Baracuda

I am training for the ever pushed out Swartberg Fondo and was going through expensive energy bars etc at a pace. Started to do some research on ingredients (energy/carbs per unit weight) and dates and almonds seem to be among the best. In the baking section at checkers you can buy dates at a very reasonable cost. Long story short, I spent R200 on dates, almonds and the other ingredients required to make date balls. That produced a whole baking tin of date balls. After 3 months of riding taking 2-3 balls in a ziplock bag (that I reuse with me), I still have a quarter of the tin left. If you run the sums, each ball has more energy carbs that all the branded bars that are R40 each. And they taste better.

Instead of investing heaps in camping gear, a starting option is also just to use farm stays e.g. those on Lekkerslaap. I am not referring to the larny places, but a basic place that is clean, warm and has a shower and coffee plunger. e.g. https://www.lekkeslaap.co.za/akkommodasie/buffelspoort-cottage--camping Lekkerslaap have a map and between their site and Google Maps, you can stitch together a 3, 4, 5 day (however long) trip, with a basic place to stay every 100km or so. You then don't need to carry camping and cooking gear which saves you a stack of weight as well.

Can't reiterate this ^^^ enough. Especially with Toyota Fortuners - a mate of mine wrote-off a brand new carbon wheel on a bike rack on the back. When he got back to the shop they mentioned "it happens quite often"

They likely to pave the single track below the blockhouse soon. Part of erosion management in the area. And no I don't have a hipster beard or wear checked shirts on bikes.

That was me doing a lap of the mountain From Camps Bay to Newlands, I really don't enjoy the dodge bit through the City, Salt River etc. I rather go up the back side of Signal Hill, past the cable way, down below the Block House and through. From the tar to Rhodes Mem is not great, but better than Salt River alone. I really wish the City or Parks Board would tar / pave a section from Rhodes Mem to the end of the cable way road. It would be fantastic for commuting and cut out the dodge sections.

I picked up two of these a few years ago: https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/dhb-long-sleeve-jersey-2-0-2021/rp-prod205207 One would need to ship them in and pay import duty but they really great. Keep the sun off and quick wick

https://fb.watch/v/4vhKcS6_5/ The "good old days" - proper steel frames.

Interesting listening to Lance Armstrong's webcast - got some gurus on the show and they reckon it may be down to the size of the teams. They not as large as they used to be and once you have lost 2-3 guys to accidents, one can't dominate the pelaton like they used too. So everyone just goes for it.

When one swaps wheels, do you also swap the cassette across? i.e., one common cassette? and is your bike 2x?

I have also been looking at this and great to see you impression. If one is going to build a gravel bike out of a Procaliber, why not just buy a Trek Checkpoint, their gravel bike with the Isospeed?

I have a light 2x gravel bike (9kgs). In CT, I ride it with 28mm tires on the road and for Karoo trips, I pop on 43mm Gravel Kings, which I usually inflate to 30psi but on bad Karoo roads have had them at 20psi which irons out a lot. BUT, there is a clear threshold / tipping point, when the corrugations get about 2-3cm in size and then it just sucks. At that point a full sus MTB would suck less, but it would not be great. Kilometers of corrugations are just terrible on any bike, even on a new Anthem / Top Fuel with 2.4 tires. (I also have a Pyga for single track and enduro stuff).

Complete agree. The comments above ignore bone density and how just how solid some of us are. I am 178cm and 90kgs. Recently down from 95kg and many are commenting how lean I am. When i had bad malaria a few years ago, I lost so much weight, my ribs stuck out and one could see the individual bones in my shoulders and arms. I weighed 73 at the time.

Only people who were not around in the '80s can think this look is cool.

And the long seat tube: https://enduro-mtb.com/en/new-scott-spark-900-tuned-axs-2022-review/ It is certainly not a downcountry bike.

Has anyone pointed out that it should "read" 'ARE.... the text is not "saying" anything

Pure ignorant snobbery. The only thing that is Specialised is the frame, only one piece of the whole bike, the other 20 bits of the bike are Shimano or something else that are on every other bike. We should really be calling them Shimano or SRAM bikes with an unfortunate Specialised frame. "Unfortunate" because there are stacks of better frames out there.

There is obviously the issue of do the second-hand bikes actually sell at those prices? I have been keeping an eye on the 2nd gravel bikes for my old man over the last six months and it is amazing how many are re advertised over time. Especially the over expensive ones are shown for a week or two, disappear, then pop up again a month later, and the cycle is repeated. Whereas the reasonably priced ones disappear quickly and forever.

A few questions: How far would she like to ride each day? Is she riding with others? Would she be interested in multi-day bike packing? Will she have a car to drive to the start? One can find some gravel in places like Tokai, Jonkerhoek etc. But if one is willing to stretch the legs, there are great roads out towards Greyton and surrounds in the south, and then the Cederberg, Tankwa Karoo, Sutherland area. It may be really cold in late July though. If you could give us a ball park of what she is after, I can recommend a few routes. (If she is keen on longer multiday stuff, the Slingsby maps are great for planning).

Good day, looking for advice from parties who may have replaced zips on cycling gear. I have a larny winter top and gilet that are completely fine, but the zips have gone. I can just take it to the tailor up the road, but thought that there may be someone who specializes in cycling clothes.

After all the years of Scott vs Specialized etc etc, "the only bikes one could possibly race on", these young punks arrive from road and cyclocross and win on unbranded bikes. I think it is quite funny

I also deeply questioned the need for e-bikes, especially for the "younger ones", until I went to an Enduro event in the French Alps two years ago. They had two versions, 100km of downhill for normal bikes (through a series of stages from the top of one lift station to the bottom of the next one) and an 250km ebike version. To my surprise, most of the youngsters were doing the ebike version. It not only covered what we were doing, but they got into new valleys away from lifts, that you can't get to in a day on a standard XC or enduro bike. When I was chatting about it with one of the young Frenchies he said to me "no, but this is also a proper bike, not a little bike with skinny tires", which I think most people ignore in the ebike debate. Yes, you can do more than double the distance. Instead of 2-3 downhills in 2 hours in Jonkershoek or Tokai, you can now do 6-7 laps in the same amount of time. BUT, when you do do the downhill or rad single track, you are not on a 120mm XC bike with 2.2/2.3 XC tires, you are on a 160mm Enduro bike with 2.4 Minions, which you can seriously charge on. Stating that ebikes are for old people is like assuming that motorcross bikes should only be for people who are too old to pedal BMXs. One is completely missing the essence of the bike and what it is capable of.

With 2X gearing and 28c tires on a gravel bike, it is basically a comfortable road bike. Similar to the endurance road bikes. Perhaps a little heavier, but not much.

It would be ideal to have a top road bike, an XC bike and an Enduro bike. I am attempting to keep it to 2 bikes at the moment. An Enduro bike and one other. A top of line Giant Anthem with super light wheels and large tires would probably be the best for Karoo roads, but the gravel bike works just fine. One can't though just bomb and mow over everything though, one needs to keep on concentrating on finding the sweet spot (smooth bit). After the CT traffic, I am just loving these roads. Did 90km this morning out of Prince Albert and had two cars pass in 3.5 hours.

I am finding that a 2x gravel bike is amazingly versatile. Put 32mm slicks on it and I can stay with the roadies around the Pennisula. In general, it is really comfortable road bike. Put 43mm gravel tires on it and it bombs down Karoo roads faster than any MTB I have had. BUT, there is certainly a limit to what it can handle on gravel roads. On most Karoo roads that have been graded in the last 6 months it is fine, but once you get to rocky conditions and heavy corrugations, it clearly finds its limit. A full suss XC mtb would iron out a lot more of stones and rocks and you would feel less fatigued, but once one gets into decent corrugations (>3-5 cm high), it just sucks no matter what you on.

I am using the Forekaster upfront and it addresses the spot in between the centre and sides. A great tire and not to heavy. The rolling resistance is also acceptable.