Pall Catt

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.

Good luck to anyone doing this event. Hopefully you've put in a bit of training because this thing is brutal and merciless to the underprepared.

Hey guys, Sorry to bring this thread back to life. The only dongles I can find at the above-mentioned places are official Garmin ones and in my opinion are a little expensive. Is there anywhere else where I can get a cheap knock-off?

Beast mode, on.

Thanks for the update and clarification. I appreciate that you might not have all the details of the 6 incidents that have taken place but if more information does come to light would you mind to please post a summary here of the time of day that these attacks are taking place and if possible, where on Klapperkop the "high-risk" areas seem to be - from what I've seen, viewpoint 1 seems to be quite a hotspot, but are there any others?

This was the route (and profile) when I did it last year but I think its changed a bit because back then it wasn't 260km, but it should be pretty similar I would think: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/755885363

It looks like its also on their website, though my work server seems to block it for me so I cant open it http://www.c2tmtb.co.za/event-information Under section 4.

Cool video and impressive ride. Which of the guys went on to win it (what kit)? The guy in the black and white seemed to be going quite strong. Since you asked for edit ideas, might be quite cool to mix in some of the actual audio from the ride (if there is any) to hear how you guys are talking to each other during the breakaway.

One (former) pro that I know of who does have a power meter and is very transparent with his strava is Paul van Zweel. According to his strava he averaged 229w for a time of 2h17. Weighted average power was 282w. But he's pretty light, I think below 70kg. https://www.strava.com/activities/780437915 The guy who came second also seems to have a power meter and his data is available. His average power was 259w and weighted average was 292w. Not sure what he weighs but he is young and looks light. https://www.strava.com/activities/780414806/overview I'm not a pro and I don't have a power meter so all I've got for myself is the strava estimate. I did 2h22 at 86kg and my strava estimate is 347w. I'm sure its inflated because of the drafting but I'm just gona leave that detail out when telling people .

Ya I've ridden other bunches (VA's and alphabet soup) and have seen crashes but just not this many. There were at least 5 that I saw and many close calls. I thought maybe its just more aggressive in elites because guys are trying to get noticed or whatever. The first few km were the worst and I got bumped a few times but luckily never went down. The guys go for some really small gaps too and there were a number of times where I felt like if I didn't back away there would have been a collision. Don't know if I'll be doing that again.

My first ride with the elites. Was really cool to be stretched like that but at the same time really concerning to see first hand how many accidents they have. Okes were hitting the deck hard, and not necessarily on tricky parts of the route. Felt a bit like Russian roulette with you not really having any control over the situation or what happens immediately in front of you. Any other elite riders that can confirm whether that's normal or was yesterday unusually bad in that respect?

Agreed. There are also numerous forecasts out there and there is hardly any consistency between them so I usually just keep googling till I find one that says what I want and then use it to motivate a positive attitude.

I think that depends on whether you want an official result or not. If you simply just wear their number and ride as if you are them, then you should have their start time. Though technically this is probably not allowed, I dont see how they would stop you.

You can get a free app called mapmyride. You can then upload the GPX on your computer as a route on mapmyride.com and can then open and follow the route on the app on your phone.

Download an app called mapmyride. You can then upload the GPX on your computer on as a route on mapmyride.com and can then open and follow the route on the app on your phone.

Are you gona have it on your handlebars, facing forward or under your saddle, facing backwards?

+1 On a previous occasion I arrived at like 5am for an 8am start and didn't get in anyone's way. Rather give yourself enough time to avoid last minute panic stations. Just be considerate and try to stay on the sidelines around the start, which in my experience is not very difficult to do.

No extra steps during my recovery week

Definitely. You should come quite close to 3h00 at 947 if you can find another nice group there.

Done a couple of races in VA this year and enjoyed it but then thought I'd take this opportunity to test myself amongst the elites thinking I would try to hang on through the flats till Hekpoort where I was sure I would be dropped like a bad habit but holy crap those guys are next level and I only managed about 25 minutes of redlining it with zero recovery and then watched them ride off into the distance long before Hekpoort. Ended up then reforming a smaller group with some Pan-African riders (Seychelles, Djibouti, Lesotho and Zimbabwe) who also fell off the main bunch. Nice to see so many guys from other parts of the continent in this race and judging from the fact that they also fell off the main bunch, it would seem races of this scale and intensity are probably exactly what they need a bit more exposure to. The Lesotho rider was very strong up Hekpoort though, perhaps unsurprisingly down here at low altitude