Mamil

That's frightful. Yet another hit and run I imagine. Every strength to the man and those who know him.

May we ask what happened?

I stopped at the dairy shed for the first time in a while on Sunday and was struck by how many cars there were in the parking - the trails are busier than they were for sure and also just how many e-bikes there were. A rough tally of the 10 or 12 bikes lying around was roughly 60 / 40 in favour of the assisted variety.

Can someone please buy however many of these they have left so I can stop thinking about it. https://www.cyclelab.com/product/3006882-gps-bike-comp-garmin-edge-1040-solar I DO NOT need a new head unit.

I rode up through the Hillcrest climb having got on the network at the Protea hotel - the mud there had one really bad spot where I put my foot down and sunk to my ankle. I did Supertubes and it was fine of course - Cheeky corners was closed so went around and joined happy hops at the bottom. Was headed through rather than around so didn't do the rest of the network - After what's happening today and tomorrow weather wise I expect the whole network will be slosh and not rideable.

3 fans in summer because I am a prodigious sweater. Towel on handlebar, wahoo top tube protector and another towel wrapped around seat post and tucked under saddle and there's still a puddle when I'm finished. One day someone will take a photo of me on the trainer and disabuse me of the fantasy movie playing in my head while I try and drop some other Hungarian mamil on the Alp.

Budget is key - IF you can lay down some cash a wheel off trainer is the way to go - just note you need to protect your frame, BB and pivots from the sweat that rolls off. Will solve your neighbour problem and make your indoor experience much more entertaining than the rollers. I do a lot of my midweek rides on the indoor trainer, structured workouts and races - an hour at a time and it's big bang for less time investment. If however, the indoor trainer is not an important part of your training and you have budget, then a second bike - a gravel one for commuting would be very nice to have too and would save your main bike from the corrosive sweating issue that indoor training brings.

As @Skubarrasays - take a long weekend or even a whole week - use PA as a base and there's a proper cycling holiday possible. Unique geology gives stunning landscapes - very few cars to hassle a rider and a ton of lovely routes, proper climbs etc....

I saw this but have non bicycle commitments that weekend - next year I'm in.

The email more or less explicitly says that it is more lucrative for the organiser to focus on their 3 day organised rides of 60km per day with restaurants, wine and group social activities. That's a completely different market to the one I represent. As a dyed in the wool extreme introvert I can think of nothing worse than that. It's a real loss to the calendar that this event is no more. I was already hoping that my second attempt at grit tankwa wouldn't clash with it next year. Anyway me and a few mates (even hardcore introverts have mates) are already talking about a trip to PA to ride the granfondo route and tack on a descent into die hel too.

I must say I'm very disappointed that this event will be no more.

Jedi light sabres are OK but only if they have dropper posts

Much cheaper. Shot!

https://www.dischem.co.za/nature-s-choice-fructose-500g-786 https://www.takealot.com/npl-maltodextrin-1-5kg/PLID46977504 Nice men on motorbikes deliver it.

The hammer gel flasks stay closed, bite and pull to open, good flow through nozzle, bottle is slightly squeezable, push back closed, back in pocket. 40 bucks each on takealot.

Not really a recipe - Maltodextrin and fructose in a ratio of 4 to 1 mixed with enough water with 2 biogen electrolyte fizzys dissolved in it to make a syrup consistency. A teaspoon of salt - smash it up in the nutribullet until it's a syrup - let it settle down and then decant and freeze. The fructose is extremely sweet and so the 1.08:1 ratio the oft quoted research suggests is way too sweet to me - even 2:1 is too much for me. At 4:1 it's still plenty sweet but gives the same mental boost I've had from the gels and certainly it's getting the carbs in quickly. Can fuel me for a 4 hour ride but any longer than that and I supplement with real food, maybe a bar or 2. Sometimes I still use the perpetuem drink from hammer to augment this on really long, 8 hour plus rides.

I make my own with fructose, maltodextrin, salt, electrolyte tablets and water mixed to a syrup consistency and decanted into hammer gel sippy flasks. Make big batches and freeze and defrost for use. Way cheaper.

https://gearchange.co.za/products/emonda-sl-6-etap Currently clearing stock at 74k Use the change to go on an overseas holiday.

I wonder if I can persuade my team tomdo the race and the repeat next year

Strange times. Release a flood of cheap bikes that are so "last year's thing" and three weeks later announce the next wave of bikes with absurdly dear price tags. I understand why but it really does seem like madness.

CP2 had plastic scoops for the sweet bowls which is very civilized - except for the muppet who pushed in, ignored the scoop, dug his porta potty gloved hand into the joob-joobs and elbowed his way out chewing with his mouth open. It might have been the same idiot wandering around CP3 with a LED strip light lifted off a jeep's roof on full blast pushing his way into the soup queue. I quite often am not enamoured of my medemens. I like to take my own nutrition on most races and I then cruise the tables and pick up anything I see that I think I might like - I'm a huge fan of orange slices and watermelon. I usually finish a race with one or 2 mashed baby potatoes in the bottom of my handlebar feed bag.

I knew it was going to a long ride in the dark setting out because my partner, who is usually a stronger rider than I am, was spectacularly undertrained. Predictably we made excellent time to the first climb and then we didn't anymore. I will say this for my friend - the man knows how to suffer. He was variously, in his own words, "moer toe", "in my moer", "completely f@#d.", "had enough now" and "... actually doing quite well on the downhills". We crossed the line in 14 and change but you must know just how "moer toe" you are when the Mamil is pushing you up the never-ender. It was his fith one. I told everyone it's not such a great achievement and that I deserve credit for the 5th one but he just said jealousy makes you nasty, reminded me that he'd waited for me on Bergplaas last year when I ate too many sosatie wors and told me to 'vlieg in my m#$r'" Our support driver just shook his head and told us we were idiots. Then the "3 stooges do Transbaviaans" movie started. We realized that we hadn't told the guest house we were checking in late and the kind lady who runs the place had left a message at midnight and then gone to bed. Doorbell unresponsive, phone not being answered. We were headed out of town to change out of bibs at the Shell garage and "just sommer drive home" when someone remembered the control point boxes. At 2am we were parked on the field at the finish venue contemplating sleeping in the car when a phone call to the very larney sounding Savoy hotel put us in a 6 sleeper single room with breakfast included. On the way there my bike dondered off the bike rack and smashed the carbon handlebar and the brake lever. I shrugged my shoulders. There's a curious peace that descends when you reach the lowest point of the curve. You can't fall off the floor so now you can relax and just let the experience take you. Someone stopped and asked if we were OK in the way we all do when what we mean is "Jammer om van jou *** to hoor". ________________________________________ J-bay at 2:45 at the Savoy hotel is not pretty. A batch of hardened barflies who were also "moer toe" were being gently escorted out of the lobby by a very friendly bouncer who was actually making sure they DIDN'T fall down the stairs. Friendly staff opened a room to leave the bikes in, something I would normally be anxious about but now didn't give a hoot about (cf previous comments about the floor and not falling off"). Then two of the stooges were congratulating themselves for opening a beer by using the edge of the medal before the support crew stooge said "This medal is actually a bottle opener, what is wrong with you people?" I almost wet myself laughing. Half an hour later I was lying on the bottom of one of 3 bunk beds in the room, between two of the worst snorers on the garden route, reminding myself not to sit up too quickly and smack myself "moer toe" on the wooden planks 18 inches above me where a split in one of them suggested that I wouldn't be the first one. There and then I vowed to myself that my next transvaviaans will be part of a week long garden route holday,

Any bike hub members in that crew? If so I dare you to step forward and respond to this post. As for the "we cannot be held responsible for safety" line in the post ... Sounds like open season on anyone in lycra to the morons in the comments.

My SO have a recurring discussion about confrontation after I saw someone overtaking on a blind rise on the n2 some while back. If you said idiot at the one stop should you say something to.him? She says no. As a thought experiment, ihe drives out the one stop and pulled the same move on another blind rise as a family is cresting the hill from the other side. Freeze the movie. If you asked that family if the mamil should have said something to the offender at the petrol pump on the .1 percent chance he would think twice before pulling out to overtake they for sure would say "yes please talk to him. Even if he calls you a pxxs and threatens to beat you up".

I almost failed form 2 geography (on those countour diagrams my rivers almost invariably flowed uphill along the hilltops) but do I magine that the forecast is for a stonking tailwind most of the way on Saturday?