MORNE

...untill they divert the course over ou kaapse weg to sidestep the 'silent protests'. at least we arethen allin for sub 3 lol

for a moment there i thought you were still using fabric softener in 2020.... my goodie bags went to the local hobo....he probably kept the sugary 'muesli' and chucked the rest... i feel they should pay me for throwing out their trash...

merlin also has them for exactly the same price as the other versions (±R1k).....which is how it should be imo...typical local shops taking the p*ss imo.

sub 4 in a Chewy suit too i'll accept a gorilla one as long as you carry something resembling a crossbow and make the noises as you go.

i'll be silent protesting the silent protest while riding my bike... don't get me wrong...i get it and I empathise. But I also think it is wrong to hijack any social/public/sports event (that has its own causes and charities for that matter) to push political agendas. Thats right out of the red overall playbook. if everybody did it for everything that goes wrong in this country every day we will be left with nothing. If we are brutally honest....the average onlooker or spectator will see the protest and have absolutely no idea what the hell is being referenced anyway, if i wasn't on here reading about it now...I wouldn't have. And hopefully when protesters realise they are not getting the attention they wanted....it doesn't all go pear shaped then after all.

- need the comments section back i'm convinced the hub overlords keep giving reasons why they took it away because the new site template (?? the only reason why I can think all this is so disjointed atm) does not allow comments in the classifieds...

yea guess it sort of shows remorse that way..whether it is fake or not. still sucks but atleast he is an example now. it had to start somewhere i guess.

Thats a HUGE area if so....could be anywhere in between...even dodgy cycle path in milnerton. cant imagine it was on the west coast cycle path? that is so busy most days.

i always did JHB -> Vryburg -> Kuruman -> Uppington (sleep here if you want, lots to do and some nice lodges next to the orange river ). -> kakamas (beautiful town...also super close to Augrabies national park) -> Springbok (bigger than you think lol). from springbok you head down the n7 to Garies (usually my last fuel stop and just follow the n7 to cape town. if your car can do 800-900km on a tank you only need to stop 3 times....at the HUGE Ultra city in Kathu, Uppington and then Springbok....but there are plenty garages in the bigger-small towns too. the last time I drove it (when we moved down to cape town a few years ago)... there were places on this route where you could literally stop next to the hiway and sit in the middle of the road and enjoy the silence. compared to the n1...it is almost stress free. You find the od truck due to the farms and mines on the route...but they are basically non existent compared to the n1.

any time at the expo/while it is on.

you could also go via uppington...enter the Richterveld via n10 into namibia...ride your bike trough the national park, camping atthe various sites within the park...and exit it at Sendelings drift into SA via the river ferry. Ride to alexander bay/port Nollith etc. There are dirt highways down the west coast t for 100s of kilometers between towns. you can sleep over (camp) in all the SANPARKS national parks down on west coast if you plan ahead. The sites at the namaqua nationalpark is literally on the beach..epic beautiful. one of my best trips ever and I have been to every corner of SA.

west coast all the way baby. I used to only drive n14-n7 between GP and WC...nobody realises how much better that route is compared to the n1. Yes...300km odd longer....but a perfect highay, no tolls, no trucks, quiet roads....and awesome towns in between. Also plenty of epic routes through the middel. You need never even touch the n1. 'Spectacular scenery' is relative. The karoo and west coast up north is plenty beautiful. Also... Aint nobody got time to worry about getting their ass murdered cycling on their own on the way to CT through the Transkei... EDIT: if the goal is to include the eastern most bits of the western cape or even some of the eastern cape....i'll still cut kzn out. but thats just me lol.

so you averaged around 20kph on a bmx?? LIES!! You obviously ran with the thing on your back....

yea I was wondering why, when someone asked for JHB to CPT advice, get detoured via KZN LOL.

just over smitswinkel climb. the downhill of death (if you believe the hype/are on a road bike)

lol jokes aside, i actually wonder how difficult it would be to ACTUALLY get classified in last place? you'd have to have the maths down and time the cutoffs perfectly. also be so aware of who is around you. Certainly much more difficult than just riding and coming in 100th from last place . We should nominate someone to try and come in last place....it must have a trophy of its own too. I nominate Nick.

I didnt have my chip last year when I went there and just showed the tannie at the entry till my seeding/entry SMS and ID and it was good enough.

i'll go ask nicely, and if they don't feel like it - thats good too. Should probably be a non issue as mentioned earlier by devocean anyway...

i hardly care about the 'racing merits' of being higher up, i'm under no illusion that i'll never ride where a lot of you guys operate unless I invest more time and maybe in a 'dunwiel' bike (i probably want to need a gravelbike lol)...i just want to be in the height of the vibe...there is defo a sweetspot for that imo. I'd say (in my head at least) that you'd want to hit the finish between 11 and 2 ish to experience the best of the party vibe in terms of support from the side of the road,MC's etc etc. People (crowd, cyclists, waterpoints) all get bored by the time you get to certain points if you start right at the back and go slow. When you hit camps bay and realise that nobody cares about the cycle tour anymore and or they are starting to dismantle some of the overhead gantries etc....it sortoff spoils some of that vibe. Houtbay is a jol all the way to the end though, no wonder there is a cutoff point there...I think alot of people just stay haha

lol had the same yesterday at tour de ppa. if you are on a mountain bike and going at reasonable pace with what you have, they'll sit in the huge hole you make in the wind just fine....then drop you on the fast bits due to the bigger blades. i always caught most of them on the hills though....and just before the end they all wheel sucked again just to be ahead of me as you come over the last little hill in Adderley before the finish. I made a point of it to hulk-pass them all out of principle. you got beat by a mtb......biiaaatch

my index also got a considerable jump after this weekends long route. i see the entries are still open for CTCT...which tells me if I had hypothetically entered this week i would have a start time a lot better than the one i have currently....knowing they usually use the ppa race even though it is not a official seeding event. I'm not a member though... My wife is stil unsure wether or not she can ride (work commitments/ int. travel)...so at this stage i'm wanting to apply for a reseeding/query just in case i'm riding on my own and can go balls to the wall.If she CAN ride...i can still drop back to 5D . pretty sure i'm not going to get an email response out of them this week. is the common consensus to ask the racetec peeps at the expo for a new starting time?

LOL..as a matter of fact thats exactly what i did. took a headshock off a trail 1 bike back then...got a Project 321 lefty for all steerer tube for a carbon PBR lefty fork, plonked a cane creek headset in there....and i had myself what was called the cannondale "bad boy" back then. Later swopped it out for a rockshock fork and still used the same headset. looked VERY similar to this. all blacked out...although the one in the pic is the 2019 version. you basically built 700c wheels onto it and made it a badass looking hybrid.

you dont need a special cannondale reducer or headset. cane creek makes everything you need to fit a standard fork in an oversized canondale headtube. been there...done that.

if i can convince my wife to sit out this year i'd join that little growing group in the middle there for lots of stories in my second language along the way...aka "kakpraat" haha

saw your pics and story earlier in this thread when you posted them a while back and my transformation was similar lol....two different people. well done!