binxc

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.

I was curious about that as well so I looked it up - he is a repeat offender. Said cyclist came third in his age category at SA TT Champs last year - CSA seems to have quietly scrubbed the result from their social media posts. I wonder if the gent who came 4th on the day is even aware that he was robbed of a podium.

I've noticed a lot of these fake sites lately, most recently was Giro South Africa dot co dot za or something. On Cloud have had a big problem with these pages too and have posted warnings on their social media. Always stuff in stock you can't get anywhere else with ridiculous discounts. Red flags seem to be: social media links that take you nowhere, sketchy grammar or typesetting in the shipping info and payment sections, and use of payment methods that aren't common for big companies.

I don't know how anyone can make that statement if they know anything about the Munga. Unless they are confusing it with self-supported races like Rhino Run or Sedgefield500. Tonnes of logistics involved. Stocking those remote WP 24 hours a day, for example. Luxurious guesthouse sleepovers in pristine white bedding at the RVs, should you be the sort to take advantage of such.

When we parked, there was a collection of very untidy looking car guards with assorted bibs. One strolls over and hands us a piece of paper that had the Ride Joburg logo on that said, “Parking R150. Pay immediately”. We told him no as we know parking is free and he muttered something along the lines of, “You will pay; this is our parking area” but wandered off. Next thing the actual car guards arrived, all neatly dressed in matching uniforms. There was a bunch of fake car guards rounded up by the police when I headed to the starting chutes. Probably to be chastised and to be released into the wild to threaten some more people. Hopefully the race organisers can do something more effective about these scammers next year. They were rather aggressive and it puts a damper on the race mood.

I don’t need to - I acknowledge I need comfort over speed. But I wasn’t there to win it, just enjoy a challenging event in a scenic area. If I had been there to win it then I would have had to have been on a gravel bike and prepared accordingly. My point is that the roads were generally better than the majority of gravel races I have experienced in SA, barring a few outliers in the Western Cape or if you’re lucky and the roads have just been graded. Unfortunately we can’t expect the consistent high quality of the roads they have at gravel races in the USA or Europe. A serious gravel challenger here is going to have to be prepared to deal with the suffering on a rigid bike with smaller tyres and drop bars. The speed of the winner seems to indicate that there wasn’t a problem with the course.

I rode the 134km and I consider my technical skills to be middling at best - there was one sketchy section. It was well marked and they warned you at the start about it. It was also in the race briefing document and was as a result of recent roadworks that were not completed. I was on a MTB and it was perfectly rideable. Would I want to have ridden it on a gravel bike? Probably not in my personal capacity - but I would have made it down with caution. If you're choosing to ride a gravel bike at a national championship, I would assume you had the skills to match - and it was maybe a kilometre on and off of dodgy gravel out of 134km. The rest of the roads were either good to average for South Africa. The high attrition rate seemed more to be a combination of poor conditioning and the heat. I think a lot of gravel bikers mostly use these weapons on tar with a few connecting gravel roads, and then take strain when there is 99% gravel and 2400m of climbing to boot. I have passed far more gravel bikes dropping out due to mechanicals on Karoo Burn and C2T.

You can no longer buy the original Buffalo bicycles which were supplied by WBR, as Qhubeka has moved to a different frame. I can put you in contact with the people distributing the new Qhubeka bicycles. Welcome to DM me to discuss further.