Red Bird

12 speed 11-50

Thanks guys. Will post here what the mechanic says once he hears from Sram...

Second home loan pending ????

Epic fail!

Rave: it works. Rant: it doesn’t last. Jockey bolt broke off. Jockey is lost in the veld. Another case I am aware of is the cage broke off completely and had to be replaced. Does anybody else have similar issues?

Also did it last year. Suffered!! Lots have changed in terms of training so hopefully I will suffer for a shorter period of time this year. The route is also quite technical, especially on day 2. That is very taxing paired with the steep gradients. But loads of fun. By far the best race I have ever done.

On my previous bike I have been on SLX 1x11 with a Sunrace 11-50 cassette. Highly recommend it. The gear jumps aren’t that different from a 11-50 12-speed. On NX 1x12 I feel the close spacing of the gears are harder to set. There is always that one gear that does not sync properly. Edit: SLX 11-46 is a bad setup. Gear jumps are too big between the last two gears.

It could be because most still love gravel grinding and desire more top speed.

Such a pity. It seems that all their attention has shifted to fun walks & doggie runs - things that will get the masses there. Very little (if any) effort going into the trails

Big Red Barn has quite a few berms and they have extended their options recently.

I have seen RaceFace crank arms for under R2000... Now I know it's all one piece - thanks

Thanks droo. I am not too much concerned about weight if it only makes 200g difference. I've seen that the GX crankset is on sale at Bike-Addict, but I have no idea if OEM is anything to be concerned about?

I currently run a GXP Sram XX 2x10 crankset, used for 1x12. The issue is that the spider and crank arm is one piece and the BCD is 120. Running a smaller chainring on the inner BC will just look weird... That only allows for a 36t chainring minimum, but I have felt the need for a smaller chainring in certain conditions, such as XCO. It seems that one could get away with just buying new crank arms (much cheaper too) instead of replacing the entire crank. 1) Could I just replace the crank arms and buy a direct mount spider? 2) What do I need to look at to make sure I buy compatible crank arms? From what I have read about GXP BB's is that it has a 24mm spline on the drive side and 22mm on the non-drive side. The current Q-factor is 166mm. Thanks.

If things don’t improve between you and your coach I can recommend you mine. He is in tune with each athlete’s needs, areas of improvement and he sends feedback on progress every four weeks.

That is a lot of bike for XC... it is more of a trail bike. XC riders try to get away with as little as possible to save weight for the climbs. However, you will have stupendous fun on the Trance in technical sections.

Spiderwebs are being spun all over the place... But I am sure they will get things back in order

At the moment my Bryton uploads to Strava for the Active Dayz, but I also swim & run so I have linked a Suunto account as well. There is no trouble syncing from my Suunto Moves Count so I could try to upload .fit files from my Bryton to Suunto, but it will be a schlep. What device do you use?

I rode there this morning and some trails have been cut. Routes were clear. Wet, but not too muddy. One gripe I have is the condition of the bathrooms (especially the ladies).... sorry but I had to use the men’s. It has not been cleaned in a VERY long time and toilets are out of order.

I recorder over 4000 calories on Saturday and it is still not sync’ed. I was hoping they could give me Active Dayz for the rest of the year

Second time doing this event. This one will probably be the easier one. This one tough, beautiful but very enjoyable event - counting the sleeps!

Seems to be another scammer with the same MO as Daniel Williams

She is still with Specialized. Boels is just the road team.

She went into rehab for an eating disorder.

2013 model Trigon New 1x12 upgrade and running stunning

Loved the route this year. The only negative, which used to be something I looked forward to, was the M1. Instead of some nice recovery on rolling terrain, we were hit with the winds. Jan Smuts wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. Still proud of cutting more than 50min off my 2017 time - 4h38 from II. Finished in 3h47 from Y, so it was solo all the way. Next year I’ll aim for 3h15 ???????? Already started the training ????