JanJan

From my personal experience trying to organize a MTB race/ride in the Klipkraal Conservancy near the Vaaldam in Gauteng: Official/Sanctioned/Bylaws/Insurance: Not worth it. So much hassle, external influences and added costs that you quickly realize why existing races have such expensive fees. You need a large sponsor to accommodate the above. Kerkbasaar-style race: Assume the risk of organizing a non-approved (Legal framework, CSA and insurance) event, with serious consequences if someone gets hurt and wants to due for negligence. If you are willing to do the Kerkbasaar option, some Do's: Inform people upfront that the event is not a registered event, and they should have their own insurance/medical aids. Use a guise of 'fundraising' if needed. The venue should already be equipped to host functions, wedding venues are your best bet. Use the venue's max people as the guideline to your entrants. They should already be equipped with toilets, parking, food and a licensed bar. Let the venue sort out all these aspects. 1.5 liter water per rider at each water point as minimum. Let your sponsors organize everything else at the water points. For a 40-50 km MTB ride, you need at least 3 medical personnel + equipped ambulance. They should have access to the entire route and a spare quad bike/bakkie, and should have reception. Route marking needs to be 3 times: Two days before by walking, one day before by someone unfamiliar with the route and actually riding it, and lastly on the morning before the race. You need volunteers at every possible gate/intersection trail start to guide riders. A high-school kid with an umbrella and cellphone is perfect. Medals: You will never get it right anyway, so just leave it. Don't try to organize 'Live Music' after the race, its a hassle. Just get the venue's speakers to play 80's music for some atmosphere.

Oh wait! I see from their website, the Stacyc balance bikes have various batteries. If the capacity falls below the 100 Wh threshold, they can then be taken on a plane. (just make sure of your exact model!) (Ah x Nominal Voltage < 100 Wh.) If this exceeds 100Wh, no way you can put it on the plane. You may need to pre-authorize this with your airliner. (maybe some extra cost) You would need to discharge the battery below 30%. Try to contact Stacyc and get their UN 38.3 certificate for the battery.

You would not be able to transport the battery in any aircraft. This is quite a difficult situation, because you are going to struggle to find a shipping agency that will ship the battery by sea. You can 'try' to fool a company like UPS/FedEx by stating the package needs to be sea-freighted and is indeed a Li-Ion battery, but you stand a chance of the package being rejected. Do not lie about it the contents, you can face some serious consequences. (The reason is the various documentation that is required prior to shipping like UN 38.3, etc.) Tough, but consider buying a new battery from the supplier and have it sent here (2-3 months), or sell the bike and buy a new one here.

Just some feedback after 2 months of usage: The 'Lamber' battery packs work well, don't overheat and are well protected from water and dirt.

Hi Lamber It is such a pity I only saw this thread now. Great stuff! Are you using your own PCM/BMS design or an off-the shelf version? Are depth-of-charge and depth-of-charge percentages set for the 18650 packs or did you just limit the voltage levels? Anyway, Ill purchase a pack! Edit: PCM/BMS differentiation

The Engen-to-Engen group does a route through Bryanston, Blairgowrie, Sandton and back (36 km). You can join them by being on Main road, near Grosvenor Crossing @ 04:30 - 04:45. Start riding with them on a Wednesday.

Maybe there is then justification that we berate the 'I worked hard for my money and I'll buy the best' Hubbers. They sustain the exuberant prices we are currently witnessing. #Jealous

There is a rumor that COFBA members will get a red border, allowed to use explicit words and get access to the secret chit-chat threads.

Sorry I couldn't make it, struggled too much with getting in the 'online races' tab

I am experiencing login issues with rouvy and cannot load any races. I hope everyone will be able to join

Thanks. I understand everyone has a peak ability, I just felt that power is a better metric to use to compare between peers to gauge and adapt training. My initial question to Jeroen was regarding Philip Buy's 'readiness and fitness' before some big race I can't remember. Leading up to a big event, a pro should be able to compare their power metrics to others to determine their expectations or a way to adapt their training. Anyway, thanks for the explanation.

On which aspect will they disagree?

I asked Jeroen Swart this during the "Power training" articles a few years back when training remains HR based for Pro's. Unfortunately I didn't get the answer I was looking for. I am sure at a certain point elite and pro cyclist reach their maximum fitness according to their heart rates and only their rest and general health influence their HR based metrics. Except the obvious 'skills and handling factor', how will someone differentiate their HR based training from Nino Schurter if they both perform a 20 min session @ 90% Max HR? I feel power becomes the metric to use. So realistically, no matter how much skills, bike-handling and even luck plays part, your 20 min and 3 min FTP will define your position in a race.

The total point allocation on UCI's website is manually typed in. If you add all the points for the individual events, it looks like MvDP is ahead with +-2800 points. I think the website is just a bit outdated.

I would be keen to join a 'group' ride a few evenings. Also a nice to have would be Teamspeak just to help dictate pace a bit.