Lance Cruz

Increasing, enriching and standardizing the lexicon, will most certainly be done with valuable feedback and reader input. There are many technically literate engineers and artisans, who can add interesting source words from their field of experience, which could evolve into Afrikaans versions for many of the English cycling terms.

Country has vast touring bike potential. The gravel bike movement has taken riders into areas where the mountain bike racing routes don't always go. Some of the Karoo gravel rides that have happened this year, especially a recent 'epic; into the Tankwa, are the stuff of legends. Whether you do it on a steel gravel bike or roll 2.1" fast-rolling tyres on your 29er hardtail, it doesn't matter. Get out there. Explore. As Weg has proven: South Africa has nearly limitless potential for domestic tourism/traveling. And bikes are a wonderful way of doing that. Local communities are swift to react to new trends. We could see a range of new overnight facilities for touring riders, in some great locations, at very fair prices: bed, shower, single meal.

Orientation appears northbound. Probably routing to Donkergat, for continuation training with 4SF.

My understanding is that a small group of radicals are holding the community hostage, with the promise of undeliverable expectations. The uncomfortable truth, if you matrix the housing issue in Stellenbosch, is that the Jonkershoek informal community simply don't have the numbers, or location, to be a priority for local government. Will Cape Nature allow a housing project on its land, bordering a nature reserve? If an angel investor and NGO manages to deliver the swift miracle housing solution, considering how few people there actually are, does this trigger massive protests on the other side of town? All I know is, it's been a very cold winter here. Which we are grateful for, in terms of the water table, but living in an informal home, in the shadow of those peaks, creates horrible TB conditions. And people who are desperate, will be lead astray by radicals promising the undeliverable. There are some very clever people who live in the valley and have a better understanding of the issues, and more resources, than most of us. We hope they enter the debate to mediate.

Broadly there appears to be an issue with supplying what amounts to a public works project and service delivery, on land which is being leased by one entity – and in principle belongs to a national government agency. An agency which serves to protect ecology – an aim usually diametrically opposed to housing projects. The Jonkershoek valley has a low saturation point for absorbing relatively unskilled labour – here aren’t any massive fruit farms, for instance. And in the hierarchy of demand, there are a great deal more people who are clustered together in a more serviceable scale, and have been waiting far longer, for homes and service delivery, on the other side of Stellenbosch. Priority for local government is to serve the need on the north western side of town, not in the Jonkershoek valley. That last issue undoes much of the claim currently being tabled by the protesting faction. A faction which also appears to have no community cohesion – and is resorting to extreme tactics in an attempt to elicit any response from stakeholders who control resources. A very uncomfortable impasse. I don’t think a mountain biking show of force would do any good – and I’m a daily Jonkershoek rider. The only solution will be found between community leaders, MTO, Cape Nature, local government and the private land owners who border the informal settlement. We hope for resolution, as the Jonkershoek nature reserve in itself, does serve as a relief zone for many outdoor enthusiasts.

A very expensive product is by definition low volume, hence any definition around its demand is relative. I guess Rolls-Rolls and its South African business is an analogy of sorts for this. But if you want them locally, you can get them. In both instances (Rolls-Royce and the wheels). Officially.

As some forum members have mentioned, one must analyse content in its relevance to a specific audience. BusinessInsider is not BikeHub. And I’ve enjoyed writing for both. The departure point for this article was never about the lightest possible wheels, and nowhere was there a claim as such. It was about finding a set of wheels, which had official local distribution, at an invoice price – instead of a mere European online purchase conversion price. Contextualisation is a crucial aspect of all content. And for an audience which is perhaps not immersed in the cycling word, overly technical comparisons serve absolutely no purpose in lieu of their lower product literacy. Therefore, the MacBook was used as a basis of comparison on weight, because Apple is a celebrated design icon and many business people and marketing professionals used Macs, therefore they possess a reference experience of sorts. Concerning the weights, a caveat was stated that the individual wheels (front and rear) would tally less than a late model Mac. If all creative writing and metaphor was an attempt at being literal, the world of content would be a rather boring engineering handbook. Chronicling the human experience would be rather boring without metaphor – and metaphor is never literal. Therefore, seemingly unconventional comparisons are often more powerful and best remembered, linking subconscious familiarity with something new. But we hardly want to disappear down the rabbit hole of linguistics and creative writing. On the issue of flights. You can certainly fly two people return for just over R100 000, OR Thambo to Hong Kong, or Europe. Not necessarily if you book a 24th of December flight on the afternoon of the 23th, but within reason, the value offering is achievable. Online flight costs and those of service providers into the corporate travel market vary, but I fly regularly enough to know that number is real. The critique of a Scapel being a gravel grinder in practical purpose? If we took the usage data of all the local Cannondale Scalpel Si-Blacks, and calculated the time spent on singletrack versus jeep track, would it be an unreasonable conjecture to imagine that the gravel road riding might total to a majority of the non-tar mileage? I suspect that could be the case.

Seeing it separated into frames, you always think what the rider could have done. But he's effectively a passenger, that sequence is running at 1/2500th of second. That's a lot faster than a blink of the eye.

Outstanding capture of a very unfortunate event. Frame rate and focus tracking collaborated perfectly.

I live to the right of where that image was taken. The narrow side access is for all intents and purposes a Labrador walking path. And honestly I'd rather put myself in harms way on the road, than endanger a Lab. The issues pertaining to the width and winding nature of the footpath explains why you ride in the road, and Jonkershoek is not a place where driving quickly is tolerated by the locals - for good reason, many blind farm entrances and no room for evasive action. I've never had somebody in a car get impatient with me, the valley is a place where you're never in a hurry - nor should you be. When I very occasionally drive to the gate, it's 50kph, cruise mode. Many farm labourers and kids walk and play in that lane too, it's also a waiting area for taxi transport. I don't feel it's ever fit for a bicycle, except if you are taking a little one on a slow ride with dad. Stellenbosch is very bike aware, people don't scrub you with a wing mirror.

Don't be lured by distance, it works on a very different scale down in CL. In Stellenbosch 30km can become a 1000m ride. A 50km day is a very big ride out there - at least for me. Do one day at Jonkers. Then link G-spot/Eden/Mont Marie on another day. Some sound advice from other posts here on the other venues a bit further afield, such as Grabouw.

160mm 650b. Light bike 30mm id carbon rims. 1x10 #becausecheapskate. Pike front. Kashima factory rear. SLX stoppers.

My intention with the article was for it to be a departure point for collaborative debate, which is certainly has. Would like to thank those who have had real-world experiences with partners using e-bikes – due to health or fitness reasons – and benefiting, for their contributions. Adds substance to my estimate that this is certainly a great ebike benefit. Trail damage potential and access issues and arguments, I do believe my original conjecture about these have stood up to scrutiny. I was virulently anti e-bike two years ago, but experiences with friends riding them, have been illuminating.

Dust Monkey's experience is exactly what I refer to as one of the ebike-benefits in article. Great to hear of a real life example validating a point in article. If battery life cycle and disposal are the issues of criticism against ebike, all composites are to be vilified too.

I'm heartened by the robustness and quality of debate here. About trail wear, I highlighted this issue: "an issue around trail wear and maintenance that’s conveniently ignored in South Africa: mass and bike set-up. Heavier riders, will harm a trail more. Heavier riders on relatively narrow, stage-race width tyres (at high pressures), will do this even more so." About trail access, again, I think a point which is being ignored: "The momentum of trail access is empowered by participant numbers and people of influence – and they’re mostly mature stakeholders, unlikely to threaten Nino in a VO2 max test. If there are bikes that make these influential stakeholders ride more frequently and further, they’ll chair the negotiations for greater, lasting, trail access." And of course, this: "Of all the unconsidered benefits of e-MTBs, safety is the outlier. Imagine a member of your riding group has an off in technical terrain, and you’re at the bottom of a valley, with the nearest mobile phone signal at the drop-in point you’ve just descended from. You have a problem. The ability of an e-MTB to get back up faster than anything else, and make that emergency call for help, might gain those crucial few minutes between a manageable evacuation and the delirium of an emergency evacuation." Pedal assistance and open throttle. Two very different things.