wattnow

If you referring to the road loop around the cradle then yes absoluetly. Obviously still Africa but I would say its "safe" for sure.

My 2c... being a rim brake bike fan. For 60K you can pick up a top tier, top spec bike from roughly 2018 - 2020. (Just before rim brake bikes started dying). You see Sworks SL6 rim brake, Bianchi Oltre XR4 and XR3 as examples going for that sort of budget. They will have top tear mecahnical groupsets and some even with electronic. Some VERY VERY good deals around if you look and wait fot the right one. Bikes mentioned above that would have retailed between 150k - 200k new back then, for between 60k - 80k currently. Yes its "old tech" but damn they are good racing bikes. Personally would rather have a top tier bike from a few years back than a mid tier current bike. Enjoy the shopping.

Refective tape is a great edition but by no means can be used in isolation. I am hell bent on day time running lights and lights on bicycles in general. So much so that if by some way my light is not charged I will not leave the house.. routine and habit is key to making sure all devices are charged and ready to go. Seeing the amount SOME people spend on their bikes but then think the coast of a Garmin Varia is far to high truely amazes me. 5K gets you a top end front and rear light that will last you years and make you safer. 5K could be the difference between getting home or not... thats my view at least.

Infrastructure not to blame... any given day in the Cradle, a dedicated 2m wide cycle lane and yet you will get even solo riders not using the lane provided. 2 abreast fit easily in the lane but unfortunately cyclists refuse to follow simple common sense and logic. Not to mention when they jump all the red lights and seem surprised when someone gets hit. Mindsets need to change and for the people that have family and kids waiting for your return, you should feel ashamed when you ride like a chop. We need to call each other out, cyclist to cyclist. Remembering when a car breaks the rules of the road there is a good chance the driver will survive (there of course are a lot of fatal accidents) but as a cyclist, you break a simple rule of the road and you going to land up dead. Pretty simple. Ride safe all and please use day time running lights. Decrease your risks out there and get home to your families in one piece. P.S sorry if it sounds like a lecture.

Sho, very long thread on this matter. Simple, vote with your wallets. Organisers will quickly get their act togther if they lose clients becuase of this. If you not happy, dont pay and enter next year. You pay your entry, now the organisers must do what they need to in order to make sure of the safety of their clients. Parking is a huge factor in this.

Last year they had a big tailwind on day 2... so that will be a big factor why he is a little off last years pace. What a machine!

Opps, this could put further doubts on some of the team mates "exceptional performances".

Not overly knowelable on trek/bontager wheels but I believe these are aluminum wheels with a carbon fairing - around a 10K. Bora Ultra 35mm is a top tier wheelset (yes a few years old now), used to retail at around 30-40K. Wouldnt put those wheels in the same league. Bora also has the Cult Ceramic Bearings. They used to be Campagnolos flagship wheel and very light.

Rim brake and better groupset in my opinion. For me the deciding factor wouldnt be which brake system it has but rather which wheelsets they have. Wheels are a huge determining factor of how a bike feels and rides and often the most expensive upgrade done on any bike. Just my 2c. Dont discount either the 2 different frames you are comparing... not all frames are made equal.

Or perhaps he is just not upto the level of Jonas in the high mountains.... Pog still managed a second place in the TT so he is not exactly in shocking form. To be 2nd in the tour is still an unbelievable achievement so I highly doubt he is ill. Jonas has just given him a PK. Lets give the little man some credit. He has been flawless.

I rate we would be surprised, being a 59kg rider myself, forgot my bottle when leaving home and noticed only becuase up the hill leaving my home the bike felt amazingly snappy. That was a difference of 600grams. the water they spray on themselves will often dry pretty quick and the cooling benefit it gives in itself is a marginal (or large) gain. Talking about spraying bottles, you will see some of them spray out some fluid onto the tarmac, often on the last climb of the day to shed some weight... at that level any advantage they will take.

I would imagine 0.2 wont make much difference, BUT if UCI dropped limit to say 6kg (Sworks Aethos comes in at 6kg from the shop), there would be a shake up for sure. I would imagine most climbers if not all would opt for something closer to the 6KG mark. A 1kg drop in bike weight for someone of JV's weight is a huge difference.

That 6.8kg weight limit I believe is a little dated. Looking at how far components and wheels have come (the majority of a bikes weight) have come I believe they could safely bring bring down the weight a few hundrend grams. The aero, disk brake bikes have struggled to get to the all important 6.8kg hence why I dont think they chase it as they used to in the past. Drop the weight limit to 6kg and I think we would see a very interesting shake up in the industry! Tell me JV wouldnt want a 6kg bike up these mountains in this years tour.

Another mugging on a group of 4 cyclists, phones stolen this morning. Location Cedar road once again. Looks like the criminals have chosen a very popular cyclists route.

Currently almost R2000 for the new continental GP 5000TR (Tubeless ready)- Road tyre. This is new model apparently, lasts years version (GP5000TL) you could pick up for around R1100/R1200. Call it what you want but something has got to give, R800 increase between the new and old version. That would be 4k to change both your road bike tyres....