Trelawney

Eventually managed to get to Holla Trails on the public holiday and do the yellow trail. Was really impressed, those river single track sections were van Gaalens-esque ! I Eventually did 53 km instead of the max yellow distance of 48 km because I missed the signage ... but, that was entirely my fault both times !! After I back tracked I cannot understand how I missed the boards, think I was just enjoying the scenery on the one (when you first leave that initial district road) and then 5 minutes later on the first loop I was too busy trying not to slide in a muddle puddle on a downhill than pay attention to signboards, extra few Km's were good fun though. I will definitely be back when next down on holiday. Having cycled there and back from the Ballito beach front area it was just over 72 km all told, awesome work out on a cloudy & cool morning. For the trail setters, the yellow sign boards go wonky after the Electric Avenue descent about 2 km from the end, you cross a dirt road and hop up into the hedge almost, then 150 metres further on where the road works are, there is a sign that points back the way, I back tracked but could find nothing in between these two signs, so I climbed over the mud bank and found my way back to the trail a km later. Nothing serious, trail was superb.

Thanks, I eventually found I could not get the new tyre to seal and had to take the wheel in for attention, turned out I had misplaced the seal below the valve on the tubeless rim (daft person that I am). It took longer for them to fix my wheel than replace the CVs and drive shafts on my car ! So I spent the morning watching Long Walk To Freedom at Gateway, very moving ... and with a fixed car and bike I can get on with the holiday !

Hi, Am in KZN on holiday, car is stuffed and into garage in Umhlanga tomorrow (Wed 11 Dec), I have probably 6 hours to kill, are there routes out of Umhlanga I can use to pass a few hours? Am thinking of popping the MTB in the boot. T.

Well done Tim and co., you definitely improved on last year and to have a race of this size without bottlenecks is quite an achievement. Good to see learning from previous years being factored in and new problems not being introduced, hats off to you !! This year I managed all 5 races and it was great to have a thread of this series running through the year, otherwise it's all random events, the continuity of a series like this was great to add on top of the other events, appreciate it !

What's the thinking on what to hand over to the police ? Assume also that the police need advance warning so there is some one senior there to accept it ?

Thanks for the info Tim. My recollection of last year was that we queued in the wooded section for a ramp that people were battling to ride over, the broken bridge was after that. Once past the ramp there was no delay. I might be recalling it wrong but maybe others can remember, the ramp was the main hold up ? Greatly looking forward to the event though, have ridden the other 4 in the series, be nice to round off the series with a good ride.

Would like to hear Tim's comments on that section at the end from last year and how they plan to handle it this year. Tim ?

Unbelievable. I'm sitting in my garden just a couple Km's from there right now ... We were just wondering if those were more shots we just heard, talk about the Wild West in the east.

Turns out that section is outside the sector policing so need to rely on the Garsfontein station. Apparently a third incident tonight, the Parkview Thursday night riders were shot at this evening.

Just heard that the group that rides from Parkview each Thursday evening went that way tonight (why ??) and were shot at. That's three attacks in just over 2 days from the same short stretch of road.

Numbers don't seem to worry these idiots. I just heard that the group that rides from Parkview on Thursday evenings were shot at tonight on that same stretch a couple hours back.

My neighbour is heavily involved with the local crime prevention CPF people, I will discuss with him this evening, he runs patrols around that area, let's get a presence there ASAP.

Did this last year and really enjoyed the first 99% ! Then we had a queue 200 metre long across a field because of the bottle neck. If it's going through that wooded section at the end, please rethink it, it ruined a perfectly good race and the ten minute batches will not solve that problem. It was such a good race and then an utter joke. I spent 30 minutes queuing to go through. There is plenty of terrain to make for an interesting ride, why include that section a km before the end, allow people to free flow that last section. 100's of riders just took the road anyway and short circuited it. Someone posted a pic last year: https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/114784-event-nissan-trailseeker-3-down-dirty/page__hl__trailseeker__st__352

Were the markings well done ? Am thinking of going out next weekend to take on a longer combo of the routes, recognise most of the tracks from last week's Trailseeker, would like to go over the hill into the valley and back again, good challenge.

Thanks, I'll sleep better knowing that, the original thoughts were closer to 1400 m ?

Elevation climb for the 70 km ?

Know the feeling ! Took me a while to decide to enter this one after the vG experience of 10 days ago, it was as tough as I remember my previous experience from three years back, so was not sure my sense of humour needed further testing ... but, what the heck, have just entered the 70 km ... off to say some prayers ...

Got an elevation profile for last year's Hakahana ?

And does anyone know how Hakahana compares to today's 70 km ?

I did my first vG event three years ago, the 70 km and swore I would never do it again, too technical, no respite from the technical stuff at all and it was damn hot. Which is why I did the 70 km again today ????It was somewhat cooler than the previous event but none the less technical. Having upped the technical skills a bit this year I coped much better but was well reminded of why I decided to never do another ! Funny how time fades the bad memories, wonder if I'll enter next year.

I loved the Tweet from Fritz yesterday saying that he did the pre-ride for the 70 km and he was 'half broken' ... am consoling myself that he obviously pushed it too hard ????

I last rode the Trailseeker at vG's three years back and it was when they ran out of water, when they filled my backpack at the bottom of the rocky descent after the satellite hill, their water was pretty much empty. It reached 45 degC in the direct sun at 11.30 that morning which is why I assume they have moved it from November to September for this race. I did the Dinokeng race yesterday and finished close to midday and it was 35 degC in the direct sun, just hate these late winter days :-)

Having ridden it recently and comparing my GPS track to the one posted, it looks like it goes down from the Greek Church to the dip and then sharp left back up the hill on the Jou Bliksem section.

Comparison of the 1st and 2nd events in this series. - Red : 11 May 2013 - White : 7 Sept 2013 I really enjoyed today's event, not quite as technical as the previous one because of the change in how we got down off the mountain but a great workout with enough technical stuff to keep me happy.

I've used a Geoff one, got a Speedy to weld it up, will see if I can get some pics to post tomorrow.