Icycling

Cash for Cat 1

Trophies

For 2nd cat their are medals too!

Looking after the Future of SA road racing cycling!

And the Sponsor races too! The man in green.

The best racing in the Cape!

I assume your referring to the PPA league - I still choose to ride elite for the past few seasons!

Their is only prize money for Cat 1! So if you out to race well then Cat 1 is the place to be. I, personally as a proper Vet i.e. 40 plus ride the 60 min Vets race / Cat 2, then 15min later, I race the 90min Cat 1 race! last week managed to get a 2nd in Vets / Cat 2 and a 6th in Cat 1 which means prize money as they pay down to 10th place. This week could only still achieve a 2nd vets / Cat 2, was not as fortunately in the bunch sprint in Cat 1 only got 11th or 12th - today I am totally buggered - excellent racing and one way to improve the fitness levels quickly!

Hard racing yesterday: Cat 1 1. Klye Donachie 2. Willie Saayman 3. Stefan Jacques Ihlenfeldt Cat 2 1. Marco Abrahams 2. Peter Wheeler 3. Alexander Parsons

6.83Kg (with battery pack) - remember they are clincher wheels and I put 2 sets of rim strip in each wheel just to make sure - take out 1 rim strip should be 6.80kg on the dot but I like playing it safe!

My new bike - open mould my carbon lay up! Got it last Wed built Thursday raced on Sat in the Lights to Linea cape Crit events 2nd in 1st race 45min Cat 2 open vets and 6th in 2nd race Cat1 90 min Cat1 - I am almost 41 years old - its all about the bike!!!!!

Well summer has arrived early in CT so mine is doing just fine! One perfect day again to get km's in!

An email I sent to the powers that be at PPA - attached article was this: Hi, This is worth a read (article below) - agree with it or disagree with it, it make a point. I would like to make 2 suggestions and yes they may cost a small amount of money. 1. I have just done my learner for my motor bike this past week - I was please to note that the overtaking at 1.5 m of a cyclist now appear twice in the manual I purchase! Off the top of my head all the manual were in plastic packets at CNC - could PPA not try and get the 1.5m sticker into these manual as a lose insert? Perhaps if you agree with it, could the article below (a RSA version) also be put into the manual as a lose insert, assuming PPA get the 1.5 m sticker correct. Their is 1 law I do not agree with which unfortunately is allowed to happen on RSA road - with regards to overtaking on the left when a car is turning right, any idea on the process on changing this if PPA agrees with me? 2. At fun rides which take place at shopping centres (close too) would it not be worth putting 1.5m stickers in windscreen of cars parked for shopping - often cyclist are not able to park in the parking areas and they closed at the start - well at least Constantia Village has been on many occasions to name 1. Possible having a PPA table at the main entrance of the shopping centre which is close to the fun ride many also be goos awareness for cyclist - basically we need to educate motorist not cyclist!

Thanks! I never said I could spell so I googled "porn in chess" and a lot came up!!! So just assumed ...

This pawn was reffering to a chess board - 8 x porns (the cyclist) 1 x King (normally CSA or PPA in RSA) and 1x queen (normally CSA or PPA in RSA) etc! Ever played the game? But probably in RSA - SAACOC is Queen or king along with the UCI in world terms!

NOT 100% true - I was still on the PPA committee (about this time last year) when CSA, SASCOC / Raymond Hack and the full PPA committee sat round the table and Raymond from SASCOC was very insistent that CSA had to use the constitution SACOC "gave " them CSA is as much a pawn in the equation as PPA is along with the cyclist themselves which ultimately is the most unfortunate part. I do how ever still feel if PPA were still spending money on racing cycling be it in the form of hosting an event like the Giro del Capo or like in the pasted helping directly with CSA selected rider who are both PPA members and CSA members with finances - be it world champs or something similar - SASCOC may be a little less heavy handed with CSA / PPA - thats just my belief and NOT fact!

When you been on the PPA committee for 18 years and been a licensed cyclist for about 29 years be it with SACF or CSA - you probably seen quite a lot of politics in cycling! Bottom line is the sport suffers as a whole I suppose like any family structure would suffer! But to move off analogies what ever PPA and CSA are trying to achieve with this new stunt will only put cycling further backward. PPA may even win this battle in the courts but cycling will loose the war in the long run!

David Clarke

I have never said that CSA is capable - but PPA who are capable, I was on the PPA committee for 18 years so I think I can speak 1st hand, have actually turned their back on promising racing cyclist who have come through their funride system - possibly only started in the sport of cycling and yes lets give it another name the biggest development sporting event in the world - The Cape Argus Cycle Tour - where people take an interest in cycling some of them get bitten by the cycling bug and then some become really competitive and look further towards racing cycling at National and international level. So that 14 year olds Argus entry now is costing the parents how much at 18 years old when selected for the SA team R30 000.00 to go to world champs! The 50% shareholder of this event is PPA and this is the main reason why PPA has money to put into project funding, but why do they hide behind CSA and exclude racing from the agenda of project funding? Yet PPA know their best supported funride are the league ride i.e. funrides with races! PPA give pretty little back to racing cycling yet they make their success out of racing cycling - I also regard the Cape Argus cycle tour to be a race! In the past PPA did have racing events like the Giro del Capo and even assisted individuals selected by SACF / CSA who were PPA members to get to the international events they were selected for - but now they have turned their back completely on the competitive side of cycling unless it adds to their events!

While there are attitudes like this who suffers - well cycling in general, but directly the up and coming cyclists who want to try and make a future out of sport in this case cycling! So another generation lost! Think about that for a second. Its easy to say this is for CSA knowing they are not capable - when one is capable like PPA well thats just a travisty! I personally for the past three years have donated to individuals air tickets to Europe for cycling - sort of like the starfish theme - well you cannot help all but you can help one and as an individual thats all I can do - as an association PPA could do so much more at ZERO expense to other cycling projects. I, like others on the hub - read the Urgent appeal for assistance - am able to help on occassion, but this is ad hoc where as an association PPA could help their members directly who have come through the PPA funride / race system to explore international exposure. I put a proposal of a list of criteria together for PPA a few years back but.... - file 13!

Like I said about PPA chairmans comment on the radio about getting some cyclist wanting to race! "Its like a parent with enough money to pay school fees but at grade 10 say sorry you must now pay your own school fees and varsity fees - yes the parent says I know I can afford it but you on your own. Then to watch their child not going to school as the child does not have the fund! Personally if I saw that I would really question that parents ability in parenting and certainly would not agree with it!" Quite sinful actually!

I will always agreed in keeping about 1 years of reserve funding in investment and I would not question PPA on that. In terms of spending, probably paying somebody just for the task of lobbying gov for better "road" for cyclist getting more issues address in the K53 terms system around cyclist etc. Then as I am a racing cyclist I really do believe after paying PPA about R180 per league race entry - yes PPA organize racing - if you win to get R200 back in the form of a gift voucher to cannel walk is really not playing ball at all and really does not inspire any young athlete to look at cycling as a professional sport! Non of this would be done at the sacrifice of any off the other project they are funding and I agree they should continue with them - its not a case of 1 or the other! It would be at the cost of not investing so much each month! In fact if you look at just 1 months investment and to put that to a full league summer and winter series prize fund that would increase the fund from almost R20 000 per event - now that would be something worth racing for in fact a lot of the better rider in JHb (ex Cape ies) would also probably come and race in the Cape! Or alternatively PPA should not organize racing at all and let WPCA to do this even if then the WPCA event clash by date with PPA event!