beanz

Agreed! Not my choice of wording. I'm sure B line would have had more takers.

Everyone want's to do, or think they do, "Proper Mountain Biking", but to prepare yourself involves not just getting fit, which everyone does, but also practicing the technical stuff and building up skill and confidence. On the B&B descent, there's the mineshaft and the moffieshaft chicken run. Nobody want's to take the chicken run, so people in front of us were walking down the mineshaft rather than riding the moffieshaft. I suppose the name didn't help!

Likewise. I'm super keen to try out the enduro format. Will have to wait for the next one, or when it comes to gauteng.

High cholesterol is a marker of a high risk of heart disease, but is not the main cause. The real problem is chronic inflammation. See for example: http://www.sott.net/...s-heart-disease There are also some natural alternatives to statins that are worth taking a look at. One of the most promising is curcumin, the yellow ingredient in the indian spice turmeric. It reportedly lowers cholesterol, but has a myriad of other health benefits. The main one is it acts against chronic inflammation. The other main one is that it protects and against cancer.

+1 but if you can't find a way to do this, you may want to at least supplement with CoenzymeQ10 http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/coenzyme-q10

True, but at that price it's almost worth chancing it. Only viable if you're making a trip there anyway.

True, but at that price it's almost worth chancing it. Only viable if you're making a trip there anyway.

Great value for money: e.g. Canyon Strive AL 8.0 Race, 2799 EUR (R 37500) with pike fork, monarch plus rc3 shock, reverb stealth, and sram x01

The anthem's maestro suspension is super efficient. I don't bother with propedal unless I'm doing a standing climb. And with propedal on, I don't feel any loss of power through the rear shock when standing. The fox fork on the front is a different story - it needs to be locked out for sustained climbing out the saddle. As for taking bumps, it's very compliant over small bumps and rocks, and can take some pretty big hits in it's stride, sometimes more than you think an XC bike should be able to. Overall a great bike for what it is, and to get something better, you have to pay quite a bit more. The carbon one with the rockshox fork and shock is very well specced and great value.

Kings kloof would be good, what about thaba trails? Maybe just not long/big enough. The problem with vg as it it's now it's just too spread out. Unless new trails were cut into a dedicated section. It has the most potential I think. I'd be happy to chip in.

Not like well, but I have met one of the brothers, and seen them around quite a bit. Also last year they were much move visible, and came up and chatted at the presentation. I was really surprised how low profile all the sponsors were in general this year. It also seemed like they for some reason toned down the competitive element of the event. Last year the days category winners came up on stage and received their jerseys. This year there was none of that. No mention whatever on Friday night and a very brief mention on Saturday.

Ok, I'm not being fair, a bit tongue in cheek really, I think Fedgroup are a great sponsor and do a great job for mountain biking in general, and the Fedgroup okes themselves love mountain biking and enjoy riding the event themselves.

It's just a theory but here goes: Sponsor pressure. A good general rule of thumb is to pick your events based on the title sponsor. Good: unsponsored, producers of off-road vehicles, high octane energy drinks, specialist mtb components. Bad: providers of financial services tailored to extraordinarily high net worth individuals. Farmer Gary, put the rocks back and get a new sponsor ;-)

It wasn't too bad. On day 1 I sat on a wheel most of the way down Sollies Folly but had a clear run on all the sections thereafter, including the final everest descent into the river valley. On day 2 down spioenkop a bit of both. On day 3 I had puffadder all to myself which was fantastic. I've come to realise that on races of this size if you like to ride the singletrack downhills agressively, you're going to have to deal with some traffic. That's no fault of this race, but just has to do with the fact that there are 1000 odd people out on a track going at different speeds down different sections. If you look at the distribution of finishing times (i.e. traffic at the finishing line), you'll see that the A batch is quite spread out, but the traffic picks up very quickly in the B/C/D batches, and then tails off after that. One of these days I'm going to crunch the numbers and post it. So if you want uninterrupted, unimpeded track to shred the descents, your options are: 1. Become a super fit fast competitive racing snake in the top 20-30 teams. 2. Hang at the back of the field with the stragglers, take all the time you want, wait for a gap at the top then smash it. 3. Forget about MTN/trailseeker marathons and the big stage races. Ride trails with your singletrack DH junkie mates. Do enduros.

I also noticed this. Some of the rocks on the climbs have disappeared since last year. Sections that were a challenge to clear were easy this time. And definitely coming down puffadder on day 3 there weren't as many as last year. Please Farmer Gary don't take any more rocks out!

You also have to consider the organisational effort involved in getting the first group off. e.g. on day 2 and 3 the helpers are getting up at 4am to have breakfast on the table by 5. And that's with a 6:30 start. So your suggestion is that the first batch goes without breakfast, or the helpers get up at 3am? And anyway if you're out on the track from 8 - 4 or 7 - 3 does it really make that much difference? The people I feel for are the marshalls standing out on the track holding a flag, often without sufficient water themselves, for 10 hours in the searing heat (42 degrees on day one at 11am according to my garmin). I think the answer is to have sensible cutoffs. For the 87km first stage which is really quite fast and not that much climbing (winning time just over 3 hours). I think that's what they're doing for the Joberg2c next year, with 15km/h average speed cutoff guidelines. The longest time on day 1 was just over 9 hours and there were quite a few at the 8 hours plus, which is starting to take the piss really. Understandable if you have mechanicals, but they can't all be that. As for the second day, it was shortened because of the wind, which would have made the boat crossing difficult. So they had to reroute, and that involved shortening it to 38km. I knew the wind was coming from a week ago, and I know from kiting at sterkfontein that on big wind days the wind comes up at any time. I personally think that was a bit of a fail on the part of the organisers for not anticipating this and lining up a plan B. That said it was still a awesome day's riding and I think a relief for most to have a short day in that heat. Credit to them for not chucking us down a dirt road for another 20kms to make up the distance. The heat was pretty oppressive, but the water in the tugela river was quite cold and very refreshing. It was the only way I could find to cool down. Overall a great event with some unbelievable singletrack riding, and a really nice chilled friendly vibe.

Hey guys I'm not going to be able to do it next year. Solo entry up for grabs at a bit of a discount. https://www.bikehub.co.za/classifieds/64903-joberg2c-2014-solo-entry-for-sale/

Yea that's me. Morzine, 2014, here I come.

Looking nice but lekker hot. Nothing like last year it seems at the moment. 1 week forecasts are prone to change though.

Snap. It's a small consolation.

Also left this one a bit late. There's nothing available for the descent closer than winterton or harrismith, so I'm planning on camping at the ATKV or even at the start if they'll let me.

About morzine and PDS, I've been doing a bit of looking into this and there do seem to be two ways of doing it. 1. You go with full DH bike and kit and you smash the DH trails. 2. You take a AM or heavy duty trail bike. Use the lifts where you can and do more of the out the way trails. Some of the steeper downhill trails will be either not that much fun or out of your league completely, but there's still plenty of fantastic trails that are perfectly doable on a non DH bike. Is this correct or an oversimplification? If it is the case, then what matters more is who you go with and what their riding style is. @OM, what's the split here?

The first day starts near Sterkfontein and you ride to Emseni. The next 2 days start and end at Emseni. Last year the 3rd day was to Winterton, but this year it is back to Emseni.

Absolutely! I can't afford to do both, at least not in the same year. Plus I'll never get a pass from the missus for that.

Can't we make it "as well as" rather than "instead of"? I want to do them both.