I think the Argus has a mat on the finish line and then a further timing check just beyond that. The problem with flat, fast finishes is that they put the timing mats a decent distance from the demarcated finish, so that everybody gets to slow down in theory. When that distance is quite large, then positions can change as the quicker you get to the mats, obviously the sooner the clock stops.