Bub Marley

You say wasteful. It’s more stupid to me. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. They knew this was coming so had more than enough time to prepare for it. I don’t see what the big issue is. Let us buy the board now and remove it from the cycletour entry. Or if we’ve paid for it already, let us collect it beforehand so we dont need to pay extra for races. I also just bought a permanent mtb board from them recently. All these costs add up.

Well thankfully I’m not crazy enough to attempt over 200km on a mtb. My limit is 100 miles. That’s it. Not a smidge more thank you very much.

My local mechanic here in Cape Town has a Look XC bike also with a similar design. Looks absolutely beautiful tbh. Wrt the topic. I’ve tried to get my XC bike more gravel friendly. I’ve bought a Farr Aero clip on bar which i love just to alternate some hand positions and get slightly more aero. Also put on Vittoria Terreno XC tyres. To me these are the fastest rolling tyres I’ve used so far. Not the grippiest for technical stuff but perfect for gravel races. It also depends on what your goals are. If you are actually racing for position then your biggest drawback is without a doubt going to be gearing. I’d say that has a bigger impact than flat bars. However, if you’re not racing and just doing it for fun and fitness or whatever then yeah that’s what most guys are doing. Just bear in mind that if you change the forks to rigid then you’re essentially removing the mtb aspect. So if you wanna do techy trails and only have 1 bike then clearly this is not the best. If however you have another bike for the techy stuff, then I’d just get the gravel bike one time instead of gaffing around trying to convert.

I think if you’re doing a multi day event, then perhaps adding some chamois cream might help a bit given the consecutive days of training load.

Problem here is when you enter for durbie dash, there’s no option to buy permanent board. You have to add a disposable chip.

Get you a bib that fits properly and kiss the chamois cream goodbye. Assos does a great job of separating the pad from the bib which eliminates that chafing irritation.

So we’re actually going to be riding with these massive boards on the front of our road bikes? **** me. Are these double numbers only for the elites? The rest of us get the horizontal single number which is also obnoxiously large for some reason.

Is this the same chip that’s gonna be used for the races leading up to it? Would we then still need to pay for a temp chip for every race?

Free entry now for 40 plus tours completed.

The guys actually lied. They said entries limited to 500 for the full race and that 80% were sold out in the first week of September. There is no way 300 people didn’t pitch. These organisers need to do better with marketing. You’re charging over a grand and there was no marketing at all on this race which is baffling given social media etc.

Yes. However the only brand you can import is Campagnolo. Doubt you will be able to find a retailer willing to ship Sram or Shimano due to territory restrictions.

WP1 was basically just liquids. They had water, coke, energy drink etc. WP2 they had the same liquids as WP1 as well as banana bread and hot dogs. WP3 they had all the liquids again as well as baby potatoes, bananas, sandwiches, sweets. I never stopped at WP4 but from a quick glance it looked the same as WP3. So yeah, pretty decent selection there. No complaints in terms of what they had available.

I had the same experience when I finished. There was no vibe at all. No food anywhere. No coffee or anything. Suppose when you only have 100 entrants that’s to be expected. They need to drop that entry fee as I’m certain that’s the reason for the poor turnout. Old Hermon’s weather was far far worse and people still pitched up.

Yeah this is normally the time I decide to get rid of it. Once those see through spots become visible, for me at least the bib has run its course. You can fix it it if you want but I’d argue the chamois has probably seen better days as well.

Entry was way overpriced. That’s my biggest gripe of everything. For R1150 i got a cheap cap with Boland gravel monster printed on. I can literally peel off the branding from the cap. As much as I enjoyed the event, i won’t do it at that price again. There were just over 100 starters for the long race which is pretty poor considering they said the event was 80% full at the beginning of the month. This was more expensive than K2C and Race to the sea.

I mean the tarred sections contained the 2 big climbs though. So wasn’t really any free miles. Honestly when you race in the Wellington and surrounding areas there are hardly any free miles around.

First experience at a gravel race this distance and sjoe was a toughie. I was good for about 125km. Then felt a twitch in my legs just before last waterpoint. Decided not to stop as I was worried I’m gonna cramp up if I stop and also figured after Bains it’ll be nice and easy downhill to the finish🤣. Safe to say that was a mistake. Ran out of food and drink and the last 10km was just excruciating. By far the hardest section of the race especially with fatigue in the legs. Was a great event though. For all of us worrying about the mud, there was hardly anything. Pretty much perfect conditions start to finish.

Finding the right gel consistency is important as well. I find GU in winter is too thick in terms of consistency. But in summer it’s better because the heat makes it softer. For this reason I try and use gels with a more liquid consistency. Just makes getting it down easier.

The gravel will be muddy. There’s no getting around that. The one saving grace of the race perhaps is that there is 60km’s of tar. Feels weird to say this but yeah I’ll be looking forward to the tar section’s tomorrow 🤣

I mean it’s currently raining now. Rained through the night and most of yesterday. Forecast says no rain tomorrow but I don’t buy it. It’s going to be wet, muddy and miserable.

Just to refresh this topic again. This was my comment at the beginning of the year and was based on the previous years winter. Can I just say that this year winter absolutely freezing cold. I definitely needed a thermal jacket this year and will definitely not make the same mistake for next year.

Heard good things about Tailwind. Think I should give it a try.

Multiply will be falling away very soon though.

He literally won the Vuelta last year so he’s proven he can do it over a 3 week tour. Is he at the level of a Pogacar or Vingegaard? Clearly he isn’t but that doesn’t mean hes not a true GT rider.

I find Hannah to be much better as co-commentator like she did in the women’s Tour de France. Not a fan of her as lead commentator.