Mamil

Reading this and having had a twinge of fomo while I did a LSD road ride yesterday, I realise now that I made the correct decision selling my entry. Huge kudos to all the brave souls!

There's next years' promo photo for the CTCT - 90kg of grey bearded mamil poured into expensive imported lycra - 3 spacers raising his bars, every contour of the moobs accentuated, a yellow urine stain over his groin .....

I'm gonna look so good at the ctct in one of these.

@ChrisF @CMDC just bumping this. Can cyclists use the road on days when it's closed or is it strictly no entry?

I'm planning a ride over the pass in a few week's time, weekday so I expect it will be closed - just to clarify, if it's closed are bicycles also not allowed up?

She looks a sweetheart. Sending you and her and your family every positive wish.

As a non-racer and more of a C and D group "fun" rider with a little bit of a competitive streak in me, all the convos about the effect on the racing of the stoppage are interesting. I have to say I wouldn't like to be the person in charge of making sure that things are safe - imagine not stopping a peleton and suddenly there's a car ploughing into an echelon!! Cars passed D, sometimes overtaking us behind the bike marshall, sometimes coming towards us and at least three of them showed no interest in slowing down or yielding space - so coming up a blind rise at 20kmph and a car going at 80 plus ..... has to be the first consideration - surely?

How is the pass looking?

This shows. Every Marshall is invested in what's happening. Very nice. I'll definitely have a go at the trilogy next year.

Hope you took a photo

Ja exactly right - if I can get away without being hurt or without killing anyone that's first prize. If the choice is between having my bike leaning against the wall at home but having to explain to the cops how I killed someone or letting some @sshat get away with my steed and my phone and asking the LBS to order in another xlarge emonda pending my insurance cheque, I know which one is the better outcome. If it's my life he wants to take - I have non-lethal weapons close to hand but let's hope I never have to face that.

This has to be the most slickly organised and executed event. The start is immaculate, enough porta pottys and toilets, parking a breeze, clear, precise and friendly marshalls organising people into start groups and all with a smile - very lekker. Fast route, technical beginning and finish through the traffic circles which is all good. The absence of a large hill anywhere in the first quarter of the race makes for super large bunches and in the cross winds on the Old Malmesbury Road this made for some hairy moments and high risk riding. The bike Marshall looking after the main blob of D and some Es was excellent, firm, capable and vigilant but he had his hands full keeping people left of the line. I 'm amazed how many of us are willing to ride on the wrong side of the road on a blind rise just to hang on to an alphabet soup group. Somone came down directly in front of me as we crested one of the rollers, red kit - I rode over his back wheel - really thought I was going to join him for a lie down but by some fluke didn't - clipped back in and chased on. Got dropped on the drag up to Adderly and then a burly gent by the name of Rudi towed me and some others back - what a beast Rudi is, clearly more than a 100kg of solid muscle - he didn't even look like he was trying but he must have been putting down some serious watts. Slower than last year thanks to the winds. Lekker race - I enjoyed it - despite the risks

I like this ...I can't help but imagine how a society would look if all public thoroughfares were for bikes and people instead of the monstrous machinery with their fumes and names stolen from forgotten and conquered peoples (Cherokee, touareg ... Ok they disguised that one a little). I know lots of us are petrol heads as well as bicycle riders and I'm half, but only half joking, but jeez it would be lekker if the number of cars on the roads were cut by 80 percent... Ok 70... 50?

I've had boas still working on MTB shoes long after the rest of the shoe has disintegrated. Definitely not normal unless it's gotten caught on something and ripped off very hard in a crash. As per mvdp at the end of world champ road race

The bicycle has radically changed my relationship with cars. As a younger person I took quite punctilious care of my vehicles - wheel balancing, washing, pride while driving, money spent on accessories etc. As the bicycle has become increasingly central in my life, I now actively dislike my own car which ironically is the nicest one I've ever owned. (It's not even that nice). Now I am only half joking when I say that we shouldn't go anywhere unless we can get there under our own propulsion - an extreme view I know. I daydream about a society in which the billions of rand spent on roads and traffic and fuel is spent on bicycle infrastructure. I mentally abolish long distance truck driving in favour of rail. I consign air freight to the dustbin of history in favour of local manufacture and production and I fantasise about how economies might reorganise themselves if the taken for granted assumption that it is my right to be anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat were to be removed. Granted, this often involves the elimination of at least half of the world's population and I'm always in the half that remains to enjoy these benefits but to the 50% who don't make the cut I say , "hey ho, those are the breaks". I don't ride in groups often and I used to cringe when I saw people riding in large groups as depicted but these days I don't. I have come to believe that if we want to reclaim quality of life the chaos of modern life, we should all be riding 5 abreast down the M3 - feeling the hills and arriving at our destinations a little sweaty and with the textures of the terrain enlivening our senses. OF course this is insanity - but like all madmen, I believe deeply in what my distorted fantasies tell me. To me they seem saner than the madness in which we currently live. We're going camping in Stanford in a couple of week's time - I'm riding there - just me - single file - over hels hoogte where I hope not to be attacked, over franschoek pass where I hope not to be run off the road. I'll get there in 8 or 9 hours while the car will take 2 and the group we're going with will tell me I'm mad. To me the madness is sitting at 100kmph in a queue of unhappy campers on the N2 all wanting to go faster but held up by the oomie in the front who's going at 85 cos you get bonus points from the average speed cameras for coming in under budget.

This - yes. Rant follows My view on this topic is that the car is a telling symbol of the everyman of late stage capitalist humanity - the individualist, sealed off from his environment and out of touch with its elements, untold power available at the slightest of gestures, the vanity of the styling of the machine and it's capabilities experienced as an extension of narcissistic aggrandisement and entitlement - belching toxic gases into the world as it releases the energy of sunlight captured by trees of prehistoric ages .... And in a superb twist of irony, these mobile monuments to an imagined special status, sit daily in a snarl of smog and frustration in traffic jams - all those rugged individualists dreaming of the open road, 300kilowatt engines idling wastefully, while I ride past on my 30k alu checkpoint --- and that's just the queue to get into the Cape point reserve on Saturday morning. Sure okes - bikes and riders are the problem on the roads - don't ride 2 abreast or even 3, because here comes everyman in a 2.5 meter wide suit of armour, an empty passenger seat alongside him - single filing his way to climate Armageddon as fast as he can. More bikes - fewer cars - 2 wheels good, 4 wheels bad. Viva the revolution of the pedals Rant over.

My PPA seeding is C and immin D for the 99er. I don't really mind, but it is a bit curious I think. There are no huge hills on the route so that and being in D might mean Saturday becomes one of those rare occasions where I finish with my batch.

Sold to the man on the BMX who had indeed already paid me.

So I've still got this 1400 ZAR voucher for the Granfondo going for 1000 bucks. Give me the cash - I give you the code you enter code when checking out on the online entry and it credits your basket with 1400 bucks. This is their substitution process. Can't believe I've not sold this yet - the most gorgeous 100 miler in the country. I need the money!

Almost time for the annual "take a week off and pretend to be a pro" event. Will be my third one. Who's riding?

It always seemed to me that there was nothing wrong with the orange chips and blue mats ... Doesn't look to me this new system improves things much. And I already have a little collection of ugly rubber seatpost thingies all of which have required a zip tie.

A z rider started in D. 2 Marshalls attempted to get him to leave. He refused. He also refused to helpmpull an aborted chase back on when D split just after the technical beginning. The second split from D dropped him before the left turn towards Hermon. Some F riders dragged him back. We dropped him again just after the coffee shop at Hermon. On the up side, i loved seeing all the different shapes and ages of riders and their bikes on the shorter route when we joined them. Very gratifying.

The mean streak in me wants to say rude things about ebikes when I remember how I struggled up those switchbacks. There is definitely one of those on my horizon in the next 5 years.

Both the bone doctors who patched me up after my 2 significant crashes (one femoral neck and one involving cracked ribs and a couple of broken hand bones) have told me that they make more out of MTB riders than out of rugby and motorbikes combined. This has definitely altered the way i ride. I love riding trails but I'm also pretty useless at it which is a dangerous combination. I'm 55 this year and getting less and less inclined to see if I can go.faster down Patrick's plunge than I did last time. It's a risk we all take and I think most of us have had moderate and even serious injuries at least once. I don't think I will ever stop riding on the mountains.

I would put some ketazol fungicidal cream (over the counter at pharmacy) twice a day for a week in case there's a little fungal infection there. Mylocort is a mild cortisone cream also over the counter if you have any redness or rash. Wash helmet lining thoroughly with Milton's sterlisation fluid and wear a buff or a sawn off piece of buff to make a headband. Edit - when I read the topic header I thought it was the itch to buy a new helmet which is a highly contagious condition that has only one remedy - do it