Tieffels

Swaziland is MTBing heaven, better adventure riding than anywhere in SA, IMO. Endless tracks, no private land issues, locals don't throw rocks at you ala Lesotho style, big mountains that are still ride-able. Down side is you need to do a fair bit of homework on Google Earth to maximize the result, or as Velouria suggest, hook up with locals.

Jip, With a multi lool you can do 90% of the maintanance/build jobs on a bike. Only other routine service related tools I can think of: Very good quality gear outer cutter - tool I use most Chain whip - make from flat bar and old chain.. I laser cut a fancy one for myself that includes a pedal spanner on one end. BB tool for your type - very intermittent use. Cone spanners - spend and get good ones in the right size you need. Thanks to Shimano I use them quite a bit. What else you really need? So I agree 100% but Thomo

The burger never worried me, but TOTALLY underestimated the last 40 or 50 odd kms. That is when the real battle starts, the technical riding on the ox-wagon trail is lekker and keeps you distracted, the open roads thereafter is soul destroying. Awesome ride though!

A general couple of quite serious questions: 1. How easily is EPO available through normal channels? I mean should I require it for medical reasons, I guess I won't be popping down to Clicks for a quick dosage? Reading through the LA testimonials it seems like a real ball ache to source it, driving around all over Europe and what not. 2. So from question 1, where did he most likely get it? 3. And if it is very hard to source, like you have to go through serious murky underworld dealings or corrupted doctors etc etc, then I'd imagine the demand must be much grater than just one guy for it to be available. Well a little respect for DG, at least he was doping like a champion instead of sniffing tiger balm or some other crap..

I was also thinking this recently, would love to see a psychological analysis of him. In fact I would seriously not be surprised to see Lance passing a lie detector test because in his mind he never did anything wrong and thus has no guilt.

Have had 2 cracked frames replaced at little to no cost under the lifetime warranty Original bike I bought up in the USA nogals, nevertheless replaced locally, covered by their international policy. No complaints here, new frame and shock every 2 years suits me just fine..

Every bike shop on earth has 29er slicks.. It's called road tires. I mean really, JHBers and their 29ers.. Idiocracy at work.

29ers

I have a full camping entry available, give-away price of R1000. PM for details, or call on 073 seven ate five double 7 43. Cheers

Seriously? Up Breedts Nek? It ranks as my number 1 MTBing let down after hearing all these hardcore Jozi MTbers telling that is like THE place to do hill training for the epic Boet.. Once rode to the top 6 times (3 x per side), wanted to do 2000m climbing in a day. Think I might have gotten to 1300m, then wrote it of as a waste of time..

Garmin Edge 500? If they are they under 3k?

Thanks man, still trying to decide if all the lazy mornings and not being on the bike for months was worth the blood taste in the back of my throat and getting dropped in the first 3km of the ride this morning..

The actual entry was around R17k. Then there are a number of stuffs you need, some okes might have it, I had to buy: Cycling shoes you can walk 8km up a mountain with: R1k 35L Backpack : R800 Lights: R1k Winter Riding gear: +R2k Spares on the bike: R1.5k? Leatherman : R400 The thing that also nudges the budget up nicely are the snacks and supplies you send in your icecream containers to the support stations. There were close to R1k's worth of batteries (hardly used any..). Think for a novice this is the hardest thing to get right, so you tend to overcapitalize. Some of the boxes I saw must have had over R100 worth of stuff per box just from Woolies. My GF helped out and baked quite a bit of stuff for me to reduce costs. Training wise, I was firmly in the "get fit along the route" camp. 10h a week max. Biggest thing was to ride with a 12kg backpack, that takes a bit getting used to. But generally I'm very comfortable on the bike doing long rides, so I was not too fussed about fitness. I knew, that up until Rhodes I'd be ok to finish in daylight, and from there I'd be able to settle into a rhythm. The mental prep is far more NB than the physical prep IMO. Guys think Epic, J2C and then use that as the context for the FC. It is at the other end of the spectrum, esp intensity wise. You ride slowly. The top okes don't even ride in granny blade, they rather get of and push to save the knees. And they do 18h+ stints with NO recovery in between, so legs just aren't there. I could afford to ride MUCH faster, get to the next SS and recover to be able to ride quicker again the next day, because I was on a day by day race strategy. Bike wise? Whatever you have confidence in and enjoy riding for a moer of a long time. Comfort is you mayor concern, then reliability. I'd actually be very tempted to go the SS route if I do it again. It makes a lot of sense to me. Spares.. On me I had: 1*Tyre, 2*tubes, middle blade, Stans, gear cables, brake pads, patches (tubeless and normal), bombs, duct tape, cable ties. Think I had a chain as well.. My rear hub started packing up, got new rear wheel just before Willowmore. Did the chain replacement there as well. Only mechanical I had was rear gear cable replacement just outside Rhodes. Oh, and dodgy slime used in replacement rear wheel did not work, replace with stans on the second last day.

Before hand: 1. Agreeable work/home environment where you won’t be missed for 3-4 weeks. 2. LOTS of money. If you want a cheap MTB event, do the Epic. The FC is a lot of things, but cheap is not one of those. But like the Epic it depends how you do your math, i.e. calculate your cost. I took a month’s unpaid leave. It hurts. Its WAY worth it. The FNB guys got full sponsorship and had accumulated leave, so no problems. On the ride This depends entirely what you want from the race. What drew me to the event was the route, the 2223km of pure MTBing bliss. My point of departure is that I wanted to enjoy the route, thus I didn’t want to ride at night. Navigating at nights is a disaster. On all but 3 days (took a leisurely 21) I made it comfortably in daylight hours, and of the other 3 nothing past 9pm. I basically “toured” the race, some days I put my feet up at lunchtime. But my unofficial claim to fame is that I had the fastest moving average in the race. To do this you need to be 3. A pretty decent rider, nothing too serious, but being able to keep up a good average. 4. Know how to fix your bike. Many people would have their finisher’s blankets if their mechanics skill was up to par. 5. Be a competent navigator. 6. Be organized and disciplined. 2 of my night time excursions was because I rode with other people and we wasted time during the day. When the paw-paw hits the fan, it is never a singular event, but a combination of smaller, and often preventable problems that builds and snowballs into a serious incident. Having said that, many of the people who finished with me had none of the points listed above. So basically it’s the recipe that worked for me, and worked very well. The only golden thread that I could see that tied all the successful campaigners together was a relaxed and unshakable positive disposition.

I was very keen to do the Tour d'Afrique, but its just along main routes and highways, you can do it on a commuter type bike. Ja, the distance is impressive, but the terrain is not that challenging. When it comes to "badass-er" terrain, nothing I know of touches the FC. Then throw in winter and it gets quite nasty..

Jis those guys are giving it horns. It blows my mind. I did it last year, not "too" hard to finish (OK, with a long list of conditionals and qualifiers), but having done it I cannot even begin to imagine how the guys at front manage to do what they do.. Once they are through Die Hell, it's flat taps till the end. Like Shebeen aka SteveCT aka Dictator said somewhere else, it's basically a science experiment from here on out.. Would love to see Martin Dreyer take it! Rode with him and Andrew last year from Ntsikeni to Masakala, what nice and normal okes. But hats off to Alex too, absolute machine!

Did the Freedom Challenge last year. Everybody recommend SS socks but due to the high cost I made other planne that I thought would see me through.. LUCKY for me, in Rhodes one of the Ride2Rhodes guys gave me his brand new unused set of socks and gloves. I could not believe how well they worked. Walking through frozen marches outside Maltino before sunrise, no problem. The gloves where also MUCH better than my supposed alpine ski gloves.. Problem is they are quite thick, I rode 1 to 2 sizes shoes to big as I had neoprene inner socks to accommodate as well (my other plan), so they fitted OK. You might find that you have to go for booties as your shoes are too tight with the socks.. But you cannot go wrong with the socks, cannot fault them.. They gloves are also excellent but I imagine there are other options out there as well..

Nothing personal, but the one thing that gets me more than crime in this country, it's people who stand by with this attitude, people who know better.

Dude, well done, much respect!! I recently did the same, saw a dude on full carbon, top of the range S-Works Epic. Waited for him and asked about the bike. Said the boss-man gave it to him. That threw me a bit. Started getting more confrontational, he stuck to his guns, boss-man gave it to him. I told him BS, it’s a stolen bike, whether he stole it or the boss-man gave it to him, it’s still stolen. The guy never got upset or anything, but eventually I tracked him to the house where he stays at (live in gardener), the local security guards also vouched for him, that they know him and his boss and that it’s not a stolen bike. Long story short, tracked down the owner, he was away on holiday, so the gardener decided to hop on the good ‘ol S-Works to go shopping.. He was not too impressed to find out the gardener is taking liberties when he’s away. I’m so gatvol of these bleeding heart liberals, if you don’t look the part then I’m prepared to look like a ****, but you’ll have to prove to me that it’s not a stolen bike. Even if you didn’t steal it but bought it for R100, I will steal it back off you and find the owner.

Coming from Stellenbosch I hardly MTB any more in JHB, it is just too depressing and unrewarding. And I see all these okes on their brand spanking new top end 29ers thinking they have no idea what it's about.. Dirt roadies.. If you live any any town mentioned thus far (except gauteng), lap up every glorious moment on the trail.. PS: That oke moaning on here about jonkershoek, I'm in the process of finding that guy, flying down to WC and giving him a massive pielle-wapper..

is it just me or does the intro sound like bah bah black sheep..?

Just buy one right now for around R10k..

I've done 3:13 from OK with strong buddy of mine and an oke who rode down from beitbrug.. And I don't rate myself as a very strong rider. Sub 4 should be ver very do-able.

Was pretty cool I thought. Good crowd, good vibe bit not overcrowded, perfect weather, awesome beer. Did not give the live bands much attention, but every now and again picked up some awesome covers being done. In fact really awesome beer. Would highly recommend it for next year.

Good luck finding Acc, if the booking chickie is to be believed I booked the last SC acc left in town, about 2 weeks ago. Hotel still had a couple of rooms at crazy prices. If you want to go, find place to stay ASAP..