dirtypot

Eleven and a bit year old thread! Well done! It was last time I went up there, but that was over a year ago now so not really relevant.

I did a sub three in 2015 too, but I was on a BMX. I got seeded into 2H (07h08) this year. Better than I was expecting since my last seeing race was in 2017. From back there sub 3 dreams are out the window, but I'll be happy with around 3:15 as long as the weather plays along...

That sounds like even more reason to chase the price down and see where it ends up. Could turn it into one of these:

I've entered after not road racing solo for a long long long time. I'm expecting to take a hammering on my start time. PPA seeding only has one result still listed for me and it was from the One Tonner two years ago which we rode as a team and it went badly Really hope there are people further back in the field who want to work with me to get to the beers at the end as quickly as possible.

That is one of my all time ultimate bikes

Three Gripen's just flew over my office. Loud and fast. Never see that happening out here in the sticks.

My cousin had one of those which I had on long term 'borrowing' for a while. It was so much faster than my Honda MTX50 which I had at the time. I remember going over Ou Kaapse Weg, I'd have to ride in the yellow line going up, but nobody was catching me down the other side around the bends Also learnt to do really long stoppies on that bike. It was so light and just made you want to do stupid things all the time. I miss the fun and simplicity of those little bikes.

I once rode a restricted RS125 right across England without knowing where I was going or being prepared for a long trip at all. The train trip to get there was about three hours and it took about eight to get back. And most of it was in the dark. I think there are few bikes less suited to long distance travel as that one.

I think the Petronas scheme looks good. It's different from the others.

If I was buying a bike like that from the other side of the country, I'd fly up and ride it down.

I'm on the PC. Saw it doing an auto update as I was starting up then saw the option where you choose your route. Maybe your app just needs an update? I haven't looked to see if it's available across all platforms though.

I saw on my ride this morning that Zwift is finally allowing you to choose which course you want to ride on (between two anyway). And you can see how many people are currently on each course before you start. I think this is a great step in the right direction!

I think there are certain aspects which can carry over, for example sliding - on a dirt bike I'm happy for the rear to be stepping out sideways or the front to be sliding a bit going around a corner. This has carried over into my mountain biking in that I don't get freaked out when the bike starts to slide and I just go with it. I've seen other people freeze up when their MTB starts to slide and they either go off the trail or crash. For both offroad motorbikes and mtb you need to be loose and let the bike move under you, so I'd say there are certain correlations between the two even though you go about them in an entirely different way.

Woohoo!

Zambia?

Like the old CRT bikes

Nooooooo!!!! I'll miss it! There was a schedule clash last year, but I really wanted to ride it this year in the new later in the year slot. Since my last one I've been mentally working out what I could do differently and have been looking forward to the pain and suffering

Any of the smart trainers will be good. You want something that will keep you entertained. Dumb trainers and spinning bikes will not do that. There's plenty of apps to train on and info on the forum from other people who have done the same thing.

At the RAF museum in Somerset they have Concord 002 on display, and you can go into it. That really blew my mind - seeing the size of it, how basic it is inside (this was a test one not fitted with normal seats) and reading about it while actually looking at it was simply amazing. I could have spent hours just at that exhibit.

Talking of Pilatus, one of my favourite pics which I've taken with my phone is of a Pilatus just after it landed in the Richtersveld. The mountains around there are stunning - I would have loved to be flying in there.

I used to live in the Lake District, and jets used to come through all the time. No matter what I was doing I'd stop and watch them twisting around the next mountain. Sometimes you'd hear them coming and other times there was just a deafening noise as they thunder past. Usually they went in pairs, so as the first one screams past you have a few seconds to turn and see the second one. Always low, always fast, always awesome!

Answered elsewhere...

And on that note - you're almost a week overdue for another change.

Correct. I tried flying from the UK to SA on my British passport alone, and wasn't allowed to fly. Had to get my SA passport before being allowed to travel. That was a fun day... However, on a different occasion I flew into SA with an expired RSA passport (without knowing) and was allowed to enter on my British passport, but told that I had to renew my passport while I was down. So slightly contradictory...

This post makes me think of all the top tube descender hero's