dexterdent

If you want to know who will be crashing out in the first week, please feel free to check out my picks

I used the following method to download results from Racetec quickly and easily: https://www.mattmasson.com/2014/11/iterating-over-multiple-pages-of-web-data-using-power-query/ If you follow the procedure carefully you should be ready to run a query to download all results from any Racetec-timed race. It takes a couple of minutes to get all the data once you have set it up, and it won't take more than 5 mins to change race/year.

I can't really say anything about the quality of the data, it's literally a straight download from Racetec. But my suspicions about tandems were correct; 1235 (a single tandem??) entries marked TDM in 2018, so subtract 617 from the 27005 recorded Racetec times to get 26388, which is pretty much bang on the total "position": I've gotten what I needed from the data, so once again - happy to share if someone else wants to have a go at more in-depth.

On the way home I was thinking about this - may be counting tandems twice. I'll do some more analysis later this week - happy to share the data as well if someone is interested. EDIT: Oh and I used <= instead of <. I think 03:00:00 should count as sub 3

I've just done a simple histogram in Excel of the recorded finishing times on Racetec (sorry about the wonky colours, Excel was being a pain with transparent graphs): Some more data: I think this shows how much harder this year was than last year, and also puts into perspective the amazing results some people managed. It also suggests that quite a few people may have missed the cutoff, which throws out the average and medians a bit.

Thanks for the advice - managed to do it really quickly with some online searching (I have very little programming skills). Now to setup previous years and do some comparisons!

Cool, then I'll spend some time to see if I can web scrape it this weekend

Is there a quick way to download all the results from Racetech, for this tour and previous? I love working with data and think it would be interesting to compare results across various years.

Thanks everyone - I'm already really stoked with the bike. Used to feel unsafe getting any air but on this bike it feels much more natural. It definitely feels like I am the weak link in this setup (I mumble apologies to the bike every time I take a chicken run) which motivates me to try and improve so much more

Here's mine - got it from BikeMarket so would be interesting if it belonged to anyone on here before. Really enjoying the bike, but I think it might be even better with a 120mm fork.

A beautiful 2nd hand Pyga Stage with far too little travel for what I need want but it's just soooooo awesome. Think the person who had this before me was some kind of XC monster, with the slammed stem and 36T 1x11 setup (I've since solved these two problems). I do feel sorry for the bike going as slowly as I do with it, but at least it looks good

I wouldn't say I'm aggressive at all - I'm just really bad at avoiding sharp rocks. I can't seem to find DD casings in any of the normal online shops I buy from. Any ideas where to get them?

I think maybe NN's just felt grippy compared to the Racing Ralphs that were on there before? Made a big difference back when I was in JHB. Anyway, looking forward to trying out something new (to me)

Thanks everyone (that was amazingly quick feedback) - I'm going Maxxis DHR2

I'm looking for a suggestion on tyres: 1. I'm 95kg, so have found that 2.35-2.4 tyres seem to work better 2. I mostly ride Tygerberg (spent way too much time losing rear wheel grip up to the tower on bloemendal yesterday) 3. I like very grippy tyres (last tyre I really liked was a Nobby Nic) 4. The most important thing is puncture resistance (an extra couple of 100g on the tyres makes very little difference when you are heavy)

Oh, and I realised why no-one seemed bothered about the snakes - you are either bombing down a trail at speeds not even a puffy could strike you, or climbing up a switchback so steep you WISH a cobra would bite you so you have an excuse to stop

We ended up going to Hoogekraal on Saturday morning, despite the fear of snakes (we saw none but heard at least 27 in the bushes) and slight apprehension I had due to the "black" trail rating: 1. Made a friend who asked to join us but quickly realized we were to slow up Spyker Hill and joined an e-bike group (If this was you, sorry for the disappointment but even a blazing fast blue Pyga can't make a fat man speed up a hill) 2. Friend learned it's important to check that your little brother may have changed your SPD's for flats while you were away, and ended up doing the trails on a hardtail and cleated shoes with flats. He only almost-died 4 times 3. Learned that even climbing can almost be fun if designed cleverly 4. Stood at the top of Cobra wondering if we should try when a father and his 3-foot high son explained what we should look out for before bombing off into the distance 5. Went down the Cobra which was amazing - it's just about half a level above where my skill is at, so perfect for me to learn. And almost all the parts that could be a little scary have options for avoiding it (either flat bits around the jumps, or clear warning before the slightly rocky bits) 6. Did Welvergenoegd (which turned out to be the friends answer when we got to Fair Cape) 7. Whooped in joy at the amazing downhills 8. Got a nice cycling sunburn 9. Going back as soon as I possibly can! Thanks Tygerberg Mountain Bike Club, I can't think of a better way to spend my money (except maybe upgrading my travel... hmmmm some nice bikes in the classifieds..)

Thanks for the encouragement - it's always hard to figure out the actual difficulty level before going (maybe because different people have different things that they find hard?) but I'm really looking forward. Except for the snakes. Can someone please go through the trails and scare them away at about 7am

Going to Hoogekraal for the first time on Saturday and this thread is making me even more nervous

I got second last year and will struggle to get top 250 this year with exactly the same strategy (different riders, but same basic ideas). This GvA and G domination has broken the natural order of things

I have only fine tuned my team 17 times today so far. MUCH harder than last year

Oh man, this year has some HARD picks. After last year's close call I got so used to thinking I have a road bike that I ended up buying one

Paid and entered for nr 1 of hopefully many

Congrats!

Thanks, that has saved me about 350 page refreshes