Sbloomer

Curious Why would you make statement like that?

We don't even know if we will be allowed to cycle from Friday anyway

More chance of having your rectum blocked by jellyfish than getting corona there. Damnitall. I wanted to go ride there on Sunday with the kids.

My cars lights are on permanently (ok not when it’s parked in my garage) but I think cyclists should have the same. Hi-vis gear and eyeball melting lights at all times.

I ride the same. On the CTCT I got a number of comments on the “interesting tyres” Not that well known in CT it seems

I went the self build route, but it's not a true gravel bike (is there such a thing?). Basically a relatively lightweight Alu frame, carbon forks, and carbone just about everything else, with 45 FARR tyres and 2x10 MTB gearing. What I like about it is the oodles of room I have for climbing gearing. I noticed on Sunday when the guys on roadbikes ran out of gears up something like Smits, I still had plenty available. The bummer is that peddling beyond 45km/h is beyond me, and the roadbikes catch up again on the flats. Conclusion, I need to run bigger chainrings for road, and MOST gravel rides. The bugger is (and I didn't think about this) is the availability of these chainrings in SA for my crank, and they cost a fortune if you can find them. If I did the exercise again, I would think much more carefully about cranks and compatibility with larger chainrings (or just bought one of the FARR frame kits).

It's time I do this race... er ride... I'm in no position to race.

On e-bikes, it was the first time i'd ever ridden in a race like this with guys (and gals) on e-bikes. It was interesting (more like disconcerting) to have them pass you up the hills, only to catch them again on the flats and downhills.

But those okes have another 80km to catch up again. Is Visser’s such a breaker? What would the gap be once they go over the top?

Wow, I improved my seeding quite a lot. By 17 points. But why is the Beta so high? I didn't think it all that difficult (even if I was a backmarker)

It was getting very warm for us slow-pokes

They can’t. The group was across the entire road. I suppose a 4x4 can take a chance in the verge.

Not on Instagram.. cant view

I did note on this that there was a large group of about 50-70 riders that were taking up the entire road such that no traffic could get past. When there are no road closures one still needs to respect the traffic, because one day that really close truck will get too close. There's absolutely no reason for a group that size to take up the entire road.

Actually it’s only the climb that is tarred. There’s 80-odd km of gravel, horrendously badly corrugated