Sniffie

Dale, I think you mean grain based oils, as corn is just another type of grain. The 'bad' oils is thus things like sunflower, canola, soybean, corn, wheat germ and peanut oil, as peanuts isn't a true nut but a legume.

A lot have been said on this forum in the last couple of posts about what paleolithic people ate and that most of it is conjecture. I would be the first to admit that it is impossible to say exactly what our paleolithic ancestors diet looked like, but like in any other science it is possible through clues available to us today to form a very educated opinion of what their diet looked like: 1. We may not know exactly what they ate but we know exactly what they did not ate. Grains as we know it today have not been part of the human diet before the age of agriculture which was around 10000 to 13000 years ago. In terms of our Homo. genus's evolutionary timescale of roughly 2 million years it is a very short time frame to adapt to a completely new ingredient in the diet. 2. By examining fossil records of middens of early paleolithic human settlement it is possible to determine what they ate. Off course not all the foodstuff left fossil records. 3. Looking at the diet of the few remaining hunter gatherer tribes that we modern humans studied over the past 400 years would give us a good clue what their, and our, paleolithic forefathers ate. 4. Nutritionists look at biochemical pathways to determine how our diet has changed over a period of roughly 5 million years since our evolutionary split from the rest of the apes began. For example there is enough evidence to suggest that during the past 2,5 million years these biochemical pathways has brought us closer to an animal based diet than a plant based diet. I am not saying we are pure carnivores, but we are omnivores who have adapted to eating a very mixed diet of animal and plants. 5. By examining the diet of other non extinct hominid species in the wild, like gorillas and chimps, we can also have a glimpse at what our diet must have looked like a million years ago. To suggest that stone age people only lived to 21 is also only half the truth and misleading. Yes, their life expectancy might have been 10, 20 or even 30 years less than ours, but you must remember 2 things: a. Life expectancy is just a number, an average of a certain population. It says nothing about the maximum age certain individuals reached, or even the distribution of age at death for that population. To illustrate my point: Childbirth during paleolithic times must have accounted for a lot of premature deaths, as would have a lot of other things we no longer see as huge causes of premature death: snakebite, insect stings, simple infections etc, etc. Hunting a wild boar, mammoth or any other big protein and fat provider would have accounted for a lot more premature deaths than a trip to your local deli. Fossil records indicate that individuals who survived childhood and puberty often reached ages in excess of 60 years and even much older. Furthermore their quality of life must have been great without modern lifestyle sicknesses like diabetes, cardiovascular ailments and certain cancers. b. If it were not for the advent of modern medicine our own life expectancy with our modern sedentary lifestyle and addiction to things like tobacco, sugar and alcohol would be much, much lower. So to think that stone age people's relative short life expectancy was as a result of a poor diet is very shortsighted. Just a word on venison and its supposed lack of fat. Yes, it is true that venison has much lower fat content than domesticated animals, but one must remember that hunter gatherer tribes ate virtually the whole carcass. Some species of antelope carry quite a lot of fat around the intestines, and that fat along with other fatty organs like the kidneys, liver, intestines, marrow and brains would have been devoured first. The "prime cuts" of our hunter gatherer forefathers don't even reach the shelves of your local butcher these days. Try to get your hands on some sheep offal these days! In Afrikaans we would say: "Skaarser as hoendertanne!" Some tribes like the Inuit would even discard, or feed to their dogs, lean cuts of meat in favor of the fat and blubber. I must go, I smell some offal potjie in the kitchen and I am salivating all over the keybord!

I started in H and did a 3h02. Had to do some work at the front during the first 50 km which hurt me later on. We picked up a lot of riders of earlier groups and had one massive bunch at one stage. It all fell apart in Happy Valley though. The last 30 km was a lonely grind to the end as I could not stay on the wheel of the young little mountain goat leading the H bunch up Harry Smith. Very hard but enjoyable race.

Geseed in HL! Enige kans vir 'n re-seeding? Ek het nie laas jaar gery agv rug operasie, maar in 2011 darem 'n 2:54 gery.

No

Here in the freestate platteland no such thing as a fishmonger. So it has to be tinned sardines or no sardines.

You are right on both accounts, but the whole debate is about temperature readings. For temperature readings to be comparable the world over meteorologists have devised protocols for recording this. Temperature readings are taken in the shade at 1.5 m above ground level. To be more accurate and comparable actually inside a stevenson screen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevenson_screen Off course it will be warmer in the sun, maybe 20 oC or even more. If you put your garmin inside the stevenson screen the temperature would be much lower than on your handlebar in the sun, that is the point I am trying to make. Temperature forecasts on weather maps are for the temperature in the shade.

I am sorry if you think my intention was to befuddle anyone, far from it. Simple fact is if you ride with a garmin or any other device with a "sophisticated temperature sensor" on your handlebar or stem it will be in direct sunlight most of the time. This radiation from the sun will heat up the body of your device and this heat will be transferred to the sensor eventually. Common sense tell me that this temperature reading must me higher than that on a similar device left in the shade.

Yes it was wrong. Let me try to explain. (Excuse me if I have not got everything in my explanation spot on, it has been 29 years since I sat in the first year's physics class of Prof Lötz Strauss at TUKS.) Heat can reach the temperature sensor in your car in 3 ways namely conduction, convection or radiation. Now imagine sitting next to a campfire. If you hold on to the one end of a steel poker while the other end is in the fire you will after a little while feel the end in your hand heating up. This is conduction at work. Now hold your hands well above the flames. The heat you now feel is due to convection, it is warm air currents from the fire reaching your hand. Now stand some distance away from the fire. The heat you will still feel in your face is due to radiation. Same principles apply to the temperature sensor in your car: Where is the temperature sensor? Underneath some metal panel of sorts being baked by the sun, or somewhere beneath the bonnet picking up heat from any or all of the engine, radiator, gearbox, bonnet or ground whether the ground surface is tarmac, paving, gravel or sand. This picking up of heat can happen through one or all the processes of conduction radiation and convection . Could hardly be a true reflection of the real temperature. Manufacturers will obviously try to lessen the effects of these processes of heat transfer by trying a combination of things: 1. Using materials like ceramics or certain plastics which are not good conductors of heat to mount the sensor somewhere on the body. 2. By keeping the distance between the sensor and warm parts like body panels or engine or drivetrain parts as big as possible the effects of convection and radiation will be lessened. 3. Mounting the sensor in a well ventilated area will lessen the effects of convection. I think you can imagine that due to the construction of a car it is impossible to find the ideal spot where any possible outside influences on the sensor, except that of the real ambient temperature will be nullified. Once a car parked in the hot sun on a concrete or tarmac surface gets moving, and there is some kind of air flow around the temperature sensor, the influence of convection becomes less while the influence of radiation and conduction stays roughly the same and so the temperature registered by the sensor drops. It did not suddenly as if by magic got cooler when you started driving. I work outside all day and what's more I have an electronic weather station at home, recording daily minimums, maximums, barometric pressure etc, etc. I think after all the years I have a fairly good idea what 30 oC, 35 oC and 40 oC feels like. I also have vehicles with temperature sensors and I can correlate their readings with the weather station and that is how I know that a vehicle parked in the sun or even partial shade like under a tree will often register a reading of 15 oC higher than actual. I am not denying that it was very warm on Saturday, just not 40 oC. If it was 42 oC, and even hotter like you claim sometime Saturday, the local hospitals in Harrismith and Ladismith would have been flooded with heat stroke sufferers because even some off the non participating people and locals in the area would have contracted heatstroke. There is a reason why the army suspends training if temperature rises above 41 oC, and that reason is that it is downright dangerous, even for extremely fit and heat adapted young servicemen. Ask any of the men (or women) who did a stint of national service at some of the warmer places in South Africa like Oudtshoorn or Lohatla what 42 oC feels like. It is unbearably hot. Even the air that you breath feels warm in your lungs and everything, even plastic or wood that you touch feels warm because everything is at least 5 oC warmer than your core temperature. But hey, if you want to believe it was 45 oC and hotter over the weekend don't let me stop you! At least we are in agreement over the most important part of this thread and that is that Berg and Bush is one of the best events out there! And that most of us had the biggest jols of our lifes despite the heat, dust and wind! Big 's for all the organizers.

I started in D on day 1 and B on days 2 and 3, had lovely clear single track. Would occasionally catch a slightly slower guy but most guys would let you through as soon as it is safe to do so. Not sure about the situation in other batches though.

I agree whole heartedly with Fireface. Farmer Gary said on at least a couple of occasions during the weekend that berg & bush was designed as a test. A test of your conditioning, your technical ability and your equipment. What normally happens if someone fails in any of these departments is that they lose their sense of humor as well. Guys shouting and swearing at each other. Yes it was tough, warm, dusty, windy, etc, etc, this was how it was supposed to be and if you entered this event and expected anything less then maybe mountain biking is not for you. I say again hats off to Gary and his team! Excellent, we will be back.

+1!Amen brother.

It was not even close to 39 anywhere in the Tugela valley on Friday. There would have been a lot of people treated with heat related symptoms if that was the case. A garmin with its heat sensor underneath a glass enclosure in the direct sunlight will always register a much higher temperature than the actual dry ball temperature taken inside a Stevenson screen. I am not in any way doubting you or the reading from your garmin, it is just that it was not that warm on Friday or even Saturday. Once ambient temperature rises above 37 C everything including things like plastic or even wooden furniture seems warm to the human touch. No way it was that warm on the weekend.

Thanks! Sorry for missing out on meeting you. No Vodacom signal near Emseni.

I must say what an awesome event! Just some random comments: 1. Hats off to Gary, Sollie and their sons and the whole team for the well marked trails. It must have been a difficult decision to make 4:00 am Saturday morning to re-route stage 2, but after the wind we experienced it was obviously the right one. One of the local farmers remarked that it was one of the worst days wind wise he had ever experienced in his life. Hendrik, Sollie's young son was already on the trail at 4:30 Saturday morning marking the new stage route. 2. Just because a garmin or polar registers a temperature of 50 C does not mean that is the real temperature. The garmin is in direct sunlight most of the time and will obviously register a higher temperature than a thermometer in full shade at 1.5 m above ground level, the way temperature readings are supposed to be taken. I doubt it if the temperature at Emseni on Saturday was much above 36 C. But it was hot on the trails for sure especially when the wind was from behind on some of the climbs. 3. How about breakfast on Saturday without any protein?? Not even some cheese. Just carbs, carbs and more carbs. Not a balanced meal in my book. 4. I have got pains in places in my legs I have never experienced before, but I pushed myself to the limit trying to keep up with my young partner nearly 30 years my junior and 10 kg lighter. One of the most enjoyable 3 days of my life!

http://www.yr.no/place/South_Africa/KwaZulu-Natal/Spioen_Kop/long.html Weather forecast seems to be good! Just enough drizzle to settle the dust on spioenkop, but not enough to wash away the blood and tears...

That means getting up very early 2 mornings in a row! I suppose Friday will be very early also to pack and drive to the start. Cant wait!

Bulletproof coffee is a way that a lot of us use to kickstart our day and to get a healthy dose of your daily fat intake early in the morning. I am sure every one makes his own version, but just google "bulletproof coffee". I make mine with good coffee, organic virgin coconut oil from Crede oils and homemade farm butter. You brew your normal cuppa and then add about 20 ml of oil and about a heaped teaspoon of good quality butter. Use one of these little bullet mixers to mix well and create a creamy thick froth on top. I don't add salt since my homemade butter is lightly salted, and I find more salt spoils the taste. If I run out of butter I use cream instead.Edit: Sorry Dale did not see your post.

Old Solly is grumpy at the best of times, not sure he's going to like it when you rename him Solky. I have to agree with you GWMC and Solly's are magical. I have done them a couple of times, but not in races, this will be the first time in an actual race. Last year in early April the wind was blowing a gale while on GWMC, got a bit scary at places...

I would stay away from any kind of sweeteners, artificial or natural during induction to LCHF. Give yourself a week without any sweetener in the coffee and you will not miss it after that. Learn to really enjoy your cuppa, savour the aroma and enjoy the creamy velvet of a real cream topping. I do not drink a lot of coffee, on average maybe 2 mugs per day, but I really spoil myself by buying good quality coffee and experimenting with different coffees from all over the world. Have you tried the bulletproof coffee yet?

Might not apply any more but the basics of economics 101 still rules, and that is supply and demand. Demand for 29" bikes are high so prices are high. Look at similar specced 29" an 26" bikes and you will see up to 20% cheaper on certain 26" bikes.

Consider this: Given the big hype around 29" mountain bikes at the moment retailers are sitting with a lot of 26" stock. There are some real bargains to be had! (26"). What I am trying to say is that R X000,00 buys you a much better specced 26" bike than 29".

Alex rims? Eish eh-eh.

Ron's mtb park closed down. Not worth trying to ride there the area is full of zama zamas. There is a new xco trail in Riebeeckstad called Stonepark, it is near the water tower. Not technical at all. If you want to do the best MTB single track in the Freestate travel to Bothaville. 2 River MTB trails on the banks of the Vals and Vaal rivers offer routes as long as 60 km with at least 30 km of hand crafted purpose built single track. No major climbs but we do have one stoney koppie that offers some real technical stuff. Pm me for details and ride times. You wont regret it I promise!

Polar in SA is widely known for their excellent after sales service and general customer satisfaction.