Sniffie

Daryl you biscuit! As sprints go, that was won by a country mile!

When we were on our last visit behind the grape curtain, about 18 months ago, we found the restaurant at Fairview to offer some of the best value for money in a very expensive and overpriced Western Cape. Fairview has always been one of our favourites.

Excuse my ignorance and dumb question, but how is a prescribed sleeping tablet, taken once off, abuse? Do you mean it is on a banned substance list? I for one, could never fell asleep in a tent in a race village, at multi stage events, without the help of a prescription sleeping drug, earplugs, and sleep mask.

Wide Lightenings. Super wide, light and strong.

Flight booster not available on international flights. You will need a month or three to collect enough points to ge to gold status.

Froome is certainly pumped up!

True. I quoted the numbers on another thread, not going to repeat it here. I have the inherited type of elevated cholesterol. Statins improved the numbers somewhat, but not enough. Extremely low fat diet did nothing. Low carb, by cutting all processed and baked stuff, and eliminating grains from my diet, improved the numbers by a further 15%. My diet is 99% meat, fish, poultry, eggs and full fat dairy, vegetables and limited fruit. Try to eat fresh, free range and if you can afford it, organic.

Rinse for at least a minute under running water, after each use. Decent wash after 3 to 4 sessions.

School A and school B are evenly matched in the Spur schools MTB league. School A 'obtains' the services of a talented and well trained home schooled pupil. B narrowly looses the league to A. So, is it wrong for the parents, pupils and coaches of B to feel pissed off?

Varsity cup rugby, athletics, hockey excectra. Just because I am 20 years old doesn't mean I have a right to enter any of these competitions? If something is called a schools event, then surely same logic should apply? Perhaps I am missing something.

Sponsor gets involved in an event. As sponsor they surely have some input as to the official name of the event, the rules etc. The official name is, and I quote from the website: "The Spur Schools Mountain Bike League". Note the word schools in the official name. Perhaps they learned a lesson from problems with other sport codes where highly trained and sponsored home schooled kids were bought by schools to improve their teams performance. If, for example, another sponsor thinks he sees a gap in the market and calls his event: "The XXXX Home Schooled Mountain Bike League", and in his rules exclude pupils from traditional schools will we also be calling for a boycott of XXXX?

You should make it comfortably. Take it easy on first part of day 2. First 40 km is downhill, don't get carried away, you will pay for it later. Enjoy!

Pictures or it didn't happen!

I have allways been a big fan of the Maestro design, as used by Giant, on the Anthem. The Maestro and Anthem has also remained virtually unchanged for many years, which to me is proof of a very sound concept. The Anthem is well at home on the predominantly marathon orientated SA MTB scene, but wont disappoint on most XCO trails as well. Plus, Giant are the Toyota of the South African bike scene. Not necessarily the pretiest, lightest or fanciest, but good value for money, and a good no nonsense warranty on the frame. Having said that, I was shocked seeing what the Anthem now sells for. Guess we have our politicians and the weak Rand to thank for that.

No ways! Once you have ridden a dual suspension you will never want to go back to a hardtail, even if you only ride the typical Freestate dirt road with coarse gravel and corrugations. BTW I am from Bothaville.

Where in FS? Maybe I can help, also in FS rural, also ex discectomy patient.

Starting May on a healthy note. Soft boiled egg on Avo with salt black pepper and a splash of Tobasco!. Yom yom.

Come on all losers, don't loose focus now! Remember it is weight in day. Sizzling Summer bodies are made in winter! End of March and April has been bad for me. Gained 0.4 kg! Birthday celebrations, boat cruise and holiday made me loose focus. Time to bunker down! Still 9 kg to lose!

Eating something within the 2 hours before such a short race would be more detrimental than helpful. You really want your gut empty, you don't want your blood, digestive and energy systems tied up with digesting and clearing the gut. Finish eating at least two hours before the gun, and on the start line you can give her some 'magic potion', more for phsycological effect than physical. And if she, and you believe it should be fitgen, then use it, but stay away from solid foods in the 2 to 3 hours before the start. Also take the energy drink right before the start, if taken to early it will cause an insulin spike which will have the exact opposite effect of what you have in mind, as the insulin fooding the body will have a lethargic effect.

What is your aspirations, what do you need from a sports drink? If you're not a pro, semipro or a serious biker with endurance event aspirations like johberg2C, pioneer or epic you hardly need the expensive sugary mixes sold as sports drinks. If I feel I will need something more than water, usually on rides longer than 3 hours, I will mix my own with good quality south african honey, salt, water and maybe some juice. Google honey as sportsdrink. For even longer rides, and especially multistage events you've got to switch to real food for your energy, fat and protein requirements. Nuts, biltong and fruit are then my choice of weapons.

Ok, not wanting to highjack Bonus's thread and turn it into something he did not intend, but I really think I have some relevant information to share. Various claims have been made on this thread regarding whether a high carb or high fat diet is the healthiest. I have tried both at different times and have seen some remarkable numbers. To keep it short and simple I am not going to bore you with all the exact numbers of all the blood work that has been done on me over the last years. I have homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, which means, I inherited the high cholesterol gene from both my parents. Years ago, when first discovered, my total cholesterol number was 9.9 mmol/l. Blame my German and Dutch forefathers for this! Apparently this kind of elevated cholesterol is difficult to contain, even with the highest doses of Statins. Luckily I don't suffer from any of the nasty side effects of statins like a lot of people do. Treatment with statins brought this down to just under 7, which is still very high. On recommendation of my Dr I went on a very, very strict low fat diet for 3 months. Cutting almost all saturated fats from my diet. I ate lots of supposedly healthy whole grain and legume products, vegetables, fruit, low fat sweetened yoghurt, and only the leanest of lean meats. Guess what? Nothing positive really happened to my lipogram. In fact, it got worse. Total cholesterol number stayed roughly the same, but the LDL C (bad one) went slightly up, and the HDL C (good one) dropped significantly, below 0.9 mmol/l. Wat was most alarming though is that the triglyceride level shot up to 2.7 mmol/l, and the glucose level also went up to 7, quite close to the 7.8 healthy cutoff point. Clearly low fat diet wasn't working for me. I returned to my 'normal' mixed, 'healthy' diet. Blood numbers also returned to previous levels, ie improvements in the good cholesterol, glucose, and triglyceride levels. About 4 years ago I started reading up on LCHF and its claimed health improvements. My Cardiologist advised against me trying it. Nonetheless I decided to try it and for 3 months I went very low carb, staying below 50 g per day. Only carbs I got was from green leafy vegetables and salads. I ate red meat with fat, butter on my veggies, cream, olive and coconut oil and macadamia nuts, and NO fruit. I was at a BMI of 26.5 at that moment in my life. After 3 months BMI dropped to 24.2. Total C came down to 6.5. HDL C went up to 1.5, triglycerides dropped to a very healthy 0.75 and blood glucose dropped the most to 4 mmol/l. It is quite a mission to remain at that very low carb levels. At this moment in my life I average about 100 to 120 grams carbs per day. I still don't eat any grains, cereal, bread or sugar. I eat the occasional fruit and treat it as natures candy. (It is really amazing, after a couple of months with no sugar or starch, how sweet fruit suddenly tastes! Certain varieties of apples like golden delicious and pink lady for example is nauseatingly sweet and I can not eat it any more) My latest blood work indicates the following: Total c 6.5, LDL 4.5, HDL 1.4, triglycerides 0.85, blood glucose 4.5. Cardiologist very happy with the improvements in the numbers, but still wont advise his other patients to follow suit. I think he is only afraid of possible claims against him. Much easier to follow conventional wisdom and stay on the moral high ground, even if it might be wrong. Experiment with an open mind on your body in your own unique circumstances and see what works for you. On a side note, despite my mom and dads high cholesterol, and the fact that my dad smoked for most of his life, they both lived to quite a healthy age, 72 and 83 respectively. Neither died from cardiovascular causes. Here is the shocker, thinking back to my childhood, we as a family ate a high fat diet on the farm. Homegrown mutton, beef, eggs, homemade butter, and full fat dairy. We ate very little processed food though. Bread was homemade, lots of times from our own wheat. Porridge was also from homegrown maize, milled on the farm. Makes one think!

All ready similar thread: https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/172475-the-over-50s-support-thread/ Perhaps a merge should be in order?

Fat is the ultimate endurance fuel. How did the San bushman manage to run on a gemsbuck spoor for 2 to 3 days non stop. No refreshment tables every two hours with coke and energade. Only saturated fat as fuel, stored conveniently in their own bodies. Perhaps the odd birds egg taken shell and all or cicada pupa, which when quickly roasted in hot ashes, is said to look and taste almost like mashed avocado, to provide a small protein and fat boost.

That is true for processed foods. If you buy whole foods, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, vegetables, and fruit for the occasional treat, no need to read the labels.

But then there is lots of places to spend miles. Short term like food, and long term like plane tickets for that once in a lifetime overseas trip. I don't see myself spending my 'hard earned' miles on Cyclelab's inflated prices.