bleedToWin

I did the Herald for the first time this year. Was warned not to expect WC road surfaces. It was manageable but for sure not great outside of a few stretches here and there.

And this after the might of CSA backed Satellite Classic for it's National Road Series that only includes races with the "highest standards of safety and racing for licensed road cyclist in South Africa and will only make use of established and/or sanctioned road races"...

Can we have full clarity on feeding rules please. Last year feeds from cars and moving feeds from road side was not allowed. Seems road side moving feeds are back, but only in one location on route? What about car feeds?

@City Cycling Athletic Club Not sure you have alerts active for this thread. Denis has some questions for you ☝️

Also DC that rained out 2 years ago only offered preferential entries the next year.

Would be interested in an expansion on this.

Another minor irritation of mine is organisers that close early bird entries 50 weeks before the event. I am usually on board to enter early and I think the early bird pricing system is great, but goodness! Once I've missed early bird entry I hold off until the last minute.

For JHB based riders we will see if this league manages to increase participation in Free State and Amashova. I doubt it since the teams with money were already doing these races. Perhaps there will be some interest in the points ranking, but that wont lead to increased revenue for organisers.

The road going past Redelinghuys has enough space for plenty of cars to park and do feeds. Whether you make the cyclists stop to feed or not the feed zone can easily accommodate both official and self supported feeding.

Thanks for the consideration. 1. I'm unsure why you would need manpower. By definition road side support from back-up is providing their own manpower. 2. Regarding chaos - I'd say look at the tour with it's 22 teams and 176 riders doing bottles from soigneurs at dozens of locations on every stage, but let's stick closer to home. There were no issues allowing feeding at Western Cape provincial champs. 3. Banning feeding from cars for equality of racing is a good idea. Implied in that idea is that fair racing is important, so feeding of some sort needs to be possible. It would be terribly disappointing if the organisers do not learn from the first edition of this race and puts unenforceable rules in place that guarantees an unfair outcome.

Will this feed zone be off-route? Has a decision been made about mobile supported feeding from road side helpers vs having to stop, and if this will have to also be off-route? Last year the rules were very restrictive but then not enforced when broken by half the bunch to the detriment off the rule abiders...

When you have a sporting category for people that cannot compete against the best people in that sport, you must define what it is that limits their ability to compete and by extension qualifies them for said category. Do you object to blind cricket having a definition of what it means to be blind? How would you set up a female sporting category without criteria for what it means to be female?

Size ML? I'm 193 on size L with the seat pushed all the way forward and 15mm of headset spacers. I think the long seatpost extension adds further comfort and compliance, but I might just be parroting popular opinion. It does make the setup looks awesomely aggressive though!

Same same. Was also going to ask in order to gauge how my setup would look if I ever made this upgrade, then looked up geometry and saw nothing has changed wrt specs that affect setup so would look exactly like my current setup.

I think the new route could be interesting. The gravel climb straight out the gate followed by 80km flat (and possibly windy) before doing the 30km loop with the gravel climb twice, and then finishing the race with a long drag climb sprint a good 23km after the final climb. Hard race to predict.

The Saturday crit not drawing you in?

White shorts? Style? Many have tried and failed, most recently Remco. Some cycling fashion rules have good reasons behind them. Never wear white shorts!

There's a very short downhill of about 200m in it. If you're sensible you just freewheel it. Last year I was in the breakaway and Alan Hatherly attacked the entire segment to thin out the breakaway numbers so we pedalled full gas through the decent and only hit 45km/h max speed. Here's the segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/6002208

There's a 3km stretch of gravel that we do every yea. The route changes every year (or most years) but always includes this gravel climb. This year it's done 3 times, but even so 9km gravel in a 140km race is still a road race.

In sports photography the first rule is get the shot! Because (most of us) read left to right we see motion in a static image better when it is also left to right. It's basically a case of all else being equal position yourself so that you can take the shot with LTR movement.

There's a left to right rule in photography composition. The rule says to compose shots (or position yourself) so that movement is left to right, and if not possible to do so you flip the image afterwards unless there is text in the image. So yeah, they are in gross violation here!

Have to agree, since no-one has said 'get a new mechanic'.

I'm not sure if it's done every day. What my comment was intending to answer is the question if underweight leads to DQ and just wanted to point out that most weighing happens before the stage and then you have time to fix it. I've seen it happen in the local scene, although not with my size Large aero bike! Most recently at Tour du Cap stage 2 hill climb TT where a master came with a stripped down climbing bike a la UK hill climbs, and had to put heavier wheels (I think borrowed on the day) in order to get above the weight limit.

Your bike gets weighed and checked before you start sign-on procedure. If it's underweight you get sent away, but can just come back (given you went to sign on with time to spare). After the stage comms will do bike checks at will, but if you fail this test it's a DQ.

No, you have time to fix it.