Pall Catt

Sorry for my ignorance but I'd appreciate some help in interpreting this. Does this mean he suffered cardiac arrest which then caused him to crash or did he crash and then suffer cardiac arrest as a result of the crash?

What were you hoping for?

So apparently this last climb broke a few spirits?

If you want a super chilled but still very pleasant ride, you can go out along the railway line that runs past the dam, and come back on it. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1988598224 Another option if you want to ride more single track is to go and ride the Dunkeld trails. They have about 36km of trails on their property. http://www.dunkeldestate.co.za/activities-and-facilities/hiking-and-mountain-biking-in-dullstroom/

If you're keen to head out and tackle a pretty big climb, the fabled Korfnek climb which features prominently as the highlight of the Cullinan2Tonteldoos Ultra with its steepest part being 1.8km at 8% gradient, is also quite easily accessible from Dullstroom. From the Dullstroom side though, its a downhill, so you can either head out that way and go down it, turn around and go back up and head back to Dullstroom which would be about 20km each way: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1985038025 Or there is a long 80km loop you can do where you go up to Tonteldoos, and then turn off just a few hundred metres before the town (or carry on into town for some supplies first), onto the road towards Stofberg, and then loops back via Laersdrif to eventually lead you to the foot of the Korfnek climb (strava segment affectionately titled "Where the f#@k is Tonteldoos") from where you can then head back to Dullstroom. This is mostly on gravel road with about 6km of tar heading into Laersdrif. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1985047835

Nice one Cabous! Ya, mountain biking at those altitudes is not easy. Pretty much any ride in Dullies is gona have its fair share of climbing too. How awesome is Tonteldoos though? I love that place! I'll do my best to add a difficulty grade to those routes, but I think it would be cool if we got fellow hubbers to also grade them as they try them out, to get a community based grading rather than one individual's opinion. What would you have graded this route that you did? Also, for future hubbers that want to try this route and might have difficulty in finding the turnoff for the O'Grady's loop, if you're heading back towards Dullstroom, its a little road to the left not long after the High Side Tavern and Cheese shop, and just before the Thirsty Walrus bottle store and general dealer. I think there is a sign pointing down that road for "The Barn".

If any of you have family or friends that will be waiting for you at the finish and might enjoy a little adventure of their own, there is this trail run at the finish venue on the Saturday morning: https://www.entryninja.com/events/event/27781-tonteldoos-cosmos-crusade

Cool, if you or any of your party are also runners, check out this event happening in Tonteldoos on Easter weekend: https://www.entryninja.com/events/event/27781-tonteldoos-cosmos-crusade It starts and finishes at the venue where the Cullinan2Tonteldoos Ultra ends, on that same day.

Lekker. Enjoy it and give some feedback on here for future hubbers making the trip.

This year the finishing venue is different to the previous years, its a little further and a little higher and so there is now one more sting in the tail. From the old finishing venue at 1812m altitude, there is now a further 6 km which gradually descends to 1737m before then kicking up over the last climb which climbs to 1846m (so 109m in 1.5km) before then easily rolling into the finish. The infamous Korfnek by comparison climbs 140m over 1.8km so this one is not too far from another one of those.

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party here but for future reference, there is plenty of MTBing to be done in Dullstroom. Some suggested routes on public roads are as follows (all starting and ending at the Seattle Coffee Shop on the main road: You can ride out to Tonteldoos and back all on scenic gravel roads. Tonteldoos makes an awesome halfway stop for a coffee or breakfast. You can either stop in the town itself (about 22km each way from Dullstroom) or you can continue on up the road to the Riverman Cabin which has a restaurant too (about 29km each way from Dullstroom). In this route I've also added a detour loop you can take on the way back for some added scenery and to check out a quaint old little church but you could obviously just head straight back along the main road if you prefer. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972829204 This one is a 40km ride down to the Highland Gate Golf course on a really nice quiet smooth tar road but then after the golf course it becomes a gravel road. It meanders along the highlands for a while quite close to the escarpment edge and then takes you up a monster gravel road climb back towards Dullstroom to pop you out for the last 3km on the tar road between Lydenburg and Dullstroom. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972806251 This is slightly longer variant of the above. Instead of turning straight off on the golf course road, you go further towards Belfast (extra 6.5km on that Belfast road which is not great if you're uncomfortable with high speed traffic) but then turnoff onto a gravel road which loops back around and joins up with the golf course tar road about halfway down and then follows the remainder of the route as described above. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972811150 This is a 47 km loop which heads out on the railway gravel road (which is nicer than that sounds) up to De Berg road. From there you follow the tar road for about 6km towards Lydenburg (there is a way to avoid the tar road but I'm not entirely its all public roads - I've never had to jump any gates or anything going that way but it kindof has that private land feel) and then turnoff at Santa to follow the railway gravel road all the way down as it winds along the contours above Walkersons. Then a right turn meanders you along the highlands again with the escarpment on your left and and then you turn right up the same monster climb as the above routes and finish the same. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972814057 (Here is the link for the alternative route avoiding the 6km on the Lydenburg road which as I said, feels like it might use some private land, so be warned - http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972820423) You can also sort of combine the above routes for a bit more distance: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972827251 http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972826846 (this one uses that section that feels like it could be private land) This 72km route in my opinion is the best one to do if you are up for a challenge. It takes you out on the railway road and turns into and through Verloren Valei Nature reserve (gravel road) and peaks at about 2300m above sea level, before dropping you down a tar road pass (with a nice wide shoulder) and then turns off on more gravel to Tonteldoos and heads back to Dullstroom. Its a tough 72km. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1972823372 There are more options of other routes but these should keep you busy for now. Any of these routes could also otherwise be done in reverse. You should be able to export any of these routes from Mapmyride to GPX or you can download the mapmyride app and then I think you can follow them on your phone.

Dont let this talk dampen your spirits. When I was a newbie I lived my life from one event to the next and always looked so forward to them and was happy to pay the money for something that gave me real excitement and joy. Lets not even talk about what meaningless material possessions some other people are prepared to spend R415 on, or what a game of golf costs. These races are expensive, but it's a free market and if it was so easy to slap a race together and make millions out of it, there would probably be others entering the market and we'd have an event every week. Look at the Advendurance National MTB series, people complained about how expensive that was and how much money the organisers must be making and now its had to be discontinued because they couldn't find a sponsor. And that's sad. I know events like this aren't for everyone but they really do have their place in the sport and I think a lot of us would miss them if they were gone. Its nice for the more social or newer riders who do use the water points and the sweeper vehicles and enjoy the safety in numbers etc. It's also nice for couples or families that all want to ride but aren't necessarily all the same strength, you can go to the event and all start and finish at the same place, but at the same time all have your own ride and know that there are support structures in place if anything should go wrong. So if this excites you and you're prepared to pay the money for it, don't let any of this negative talk put you off. Your continued support of these events will keep them going for more people's enjoyment in future. Others are entitled to choose to spend their money differently, but don't let their decisions influence yours.

In fairness though, that is just laps of a 25-odd km route. So it is a bit different.

Well, on the uniform point, if you expel them from your club are you going to somehow force them to give back the shirt? And what of anybody wearing say a Team Sky shirt, are Team Sky responsible for his actions? And cycle lab members that are wearing a different shirt because their cycle lab shirt is in the wash that day? Its not all about the shirt. I also disagree on getting the support vehicle drivers to be policemen of the club. As far as I'm concerned the primary role of the support vehicle is to provide a safe barrier between the cyclists and other traffic from behind. You are now suggesting that he should be pulling up beside the bunch which is already chaos (and which would in all likelihood require him to drive partially in the oncoming lane), and then attempting to extract bad riders for a good talking to. All while there is other traffic behind that is already frustrated with the situation. If my club did that, I'd rather go find another one. I dont even know where to begin on all the things that could go wrong in this scenario. Not to mention that all the support vehicles I've seen aren't exactly being driven by people in senior positions, because quite frankly its a *** job to drive a car at 30km/h for 3 hours. And yes, maybe if Cycle Lab could somehow more effectively discipline their riders (which I think is very difficult) you will end up with those guys just going to clubs or less formal arrangements who don't have a corporate identity and really are just a bunch of guys riding bikes together with nobody "in charge" per se. If there's a poephol that rides a bike and likes to ride a bike in a group, then there's no way of stopping that poephol from being out on the road, in a group, and the fact that he's a poephol is his own fault and has nothing to do with what is printed on his shirt. We as cyclists should rather be self-policing and if someone does something wrong, take it up with that individual rather than go and complain to whoever you perceive him to be representing. Of course that will have its challenges too but in my opinion it's got a much better chance of yielding any meaningful results than having a rant about his club.

When we talk about how the clubs are responsible for this, we seem to think there is some higher authority that has power over all of its minions and dictates how the clubs behave. That's not the case at all. Club "leaders" have very little power to do anything about bad behaviour. What can they really do, threaten to expel the person from the club? That's hardly punishment because there are 40 other clubs to go and join. They cant impose financial penalties or anything like that. On top of that, most of the time any "club" ride will have numerous non-club members who join or get picked up along the way. Is someone supposed to be policing the entire bunch all the time and taking a constant roll call? So the person who acts like an idiot might be riding with CL but could very possibly not be a CL member at all. To try and pin this on some sort of management structure is just misguided. Clubs are just collectives of ordinary people and people are ****. The reason why CL often comes up is probably just because they are one of the bigger clubs and so they have more people and therefore more chance of having **** people.

Maybe just a tad over the top hipster?

I haven't done Breedt's nek so difficult to compare, but in general, the climbs aren't very technical. The biggest climb towards the end is a gravel road - its not the smoothest gravel road but rocks and the like are mostly avoidable. I think with the new finish venue there may be a reasonably technical climb at the very end but that shouldn't be too long.

Havent seen much coverage of it and its due to the lack of coverage that I dont really know if I have my facts straight, but it seems like Willie Smit has had some good results over in Spain of late. If I'm not mistaken he came second in one race and then first in another. I have no idea how competitive that scene is, but surely this is something to be celebrated? If you can read Spanish, this article might have some more info on it, and if not, then just enjoy the photo: http://www.clubciclistariasbaixas.com/index.php/16-latest/1070-doblete-del-club-ciclista-rias-baixas-en-aguilar-de-campoo-triunfo-de-willem-y-titulo-autonomico-para-nanclares Also:

It's a lekker concept and I enjoyed the ride (aside from the two times my bike just completely slipped out from under me with not even a split-second to react). That said, I don't think they got as many entries as they had hoped for (they were really pumping the last minute marketing and left entries open also till very late) and what really struck me during the ride is just how massive an operation this is, which must have pretty huge costs that need to be covered. I have no idea how much Hollard puts into it but my suspicion is that this year's event might have run at a loss. That coupled with them probably still trying to bounce back financially from the year that everything washed away in the floods, I'm not sure we'll be seeing many more of these. It's a pity because it really is a unique experience and really opens your eyes to what's going on in Joburg, but I just cant think how they can really make it worth their while for all that effort. Entry fees are already on the higher end of MTB events so they can't really push the price up by much and then they also cant increase numbers too much because A) there were already some bottlenecks on yesterday's undersold event, and B) it's actually quite a technical ride and not really a mass participation bring-the-whole-family kinda ride. But hopefully I'm wrong and somehow they can make it a permanent fixture on the MTB calendar for years to come.

Yup, I entered for the 54km last night. Will be my first one, doing it with a friend and pretty keen to just have a lekker day out on the bike on this alternative route.

If any of you are going to have friends/family who will be waiting for you in Tonteldoos/Dullstroom, looking for something to do, please share this trail run with them: https://www.entryninja.com/events/event/15802-tonteldoos-cosmos-crusade

Haha, same here. And that was after the slowest one eventually got picked up by a car. It was brutal.

So R48m into someone's pocket and then R2m to fill in a few potholes?

I know River Rat usually posts news of these incidents here but for whatever reason he doesn't seem to have gotten round to it yet for this one. There was an incident yesterday in which he himself was involved, his fb post is as follows: Klapperkop Attack this morning. This morning at 9:20 I was riding with a group of 6 cyclists in Klapperkop, we were doing laps on and off road, after the second lap one of the ladies decided to head for home leaving two ladies , two gents and myself to continue with our training session. I have not been feeling safe in the reserve for some time and I suggested that instead of splitting up as we had that we stay together for the last lap. As per usual two of the riders Pieter and Anelda were slightly quicker on the climb and were about 200m ahead of us just as I was approaching viewpoint 1. That’s when 3 males attacked the two leaders, the one stood in front of Pieter forcing him to stop while the other set off after Anelda who managed to sprint away with her assailant chasing after her. I saw what was happening to Pieter who at this stage was fending off his knife wielding attacker with his bicycle. I have no illusions about the intent of his attacker, he was trying to stab him. This was not a simple robbery this guy was trying to kill him! What Pieter did not know that there was a third attacker coming up behind him and I managed to sprint towards the third guy who immediately bolted up towards the fort, which gave me an opportunity to turn on the Knifeman who quickly decided that he was no match for Pieter and myself without his accomplices, ( Anelda had managed to outsprint her assailant who slunk off into the bushes) the knifeman headed down the mountain in the direction of Herbert Baker. The good news was that our community WhatsApp group was effective in alerting the CPF, Hi Risk and the community and the knifeman was apprehended in the reserve. The physical apprehension was performed by our heroic councillor Shaun Wilkinson DA assisted by Graham De Lange of Hi Risk. Guys I am holding the council to account on this one and I have asked Shaun Wilkinson DA to assist. I have just fired off an email to the responsible council officials demanding that they deliver on their promises for access control and patrols in the reserve. I'll keep you posted on their response.

He has his own Youtube channel too with a bit of an insider's perspective. Pretty cool to check out every now and then. I cant access youtube from here at work so I cant get the link but its pretty easy to find if you just go into youtube and search for Willie Smit.