Ozzie NL

You mean too much visible branding? Does not seem more excessive than any other brand or am I missing something?

Did you buy the MAAP kit online?

Deore / XLS specifically. XT and XTR is good and not that much cheaper than X01 PS; Deore Brakes are actually very good especially for the price point.

Hmm shifting not as crisp ...X01 is expensive but you'll miss it if you don't have it anymore....A bit like women

You'll regret that downgrade ...... alot

Whatever you do keep CSA (and by extension UCI) out of it ... they're main skill is to suck the joy out of anything they touch.

Do it ... awesome trails and experience. In my view the main difference between climbing in GT vs WC is the length of the climbs (which in turns comes with insanely long descent to us GP-ers). One of the best places to get some hill climbing in would be Breedtsnek as it is long and pretty rutted. W2W is not very technical and a couple of loops around places like Cradle Moon, Avianto and Kings Kloof will give you plenty practice Also agree with all comments that 7-12h training per week is plenty ...... and indeed probably double of what most of the field does

Did some experimentation and found the main use for MTB power meter the post ride analysis of the numbers. On the road you can consciously ride to a certain wattage whereas with MTB the terrain forces your power delivery with little obstacles, rocks, sand etc. Therefore found that the wattage is all over the place as opposed to a certain zone. Additionally you have a lot less opportunity to check what power you're doing when mtb-ing as the trail requires your full attention. Anyway, above is my reasoning not to put power meter on the bike. When it comes to types of power meters, I personally prefer hub based systems

I think that ff the elastics had snapped for MVDP on the last hill Pogi would have been the winner

^^^^^^ in spades. Rode for first time this year and would like to think I was reasonably well prepared but still took plenty lashings. Stage 1 was a whole new dimension of afk@k, then got better till both partner and me got spuitpoep on stage 5. Soldiered on as it would be really k@k to have a really nice travelbag you cannot use without embarrassment

That sounds very uncomfortable 😎

Wife is running a 34T oval on Epic Evo without issues. Just take it to LBS and get them to put in some spacers to increase the offset

On the back of your comments regarding earlier words I went back to Epic website and seems they have effectively already normalised the data by listing individual finishers and not reconstituted teams.

Good point on the earlier years but as far as I can see the data for 2099 and beyond is comparable as I did not add the solo finishers back in for any of the years

Drop out percentages based on Epic numbers over the years. Took no of teams finishing event over no of prologue finishers

Use Halo skull cap which has a rubber strip on the inside which directs sweat to the sides of your head

Maybe Tom Jenkins? https://www.strava.com/segments/19708381

City is a big word for Duiwelsdorp!!!

And he rides himself

Have we met?????

Been riding Raceface carbon bars for last year. No problems and lekker stiff

Used to only ride S7 T'Equipe. Recently bought a couple of new model MIlle's and have to say that I'm not wild about the low cut upfront. For R3.5. Gone to Northcliff and purchased a couple of Monton bibs which I really rate and are less that have the price. Ego the comments made earlier about local brands ... do want to support them but have not found a really good one yet .... maybe I just have a difficult backside???

1500 is on the very low end for me. Depending on conditions I used to get 1800 - 2800 on a XT / XTR chain. Have now switched to XX1 ... they def last longer (~3500 - 4000km) but over R2k a pop PS XX1 is 12sp whereas XT/XTR experience was 11sp

My opinion is that you have good components (assuming whole drivetrain is XX1/01) on an outdated frame. I would use the components for something else

Wappo talking about the race and decision