DB28

haha bud... i think you missing a bit of the point... their vision is to work on the younger riders (those born after 1985) now so that by 2016 they will be up to scratch. As at the moment, if we have to be honest our riders in the 28-34 age cat (apart from evans) are rather useless compared to their international counterparts and our best riders are actually the younger guys, off the top of my head, guys like... both van rensburgs both van heerdens thomson seyferrt rabie both browns kachelhoffer venter bakke the day brothers jennings van zyl bester julius songezo kruger potgieter maree is where our future lies... and if you look at the names, those are already the guys dominating the local racing seen. and there are a good couple more... but this "age group" and younger is where we need to focus our attention because if you a 30+ SA rider and you haven't made it big internationally then im sorry... you not gona make it. it woulda been an even bigger waste if CSA sent guys like lange, white macdonald, fullard... please the LA comeback thing is, how can i say it.... old In 2016 a rider born in 1985 will already be 31... therefore fitting into the desired age cat you were pointing out anyway.

If you consider Sallys 80km Fun Ride for charity in Driepoepfontein a "race" then yeah... i suppose he has won around that amount of races... As the legend goes... Mal wanted a management job on MTN/microsoft back in the day, Ryder said... Nooo and Mal cried foreva and after.

He is probably also still a bit sour in losing Brown to Ryder for next year...

He is probably just being a wet... he complains about everything

If money wasn't an issue do you honestly think we would still be a 3rd world country? SASCOC also work on a ''budget'' believe it or not... :-) how else do you think every ministers mother would be able 2 afford a beamer?

Money is a big issue... hence the track team was made up of guys that were already there, it saved money to use them. We were unlucky with bernard crashing out... real medal contender. Dean just had a shocker in his scratch final, nowhere near the pace at the business end of the race... it happens. But we gota look to 2012 now and will dean really have the pace for it? Jay and Stoff aren't track specialists, not by a long shot... they could be in time... but right now, no. Cant blame them. Looking at our CWG mens road team... on paper looking at our squad, you'd say a top 10 was definitely the realistic goal... were the guys maybe tired after a long season??? but then all the other pros also had a long season. Did they just not have that nations pride that was needed for the race... i really really doubt it as i know where most of those guys hearts are! im going with, they just didn't have the form... on the other hand- rabie was our best placed in 17th... a local pro who has not raced as much as the others, who is in form seeing that he has prepared for all the local classics on now... so yeah maybe the selecting of our overseas pro's was wrong, but why then were they selected... because they the only ones who fit the "criteria" according to CSA. According to CSA our local pro's arent up to speed, tactically not ready and not skilled enough to race in the big bunches. I think Rabie did alright... in my earlier thread i asked why someone like ReinhardtJVRensburg wasn't chosen... he didn't fit the criteria. as he didnt get results at the nations cup events... Not only is he our best u23 rider in SA at the moment but he is our best rider based on current form, period! Why has he not got a nod for either WC or CWG... he didnt fit the darn criteria! im all for the vision of basing our riders overseas, it's the only real way to improve internationally. but that doesn't mean our riders back home suck... they prob just havent gotten or taken the right opportunity yet. i dont think im the only one who thinks the criteria needs an adjustment... pick the riders based on current form, not on reputation... lill is an awesome rider, when there is hill in the equation. he is by no means a flatlander diesel engine that can ride on front all day for the teams sprinters. Stoff looked tired in the break... maybe his reserves were wasted riding track all week? Hunter, thomson and impey put in 2 or 3 efforts but none were decisive. That happens... but if you miss the move then shouldn't you organize the chase if you still got 5 riders left in the bunch??? and if you dont chase, why not? i would say they just didn't have the legs. all 3 of em finished and not miles of the pace, so maybe there selection would have been justified if they were riding in full support of another on form rider... but anyway, lets see wat happens next year. Barry works flippen hard and doesnt get all the credit he deserves... Hlemmer has only done good for SA cycling... these guys have only really taken on CSA issues head on recently. wen you start a journey at 10 feet under ground, and you improve by 6 feet... your still 4 feet underground but you improved so give it time and you'll eventually be on top. so lets give these guys some more time... they'll get it right. Anyway... im still a huge supporter of South African cycling. weather your teams up or down you stick by them... unless your team is Liverpool, then you gota jump ship! haha

100 odd... why? maybe you dont know how the race went down... here is a report. http://www.teammedscheme.co.za/News/DisplayNewsItem.aspx?niid=7678 "That was a bold and confident way to take a race by the horns and come away with the win. Reinardt Janse van Rensburg is becoming the new phenomenon in SA cycling it seems. Unfortunately he has been using his form these past few weeks in SA, but it may have been put to far better use at the U23 World Champs and the Commonwealth games I think!" -Nic White

After this weekends performance by RjvRensburg at the Race4Vic, need i say more, Best u23 rider we got?????????

are you spying on me?

there it is... hehe

Which cycling news website, show, newspaper, magazine etc. do you get your info from if none of the above?

thanks mate

Hi Cliff I have a carbon Grammo wheel... after doing a charity ride for my church. my pastor transported my bike back home for me. He hung the bike the wrong way and the front wheel got a bit cooked from the exhaust. would you be able to repair it? it is quite a large area on the wheel, say about 7cm that is warped... Thanks

maybe other riders then, i can think of another 11 u23's that are really strong riders who coulda ridden worlds. I suppose none of them met the criteria... okay so fair enough then. We didnt go to worlds. Now my question is, not all of those 11 got to race in the NC or national teams. Im sure the reason they all couldn't go firstly, was funding and secondly only 6 guys ride in a team at NC... So are we creating fair opportunity for all our riders? i dont know... is the selection criteria up to scratch? We'll lets look at a scenario... SA u23 rider is in a select group of 25 riders at a NC event. he punctures with 20km to go... the remaining 24riders all finish together... if he did not puncture he woulda finished with the bunch and possibly got, lets say an 18th position. he then woulda qualified to make the SA worlds team. but now he does not make it and it's not for lack of ability... and if only 6 guys can ride in a team, how do you give all riders the chance to prove themselves as they might not perform in their first 2 events but would in the 3rd? maybe the criteria is a bit flakey then? (i dont know the rest of the criteria as it cant be downloaded anymore... link broken on site) Is something maybe like the South African version of the Livestrong U23 Development team or AIS u23 Team to far off for South Africa??? an u23 Squad that race full time all year round for the same team... if i had the money to support a project like that id happily give it all to CSA. anyway... i really hope we do medal at CWG, that'd be cool and the road commission doing a great job regardless! Though i am still waiting for a date on the CSA 2011 race calender... have got a real good 170km race for the pro's but with no date, my potential sponsors are becoming more and more weary as their financial budgets which are done in March gets closer and closer...

CSA want 200 odd riders in the elite bunch... that means 25 teams of 8 riders need to enter a race??? never-mind the compulsory PDI riders and under 23s needed... just 25 teams on it's own is pretty much unthinkable. At the EPR race this year there were only 40 odd elites at the race!!! They would need to allow single entries and not only team entries to get the total size of the bunch up. I really like the racing on ability and not age cats... teams will automatically form within each race cat... they dont have to force it. I do love the fact that they are trying/willing to make some drastic changes though. the idea about 1 race number for the year... legendary!!!!!

Thanks everyone...Psalm 121 gets you up any hill! Have a look at the rest of the videos by the same producer, they all done by a guy in our church. He gave up his normal day job because he was called by God, to make video and productions for God. God Bless

Can I be the millionth person to ask for that same pdf? Thanks bicycleboy.boet@yahoo.com

i am in no way a pro rider as this video suggests i am... just a guy who raced on the tandem with quite a bit of success. but please check out this video!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf9t-036-DA&videos=07BN3ujm0Ho&feature=BF

what you are saying is most definitely true, but i think CSA has been pretty good in this regard though. When ever they have selected national teams they have always gone with at least two riders who can get the results, be it in stages or on GC. The rest of the team is made up of riders who could do the bulk of the donkey work, as well as follow breaks etc. Obviously it's always wise to select all riders who are on good form. If you got strong donkeys then how much easier will the "leaders" job be. CSA get their selections right, they always have a good balance because as you say we have a good balance of talent to choose from at the moment. I just want the guys to be racing more, at good quality events for the experience...

Apart from myself??? :-) hehe Nah, I just feel we have a good batch of talented riders between the ages of 18-23 at the moment and I would not like to see talent like this wasted. Too many times in SA cycling a good couple of talented riders have come along but never really reached their full potential as pro riders due to lack of support.

Our "pro's" need to get out of their comfort zone of 2hr 30 min flat races. When the races get longer next year... and they will. i doubt whether the elite bunch, which will consist of juniors, u23, elites and 30+ as of next year, will be more than 60 riders if the distance goes beyond 140km... but this is where race organizers need to come to the party and stick with it in order to develop the sport and not the size of their profit.

nice... but i do hope you noticed that you had two different colour tires on

Evidence to some of what you are saying can be found in the trek livestrong u23 development team, arguably the best development team/program in the world. they had 4 of their riders at worlds this year. 6 of their riders from this year will be on pro teams next year and not small teams either... BMC, Radioshack, Sky, Type 1. The majority of the riders in the squad ride track, all who have got pro contracts rode track (that says something-track needs to resurrected in SA). they are lead by Axel Merckx and guided by lance (experienced leaders-which we have in Barry Austin and Mclean but they got a lot on their plates)and have awesome sponsors in trek and livestrong (something we need). something like this (development team) obviously needs to be the goal for SA cycling, put all our u23's together into 1 team as often as possible and get them racing, a lot, on the road and track. I know next year CSA are trying to create weekends of racing were fri is track, sat is pro race and sun is your normal mass participation. lets hope this works out to be the first step...

So now that World Champs are over... Our elite men registered 3 out of 3 DNF's (which was most likely to always have been the case). I know everything is always easier in hindsight but you cant help but wonder if it would have rather been more beneficial to send our u23's instead of elites??? hmmm.... always next year i guess!

I fully understand the importance of our riders needing to be based in europe. Training isn't everything... If you dont race under european conditions you will not make it as a pro cyclist. In our quest (and I say our because I am an avid fan of SA cycling, want as much as any1 in CSA for our riders to be internationally successfull and think of late all the steps that have been taken by CSA have been in the right direction) to get our riders noticed and placed in european teams we may have missed a trick with our u23 boys. The reason I believe this is because firstly, the course this year was not totally unmanageable skill wise for our u23's. The main decent is not that technical, their are no cobbles, no extremely narrow roads. Racing in Aus is as close to racing in SA one could get apart from actually racing in SA when it comes to climate. I understand chris, johan and shaun raced abroad quite alot this year and the nations cups were their 'goal' events. I also know they achieved our best results in the nations cups, which will definitely stand SA cycling in good stead for the upcoming years. I do believe though that after the early season African champs and tour of gabon I think it was, Reinhardt took part in, he was not at his best for the nations cups. Maybe one could put this down 2 rider/management not getting their priorities in order? But the fact is that, to the date, on current form Reinhardt is riding stronger than the other guys again. Could we not have sent our 5 rider team including chris, johan, shaun, reinhardt and whoeva else of u23's to the WC in the hope of not necessarily medalling, but at least getting the boys noticed...(which should be the goal) seeing that the whole pro cycling world is focused on WC at the moment. I mean if just one of our riders got into the customary day's break... That certainly would have got team managers attention around the world. If im totally missing the point then thats okay... But Sean Badenhorst raised the point of constructive criticism in an early post... My intentions are just that.