Mamil

More and more everyday and quite a few are in charge of countries and making massive geopolitical and economic decisions that affect us all --- there I knew it, e-bikers will bring about the end of the world.

Some of the newer road and gravel ebikes have higher limits - I think the trek domane ebike version gets assist right up to 45kmph - which is bonkers - probably great fun but bonkers nevertheless.

Ja - suddenly the comms come alive big time - BUT -- despite my resolve not to ride next year, I've entered again. We're looking for form a team in the open category

Hmmmm --- I think she might have passed 1C just before Smits -- Can I claim that this is why I got dropped halfway up the hill?

Great response @ChrisF.

This is your year maybe!!! Actually we need a team if we're going to have any chance of dealing with whatever international talent signs up in the open category ....

Well if we in we got until tomorrow to pull the trigger on the 2.9k entry

Aaaaaarghghgh --- as Bono used to say in the 80's "I was making promises I was soon to forget"

You won't be sorry - but then I am their chief marketing officer... seriously though, stage racing is a blast - The repeat customer discount is open until tomorrow and I still haven't completely killed the idea of doing my fourth one in a row... I'm self employed though and the week away from work is expensive and the boss imposes a punishing schedule to make up for the lost time.

Is your saddle on straight?

Ah... I've ditched almost all social media except bikehub and posting race results on Strava so missed that unfortunately😔

What is the watts/kg for this?

Check out the smile on that face - winner!

Shelled out the back of 1c on Smits, at which point I knew the sub 3 was out of reach. If ever there was a day for it, it was today but... 3.06, a PR by 2 minutes. If you'd told me I'd be disappointed with that time 10 years ago when I did my first one I would have laughed in your face and called you deluded.

I think I'm their most effective marketing at the moment - .... and I'm getting tired of it. Immediately I posted I got an email saying this year's participants can enter for next year's edition (2026) for 2900 ZARS before 12 March 2025 .... Hmmmm ... I'm one late night and two Jack Daniels away from reaching for my credit card again.

Replace chain and cassette. Take the bike for a ride and see if new chain slips off chainring when putting down the power. If your luck is anything like mine, it does.

For the sake of completeness .... My preoccupation with my abdominal response to anything I put into it continued into Stage 4 - still a bit crampy but much better. There were some machinations in the group to establish that we would just ride along until the bottom of du toits and then let it all kick off - which more or less happened except I got hoofed out the back on the second time past the little kicker that leads up to Windmeul. I kniew it was coming and was trying to use the mamilian momentum to move up to the front to get some sliding room on the descent past Toeka's but got blocked in by 3 or 4 cars overtaking us and skinny okes freewheeling on close to the white line .... Felt like the old days on the PPA sportifs as i was 20 seconds of 450 watt output shy of holding on and noodled along to a finish shortened by the last 6km of du toit's because of mist. When I woke up on Friday I knew I was finished - full body tiredness - and sure enough I ended in a 3up, Zone 2 time trial (we towed a development junior from Swaziland) for 115 of the 130km stage. I was disappointed with my ride - I was less fit than I was last year but still backed myself to be close enough to the action in the open GC to watch the faster guys plan their tactics and maybe play a role. The 'lergy put paid to that and the race became an exercise in self management. I did learn that Amacz drink gel and ordinary gels can be digested and relied on for energy when the colon isn't co-operating. ----------------------------------- Tour du Cap is a fun way to spend a week - the open group racing was more competitive than it has been in previous years. At the start of the last stage a minute separated the top 4 so we knew there would be some thrashings dished out on the steeper and longer rollers. There's a great spirit in the bunch and almost everyone knows how to ride in a group properly. The race organisation, particularly communication, is bad. I got my starting position for the time trial after I finished the time trial, I heard from fellow riders where stage results were posted, it wasn't clear that finish time boards were to be used (SO picked mine up and it was a fluke that I discovered it was finish time, some people had to buy new boards). Motorbike marshalling was good but the young rider from Swaziland was almost taken out by a car that a lackadaisical and clearly untrained pair of marshalls failed to stop on the corner coming off Slent road to head towards Windmeul. I don't know what it's like for the elites, perhaps better, and it may be that the organiser is not interested in growing the open group, but they are not doing themselves any favours with poor marketing, poor communication and spamming the email newsletter with adverts for ideologically suspect music artists. If the event can survive as a race only for the elite and age group racers then every strength to them. On the upside, the entry fee is very reasonable and what's not fun about racing both sides of Bains, a customary burn up Bothmas and the 50/50 chance that the Queen will not lose her head and the stage will actually end at the top of the pass? Also putting faces to bikehub names @spano, @peetwindhoek.... nice to meet you both. I've done 3 in a row now - I don't think I'll do it next year. ____________________ Edit - would be cool if people in the proper racing groups wrote some race reports.

Depends how long you plan on taking to do the loop. If you are between winning time and 3hrs30 you are unlikely to stop for food or water. Then you carry what you will consume, usually gels, bars and nutrition drinks. If you're taking 4hrs30 or longer, I'd take a sandwich and bananas as well as the above. I don't actually know what is at the refreshment stations - I imagine it's coke, water and maybe sponsors sports bars?

He should face a criminal charge for that.

Also not a banker but I can't imagine that an EFT can be reversed. If someone has bypassed the security that protects an account for an EFT, that is - password / biometric authentication, OTP then there is a leak on the account holder's side of things and I would imagine that the banks would point that out and decline reversal. A credit card payment might be different though because that payment process, is a lot less secure possibly?

Yoh - just posted a mid race update. Not for sissies this stage race mularkey

Time for a mid race gonzo report. Monday morning was frightful. I slept horribly, plagued by a barking dog and stomach cramps, nausea, bloating and eventually an urgent, toe stubbing, cold sweat stumble towards the bathroom for a series of emergency evacuations that had me lamenting that the guest house only had single ply. Not a good start. At 4am I gave up on sleep entirely and chased the 2 immodium, 1 valoid and 20 drops of iberogast cocktail with my usual pre-race oat, peanutbutter and honey smoothie, gingerly got into my lycra, folded a wad of backup singleplay into my phone cover and noodled through the streets of Wellington up to the start at Kleinevallei. By the time I got there I was sweating like a Tsumo wrestler in a sauna and to make matters worse the smoothie had worked its way through the plumbing in record time and muttering about Strade Bianca and motivated by the biological emergency in my lower abdomen I risked the 200 meters of loose sand road to the bathroom slightly faster than was comfortable. It was locked. I avoided a solo quest into the pre-dawn vineyard by standing in an 11 minute queue for a 2 berth portapotty trailer that rocked disconcertingly on it's suspension in response to any movement by the occupant of the other toilet. Ablutions complete and gastric distress settling into an uncomfortable bloated feeling, I popped another Immodium, forced 500 ml of ice water and electrolyte down my unwiliing throat. ------------------------------------- The open group is smaller than previous years - there are only about 30 of us. However the proper racing groups look a little larger. There's a visiting german team in the women's elite competition and a few other very fast looking people. I think @Jbris here and smashing the juniors (30 to39 is junior to me). (I wouldn't recognise him but I think I recoognise the initials on the results sheet). In the opens there are 3 or 4 famiiar faces and we greeted and complimented each other on the year's strava rides since last year's tour. I guiltily shook hands with those who offered their hands. I converted one or 2 into fist bumps. I'm a germophobe myself but the thought of possibly passing on what is obviously a variant of the bug that has plagued cape town in recent weeks to the visitors from PE, Gauteng, Belgium and Germany was on my mind. I chugged an expensive but amazing Amacx gel 5 minutes before the start and instructed my stomach to absorb it immediately and to leave nothing behind to put strain on any of my now quite skittish sphincter muscles. The Stage was OK - I got dropped on the right turn just before the pass before Tulbagh and then me and 6 others congratulated ourselves for chasing back on just before Tulbagh (turned out the lead group was neutralised as punishment for drafting the ebike that was part of the peleton) but it didn't matter because we all got shelled again as soon as the neutralisation ended. I didn't mind getting dropped too much. I was just pleased not to have had to stop to fertilise a farmer's field. Nutrition was a challenge. I opted to stick to the drink gel in my water bottles, and other gels over bars. Any sugar that hit my system precipitated more tender bloating .... agh, all of this is Mamil excuses. I limped up Bain's, reflecting that I felt better the last time I rode it which was in the closing kilomters of the Munga. ___________________ Tuesday was the Time trial. Stomach still not good, although less distressed than on Monday. I told @peetwindhoekwho started 2 places in front of me (How on earth did I finish ahead of him in Stage 1???) that if I caught him I was going to boast about it in a lengthy brag session on Bikehub. I saw steel in his eye that told me he had decided that wasn't going to happen. It didn't - he put about 3 minutes into me, finishing 30 seconds faster than my 30 minute PR from last year and I trailed behind that effort by more than 2 minutes. I struggled along doing Zone 3 watts with Zone 5 HR with every part of my body in rebellious protest. As Wesley, one of last year's riders, who himself is leaner, and stronger than ever said, "Sometimes you're the dog, sometimes you're the tree" and "The check engine light was on". _____________________________________ And today, stage 3, the only climb was Bothma's. As usual, the groupetto came together on the downhill and little risers towards Malmesbury and we gunned along to the finish together in a co-operative fashion. Tummy still tender and not 100% but at least I could hold vo2 max watts for a reasonable amount of time, and force a few gels and bars in without too much discomfort. ___________________________________ 2 more big stages to go - if I transmitted this lergy to anyone else, it might start paying dividends for me in Stages 3 and 4. I thought about giving the yellow jersey in the opens (an English visitor from Singapore) a "soen groet" but to quote the bard ".... thus conscience makes cowards of us all".

For those around the 3:10 mark and who fill out their lycra in a less aerodynamic shape than is optimal, it's all moot if you can't hold on up Edinburgh. It's worth burning a match or 2 on the drag up to the top of hospital bend and on the deceptive little Edinburgh to hold on. Plenty of time to recover before Smits

My watch says I'm fine.... But I just ate a pizza ... Hoping I can hang onto open group. If there are pure savages in the group I'm bringing drawing pins.

Drikus Coetzee (munga champion and record holder) says you just make friends with the wind. Treat it as your ally. It's like a Zen thing that one only understands at his level I think.