binxc

For the UCI Gravel World Series, which is applicable to masters categories, you can qualify for World Champs on any bike, but if you attend the latter, must be on a drop bar bike. Does the UCI also stipulate that country federations must enforce drop bar bicycles for national championships? I can't find any reference to it on the UCI website so stand to be corrected but it would seem CSA is entitled to make their own decisions in this regard (and probably in the interests of boosting the number of entries). Riders may use any type of bike (road bike, mountain bike, city bike, hybrid bike, cross bike, etc.) with the exception of tandem, E-Bikes or recumbent bikes. time trial road bikes are also forbidden. During the UCI Gravel World Championships, all bikes should have dropped handlebars. It’s not possible to participate in the UCI Gravel World Championships with a mountain bike.

A round ring was found on the ground, around Saturday road race, yes.

Tangentially related to SA Champs: we found a ring. Smeagol need not apply. It is a shame there isn't much coverage. CSA seems to have done marginally better than 2024 with social media updates. Last year there was a spelling error in the banner for prizegiving and they didn't even have an official photographer on day one of the ITT (which is a slap in the face for people who bother to pitch up and race their heart out, at an event that is already quite niche). Obviously some live video coverage for the elite races would be great but likely prohibitively expensive for what a sponsor would get out of it. Congrats to Daniyal and S'annara on their elite wins - I was expecting the overseas riders to walk it. Great to see that locally based riders can still hold their own and win.

Found ring on roadside near start/finish line area. DM me with description if you think it is yours.

That would be great, thank you. I did contact Red Cross Children's Hospital, which was the last reference I could find to such a scheme (in 2017) and they said they no longer accept medals due to safety risks. Not sure if that's infection control, strangling or choking hazards.

Resurrecting this thread to hear if anyone found anywhere that takes donated medals.

If you read the full press release on the CSA website, it seems extensive independent investigations have been done since last year, along with several appeals. I doubt CSA would have issued this statement without having their boxes ticked, unless their legal advice is seriously lacking.

It seems from the report that they did understand that she couldn't take it in competition, and came to the mutual decision that it was still the way forward. This isn't a medication that you need to take daily to survive - in fact, you wouldn't want to "live" on it indefinitely as it can have a lot of bad side effects, particularly cardiac which is obviously bad for an athlete. If she was using it for the reasons she claims (weight-loss post surgery - already questionable), there would be no need to take it so close to competition that you would test positive. Take it for 6 months, hit your goal weight, stop it the month before SA XC Champs, race clean, repeat as necessary. It is not like you will balloon to an uncompetitive weight in a few weeks. Which leads me to believe she was taking it for stimulant reasons - I gave her the benefit of the doubt initially as I have also grown to be a fan particularly after her heroic Epic last year - but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

Or the start of a glorious career of improbable victories in ultra gravel/MTB races where no one gets tested.

You can apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption but reading the criteria, phentermine would not qualify: (from https://drugfreesport.org.za/tue/) All of the four following criteria must be met (for more details, please refer to the WADA International Standard Therapeutic Use Exemptions 2021 (ISTUE), Article 4.2): 1. The athlete has a diagnosed medical condition, which requires treatment using a prohibited substance or method; 2. The therapeutic use of the substance will not, on the balance of probabilities, produce any additional enhancement of performance beyond what might be anticipated by a return to the athlete’s normal state of health; 3. The prohibited substance or method is an indicated treatment for the medical condition, and there is no reasonable permitted therapeutic alternative; 4. The necessity to use that substance or method is not the consequence of the prior use (without a TUE), of a substance or method which was prohibited at the time of use.

The whole story is a bit odd. Phentermine is banned in competition but she states she was taking it out of competition due to weight gain as a result of a sterilisation. A normal sterilisation would not necessarily result in intractable weight gain unless they removed one's ovaries as well, which would not be standard at her age - but depending on the cause of her issues, they may very well have had to do that. She also had her urologist at her hearing to suggest that she had altered kidney function which may have contributed to her high urine levels and he then says that they need to ask a nephrologist about that, which is fair from his side but indicates poor preparation from her representation, as surely they should have anticipated that the urologist would give this answer, being a surgeon and not a physician. A more cohesive medicolegal team might have gotten her off but ultimately, she knew the risks of taking it.

As per the Everesting website - they might consider the downhill section leading into the climb as free metres as you can build momentum and hit the bottom with more speed (understood that it might not pan out that way when you actually ride it - maybe it is flatter than it looks on Strava, but they will be looking at the segment on Strava). "We want to avoid ‘free metres’ where possible. A ‘rule of thumb’ should be applied when looking at a route with elevation gain on a descent or kinetic gain. If it feels like you are gaming the system, then you probably are! Ask us first if in doubt (it’s never nice explaining this afterwards)." Noted and course safety is obviously paramount. I've also done several recognised Everesting activities and my neurotic personality would not want to take chances with putting all that effort in and not getting it recognised due to a technicality.

Think you need to shorten that segment slightly so it starts at the actual foot of the climb. Strava shows the first 200m as downhill which can constitute unacceptable kinetic gain.

At least Gauteng and Western Cape are trying. KZN cancelled their road championships last minute, to host in the middle of winter at an as yet still undefined time and location. Fair MTB scene but no gravel despite having a tonne of challenging routes. Eastern Cape, Free State and Mpumalanga seem to put in sporadic effort. Do provincial cycling bodies even exist for North-West, Northern Cape and Limpopo?

CSA didn't even check that there weren't e-bikes in the licensed racing batches at Ride Joburg, so the answer is that race organisers don't police them at all, let alone if they are chipped.