BuffsVintageBikes

A few of my old bicycles still have their license disks on them, including my old Raleigh Chopper 😊 The disks themselves have become rather collectible in the vintage bicycle community, has too headset badges of the various makes of bicycles.

Not sure how the current floods have affected it but it's been open for a while now and is an absolute joy to ride 🤙

Ouch, my tummy turned just reading that, hope the little guy is okay. Very wise warning, rotors are dangerous, as too chains and sprockets to little fingers if the rear wheel can turn.

That Slider Susp worked so well that the crank slid out the BB

IMHO, Gravel bikes work great when you can only own one bike. It's pretty much a "Jack of all trades but master of nothing" kind of bike and it certainly has it's place. I've taken mine on some very long road rides and some extremely gnarly mtb routes. It survived them all but it wasn't a particularly fun experience. I've also toured with it and often do some great gravel rides around Riebeek West area as well and there it excels.

He clearly loves it when she speaks foreign 😉

As someone who has both I can tell you that you won't be much faster on either of those bikes on RvR. Maybe just add a larger chainring and 2.1 tires to your mtb and you'll be styling.

Wow, 2 x Diamant's in a row 🤙 Beautiful bike Peter 🤩

Sorry I missed meeting you at Eroica over the weekend, it was a great event, even if a little on the cold side. I'll been in Italy at L'Eroica Montalcino next month so was hoping to have a chat about the event. Will you be attending that as well?

Yup, to fun riders with $$$ who act like they are Elite WC XCO racers... but like D&D says... Dream Big 😄

The most expensive hardtail in history is going to kill all hardtails.... or is it a dual hardtail? Wait what, I'm confused 🙃

You would be a Small on a Giant. I'm 175cm and I'm a Medium. Maybe look at trying to swop the bike out instead of selling, it might work out more cost effective.

As mentioned already, you aren't eating even close to enough to fuel your bodies requirements, it's as simple as that. Look at eating a breakfast as a starting point, plain oats with a teaspoon of peanut butter and cinnamon powder or 2 x Wheetbix with milk and water is a good start (stay off the sugar). Consider having 2 x boiled eggs and a banana about an hour before your ride. Keep the nutribullet shake and add a protein shake after your workout. Your body will thank you. I've been seeing a sports dietician since Jan. My main takeaway was that I was eating too little food and the wrong types of food at incorrect times of day. I'm now eating 5 meals a day, a whole lot more food, dropped 12kg and feeling great on the bike. Consider seeking some advice, it's worth it.

Results are up: https://d1zwi51l39apzt.cloudfront.net/uploads/events/78559/Lourensford Classic 2023 RESULTS V01.pdf

So after being vocal about the high entry fee, let me also give praise where praise is due... that was one frikkin awesome MTB race. The views are unmatched and those switchback, bermed "supertubed" type descents were just incredible 🤙 Well done to the trail builders for getting that route prepped in time, I could honestly fault nothing, even the Spur burger at the end was good.

Hardtail... or Gravel bike with mtb tires. We had one of each on the ride, a hardtail, a dual and my gravel bike (running 45C). The gravel bike was perfect for the first 130km's but some of those trails and descents in Newlands and on Table Mountain are rocky and washed out and I was forced to walk down a few of them for fear of binning it. Maybe younger more talented riders will cope fine but I wasn't willing to risk a fall so late in the day. I also pinched flatted on my rear tire after dropping the pressure for traction on the climbs. Fortunately a plug helped seal it.

Yeah, this ride states "16 historical cannon sites" not "all" the cannon sites in the WC. If that was the case we'd need a few weeks, there are cannons scattered all over the mountains around CT. I own a rather interesting book called "The Muzzle-Loading Cannon of South Africa". At the time there were something like 720 odd cannons placements recorded in SA.

Myself and a few mates including @leon_pro took on this challenge this past Saturday. It turned out to be a truly epic day out on the bike and a challenge I can highly recommend to anyone who enjoys these longer distance events. At times we felt like we were taking part in one of those "Amazing Race" episodes, having to navigate and find clues. The views of the Cape along this route are simply incredible. It was a reminder to ourselves that we live in a beautiful place. A stop in Kalk Bay for lunch was very welcome and gave us a chance to rest the butts and legs. A mate of ours, Tom Bishop, had done it previously and his only words of caution were... "this ride only starts at the top of Kloof Nek at around 130km's, so keep something in reserve" and boy oh boy, those words were spot on the money. Table Mountain was the testing ground of our resolve as it included a rather nasty hike-a-bike portage that was hell on tired legs. We started the ride in the dark at 5:30am from East City Cycles in town and finished in the same spot, 12h39m later, just as the sun was dipping over the horizon. Here's a few photo's of the day to help motivate others who might be considering taking up the challenge.

Eish, wake up call indeed. I had one on Sat while descending Chappies towards Noordhoek on a wet road on my gravel bike. It's the only bike I own where my brake lever are swopped around. I always have my front brake on the right to match my motorbikes, but here it's on the left. I've been meaning to change it for ages but just haven't gotten around to do it because it's hydraulic and a bit of a pain to do. I was fully in control going through a tightening left hander until my rear tire let go and started sliding. My mind thought I was applying front brake so I squeezed the front harder to scrub off speed but making it worse because it was rear. I missed the apex of the corner, went over into the oncoming lane, which very fortunately had no traffic in it because it was still early and almost went over the retaining wall. It was only many years of riding motorcycle that saved my bacon because I immediately started modulating both brakes to scrub off enough speed to stop me going over wall. I was lucky, it was my mistake, I shudder to think the consequences if there was an oncoming car or worse, I went over that low retaining wall 😲 I almost gave my mates behind me heart failure as well because they saw the drama unfold.

Possibly because it's in the height of summer in SA and everything spoils in this heat? In their defense, almost everyone in my family was down with that tummy bug in Feb, it was brutal. It just takes one person to arrive their with the bug and boom, it's a shitshow.

Being a Capetonian road biker and not knowing who David Garret is says more about you than it does about David 😄 He's a legend of the Cape road bike scene and has been around for many years competing at the sharp end of the field in his age cat. All the best with your recovery David, trusting you'll heal up well and be back on the bike soon 🤙

As someone who's ridden and then worked at the Epic as a motorcycle rider for the camera crew, I can tell you that there are numerous medics on motorbikes that are posted all over the route that can reach all the places that the mtbers can go and then some. As hectic as those conditions were, a scrambler would have no problem coping with them. In places where the medics struggle on bikes then the camera bike riders can take them up to injured riders. All the bike riders are existing or ex Offroad & Enduro racers and skilled at their own sport.

Is your concern rolling resistance? If so, I don't think you should stress it when you're riding at touring pace. I did the whole ride on a set of 45C gravel tires without any issues whatsoever 🤙

Yeah, please do as I say and not as I do, we don't want to give cyclists a bad name... and stop at traffic lights 🤙

Started in 2B... my seeding has taken somewhat of a dive over the years now that I don't do much road racing.