SSCC

Good point about incentives. They really should offer free / discounted entry to the podium finishers for the next year. We already know that internationals like Lachlan Morton, Lael Wilcox, Sofiane, Abdullah, Marco etc will race for no prize money. They don't need a carrot so why would a race organizer offer one?

Prize money always came from a title sponsor which they lost. It does not really make sense for the organizers to dip into their cash reserves to come up with prize money. My guess is they lose less than a handful of entires with no prize purse. It really has almost zero effect on the numbers.

1 Ac Swanepoel 2 Adriaan van Wyk 3 Alain Broglia 4 Alan Hardaker Hardaker 5 Andrew Gowans 6 Andrew Mobsby 7 Annatjie Van Wyk 8 Armin Botha 9 Aryna Edwards 10 Bertie Lourens 11 Bertie Beukes 12 Bianca Cooper 13 Billy Zwiegers 14 Bonny Swanepoel 15 Brand Pretorius 16 Carien Visser 17 Carlos Soares 18 Charles Viljoen 19 Cherise Odendaal 20 Chris Van Zyl 21 Cindy van Wyk 22 Clinton Halsey 23 Danie Hoffman 24 Darrell Breetzke 25 Dawid Malan 26 Dylan Pohlman 27 Elmien Beyers 28 Erika Kleijnhans 29 Fanie Venter 30 Fanie Van Zyl 31 Firoz Limalia 32 Flavio Scarpa 33 Francois Stapelberg 34 Francois Koekemoer 35 Francois Janse Van Rensburg 36 Franso Steyn 37 Fred Louw 38 Freddie Pienaar 39 Gerald Meyer 40 Gert Pienaar 41 Gert Fouche 42 Gert Pelser 43 Graham Brooks 44 Grant Van Der Wal 45 Gustav Smook 46 Guy Jennings 47 Hannes Basson 48 Hannes Dreeckmeier 49 Hansie Joubert 50 Harko De Boer 51 Harold Myburgh 52 Heinrich Olivier 53 Hendrik Kemp 54 Henk Gouws 55 Hennie Olivier 56 Henning Van Wyk 57 Yutani Doncaster 58 Jaap Beyers 59 Jaco Coetzee 60 Jaco Ferreira 61 Jaco Kamfer 62 Jaco Kruger 63 Jacques Swart 64 James Trubshaw 65 Jan Van Blerk 66 Jan Viljoen 67 Jeane Nel 68 Jeffery Struecker 69 Johan Fourie 70 Johan Potgieter 71 Johan Venter 72 Johan Van Niekerk 73 Johannes Smit 74 Joseph Richter 75 Jovan Jacobs 76 Jurjen Draaijer 77 Karina Britz 78 Keith Stacey 79 Kevin Benkenstein 80 Kevin Van Huyssteen 81 Kim Brearley 82 Leon Du Plessis 83 Leonard Martin 84 Lionel Nel 85 Lizette Brits 86 Lukas Marthinus Maree 87 Marco Martins 88 Marco Ferdinandi 89 Mario Santana 90 Marlise Roodt 91 Maroshell Odendaal 92 Martie Joubert 93 Martin Hansson 94 Martin Freyer 95 Mashabela Esau Tlhone 96 Massimo Mancini 97 Mc Dreyer 98 Miah Niecke Dreeckmeier 99 Michael Whitehouse 100 Micheal Mol 101 Michael Wilson 102 Michael Mortimer 103 Mickael Da Matha Sant'anna 104 Mike Woolnough 105 Mike Mike Roller 106 Mireille Koster 107 Mitch Jantjies 108 Neil Zietsman 109 Olebogeng Kgengwe 110 Oren Azmanov 111 Otto Van der Dussen 112 Paul Coetzee 113 Paul Rowe 114 Paul Andre Rossouw 115 Phillip Mulder 116 Piet Laubscher 117 Pieter Du Preez 118 Pieter Van Der Westhuizen 119 Ray Farrenkothen 120 Rebecca Van Huyssteen 121 Regardt Ferreira 122 Riaan Groenewald 123 Ricardo Stermin 124 Richard Joubert 125 Robert Lehmacher 126 Robert Barnard 127 Roelof Bonnet 128 Rohan Rossouw 129 Sam Marx Marx 130 Schalk Burger 131 Simon H Wentzel 132 Stephan Meyer 133 Stephan Grobler 134 Strehle Philippe 135 Terence Stewart 136 Theuns Koch 137 Thinus Redelinghuys 138 Timothy Calitz 139 Tobie Oosthuizen 140 Veli Mthethwa Mthethwa 141 Vera Reynolds 142 Vincent French 143 Wessel Van Der Merwe 144 Wessel Nel 145 Willem Brits

I love the Munga but you are right their media coverage is really terrible. The Munga social media pages are a mess. They look like their content was created by the same people that do media for Game, Makro or the Fish and Chips co.... Rhino Run, The Ceder, The Gallows all show what is possible without huge media budgets.

Benky just finished the 1st section of the race. He smashed the 726km Cross Cape route from Plett to Stellenbosch in 38hrs!! Insane.

Get aerobars that have stackable risers so you can raise the pads and extensions. Look at Profile Designs rather than the Farr products. For long distance off road riding you want the aerobars high, wide and as far back towards you as they will go. Think comfort and control not aero. Get the position right and it will become your most comfortable cycling position. Get it wrong and you won't end up using the aerobars very much at all.

Anyone know if Bainskloof Pass is now open?

Done both. So what..... It's all meaningless really.

Are they? What multi day full service overseas races are you comparing to?

Maybe. I think you would have to have done both to really have an informed opinion. On average over all 7 years you would have to be in the top 10 to go sub 3 in the Munga. The Munga has a deeper stronger field than the RTR so it's hard to know. We are just speculating. Mike W would know as he is maybe the only person to go sub 3 in both.

Agreed. The worlds toughest race tag line is complete bullocks. I would however say it's possibly, maybe, the toughest 3 day mountain bike event in the world. But that's not a good tag line.

The Munga unsupported? There are 10 water points and 5 race villages. They provide riders with rooms, beds, meals at any time of the day. Medical backup with paramedics spread out across the route. It's a fully supported race. A fully supported race across 1,100km. Have a think about what that means in terms of logistics and costs. Do you imagine that a hotel that serves as one of the race villages is free to the race organizers? Or a luxury lodge in the Tankwa is free? The TCR is an unsupported race that will cost most riders about R50k to do. The GBP350 cost of entry is insignificant in the overall cost that each rider pays to do this race.

If you buy some something from Takealot or Amazon you have to return it before they refund you. The seller is right to ask you to return it before refunding.

Totally. The race scene in SA (particularly the WP) is ridiculously good. It's crazy but the gravel / MTB races offerings are way better than the USA. No comparison. Around the Pot is outstanding value. So is the new Gravel DC, Swartberg etc. People need to realize that the subsidized PPA events that cost R350 are not a realistic benchmark. At the same time you don't need to pay R2,000 for a GPX file. Get some mates together and go do a big day out for free.

The Munga is worth every cent IMO. I think you would be hard pressed to find someone that has done the event that does not feel that way. There are maybe 6 people each year that enter the Munga for a chance to win some cash. Of those 6 perhaps 3 of them won't enter if there is no prize purse. Every other person that enters could not care less about prize money. There is also no comparison between self supported races like TD or AZTR and the Munga or Freedom Challenge. In fact people used to the unbelievable level of service at those SA events would likely not dig the "free" self supported scene at all (for many reasons). BTW the TD will likely cost you about R40k to do excluding flights. That's just the cost of food and some accommodation on the route. You can do it for less but not many people camp out every single night. It's the most expense free race in the world. What I feel is getting out of hand is self supported races that provide a GPX file and nothing else and charge a few thousand for entry. There is just no value in that.

You could also say ; Cycling is a contributory factor to Shermer's neck. Saddles are a contributory factor to saddles sores. Many people fail with aerobars because they don't come from a TT or triathlon background and think they can just slap aerobars on their bike a couple of weeks before their race. So sure if you don't set them up right for long distance riding (high, wide, short reach to pads) and you don't put in 100+ hours on them to condition your neck and back then you are likely to fail.

You don't really need a high powered headlamp for the Munga. There is no real single track so you are not turning sharp corners and a handlebar light works just fine. To light up your GPS get a small ultralight headlamp from a running / outdoor store. I've got one that weighs 30g + 12g for the 2 coin batteries. If you get Shermer's neck raise your bars, shorten your reach and get a very light helmet. Learn to relax when you ride and not hold tension in your hands, arms, shoulders, neck, face, jaw. Do some off-bike body conditioning. If you cant get comfortable with aerobars then you have them setup wrong. Setup right you should be able to fall asleep on them and have no neck or saddle pain.

Lynskey makes excellent frames. How's it handle the corrugated roads of the Weltevrede loop?

It's not just SA. 27.5 is dying a slow death internationally as well. It will be the same in the gravel scene as well. Tyre manufacturers predicted that it would become the default size but it's going the other way. While 650b is fun 700c just rolls faster off-road over corrugated and rough roads.

South Africa is at least 10 years behind the other places I have lived and we are slow to catch on. The vegan movement is only just gaining momentum here and the lessons still have to be learned. That can only come with time. Lets check back in another 6 years or so when you been on this way of eating for a decent length of time. Anyway I'm out. I just wanted to share my experience and perhaps help people like you that are new to this. Cheers.

My own experience mirrors some of what I hear from other long term vegans. Blood work. Things may only start to show up after quite a few years. Time spend out of the city in the country actually growing my own food. Veganism is largely an urban phenomenon. I believe it comes about from a disconnection from nature. Disconnection from the cycle of birth and death. We have zero real exposure to that living in a city. We have no connection with animals besides our pets. Then you watch one of those movies and read the China study. The abuse animals suffer in factory farms is intolerable. Perhaps humans great crime. Stopping eating meat is a logical step. But when you remove yourself from a big city environment you really get to understand our place in nature and things change. Just to add - some country folks I know that hunt or manage their own animals for food are more vegan then any vegan I ever met i.e. they really love animals and respect them in a way that city people will never understand.

Again unless you account for confounding factors the data is not worth anything. All of the communities that show increased longevity are not vegan. They eat predominately a plant based diet that includes some meat and or fish and usually some dairy products. I'm not trying to be argumentative but at 4 years you are very new to this. Many of the "founders" or early adopters or promoters of the vegan and raw food movement are no longer vegan. These are not casual adopters but people that built nutrition companies who's sole aim was to sell vegan products and live the vegan lifestyle. In other words it was their life, identity and how they made (make) their living. So it can take a long time (decade or more) to figure some of this stuff out. I personally think veganism is a worthwhile experiment but like any ideology it can be a trap. People become so identified with the ideology that they lose their ability to make decisions based on intuition. Their body may be telling them one thing but their desire to conform to the ideals that they have created overrides intuition and reason.

Not a vegan study. There are significant difference between vegetarian and vegan diets as you know. These studies are also pretty worthless. Unless you remove all of the confounding factors such as smoking, alcohol, lifestyle, exercise, income, stress levels from work and relationships, urban vs rural you end up with garbage statistics. And because there has never been a single large vegan society in human history (vegetarian yes) we can't make any sensible claims about it's long term viability. The best we can say at this point is that it seems to work in the short or medium term for some people. Additionally that is may work long term for some but it certainly does not work for everyone. I'm not bashing veganism. I went down that road over ten years ago. A worthwhile question to ask anyone promoting a vegan diet is - how long you have been on it and what is your age? When I mean on it I mean a continuous stretch of time with ZERO animal products.

I'm looking for a Munga entry if anyone has entered but can't make the event. Thanks.

Did you guys read the article before reacting to the entry price? At R1,000 per team member the organizers are just covering costs.