dear mrclean, have you never heard of the north shore or wistler or wales? ...

[Paulst12]

Would think given his background of racing in SA and globally that he is qualified to make that sort of statement...

[scotty]

Not sure he checks the Hub regularly You can contact him here

 

Cycle Lab Nicol Grove Corner William Nicol Drive and Leslie Road Magaliessig, Fourways

 

Tel: 0117074700.

Bump, he's finished with the Sani2C so should be available to contacted.

 

Perhaps ask him to admit he was mistaken on the next Supercycling show, also he should NOT express his opinion in future.

[Agteros]

Bump, he's finished with the Sani2C so should be available to contacted.

 

Perhaps ask him to admit he was mistaken on the next Supercycling show, also he should NOT express his opinion in future.

at least not before he consulted the imminent wisdom of some of da huppers

[Shebeen]

the difference between SA and the rest of the world is that only a very small percentage of our MTB trails are commercial parks like whistler. Whistler is popular because it is has top class trails AND because it is a commercial park. We have trais littered all over the country and even the most well travelled mountain biker will only have knowledge of a very small percentage of them all. There are km's of track out there that you dont even know of purely because they are not advertised. We may not have one single park better than the likes of whistler but collectively the quality and quantity of our "wild" tracks alone puts us up there - lets not forget the "parks"

correction here, only a small potential of whistler is commercial. The town was a mtb hot spot long before they even thought of putting bikes on ski lifts.volunteer built trails still go for miles, because the club is so strong. Loonie rides are a weekly show of how big the sport is on no budget.

 

mr clean? mr min's brother?

The real mr clean is a legend, readers of sailing anarchy would agree.

[Guest Omega Man]

I have to apologise for offending anyone in my previous posts first up.

 

As far as Andrew Mclean's comments go. We all have our patch that we like to think of as the best place on earth. And that's totally cool as far as I'm concerned. And we can only call on our points of reference.

 

I'm primarily a slow k@k Downhiller so those are that tracks that I look at as a comparison. In terms of the DH tracks I've ridden here I've ridden all the stuff in the Cape, George and The Cascades track in PMB. So I've not covered it all but i've covered a fair bit of the DH here. And as far as that goes the First track I rode in France last year was better than ALL of the DH i've ridden here put together.

 

This is not a diss on our tracks or Andrew Mclean. It's simply that the Alps have far more elevation than here and the infrastructure is geared towards mountain biking. It's actually geared towards ski'ing but the mountain biking aspect is a nice byproduct for them. It's a similar story in Whistler (Never been) and other large mountain biking areas. The lifestyle, mountains and summer climate lend themselves nicely to mountain biking.

 

I've got a 2010 Dirt magazine where they review the 50 best bike parks in Europe. 50. I'm sorry. As far as Gravity Mountain biking goes South Africa is not the Hawaii. It's not even on the map.

Edited May 21, 2012 by Omega Man

[Ceres]

Could Andrew Mclean mabe mean the explosion of mountain biking in SA (didn't hear his coment). Don't know about the rest of SA but here in Ceres we have had a huge increase in people MTBiking. You can't drive down our road without seeing somebody riding towards Eselfontein.

 

Or mabe he's talking about the biggest events ie: Epic,Pioneer,Sani,Joberg2C,Nissan series etc etc etc.... don't know about you guys but 4 - 5 years ago one event every 2 - 3 weeks, now every week.

[Eldron]

Me - I agree with Andrew....sort of.

 

Sa is lacking in the free ride/all mountain section but I reckon SA beats any country I know of for the average of the total.

 

We have a round of the UCI DH and XCO (we've done the triple too!), host THEE Cape Epic, have hordes of Europeans training in the cape and surrounds, stage racing in abundance, a new mtb park every other week, the odd red bull rampage style urban assualt race, marathon racing is reaching saturation levels, national DH, XCO and XCM (including ultra XMC) series - the list is endless...

 

We may not have Whistler style DH summer venues but our average across all mtb disciplines certainly out does the vast majority of countries...

[GLuvsMtb]

I wonder if the OP has sobered up yet.

[Ceres]

Me - I agree with Andrew....sort of.

 

Sa is lacking in the free ride/all mountain section but I reckon SA beats any country I know of for the average of the total.

 

We have a round of the UCI DH and XCO (we've done the triple too!), host THEE Cape Epic, have hordes of Europeans training in the cape and surrounds, stage racing in abundance, a new mtb park every other week, the odd red bull rampage style urban assualt race, marathon racing is reaching saturation levels, national DH, XCO and XCM (including ultra XMC) series - the list is endless...

 

We may not have Whistler style DH summer venues but our average across all mtb disciplines certainly out does the vast majority of countries...

 

I agree also remember you cant get into the Sani2c thats with almost 4000 people riding already I think if they added a 4th race they would sell it out. Epic pre entries sold out in under a minute. Every race I go to there is more riders than the year before and I mean alot more.

['Dale]

Would think given his background of racing in SA and globally that he is qualified to make that sort of statement...

 

 

I like his positivity...

And his Porsche Cayenne...

[Agteros]

I wonder if the OP has sobered up yet.

I'd love to know what his ex had so say when he phoned her

Edited May 21, 2012 by RoboCyclist

[CAAD4]

 

I like his positivity...

And his Porsche Cayenne...

 

Long gone... Lab is Sponsored by Toyota

[Caerus]

Judging by the amount of people that had to get off at the technical bits during Sani and other events, is there not just an explosion of off-road riders/ dirt roadies as opposed to mountain bikers?

['Dale]

Long gone... Lab is Sponsored by Toyota

 

 

Yeah. Still dig Andrew's positivity and contribution to the development of cycling in SA.

[Octavian]

No dude. Really now. Have you ever done any riding abroad?

 

I've only ridden in the cape and a tiny bit in pietermaritzburg but nothing I've ridden here comes even remotely close to riding in the alps.

 

But I agree with AM statements about SA becoming the Hawaii of mountain biking. Overrated, Over crowded. Sounds about right.

 

I think its a bit disingenuous to compare riding in South Africa to riding elsewhere in the world, i.e the Alps in this case. There are places that are just as beautiful in SA as overseas. Europeans would give their left balls to be able to live in a place as beautiful as SA. At the end of the day, a country's beauty is all relative.

 

By the way, have your ridden here yet? Its in SA by the way....

[Pieter1]

 

 

I think its a bit disingenuous to compare riding in South Africa to riding elsewhere in the world, i.e the Alps in this case. There are places that are just as beautiful in SA as overseas. Europeans would give their left balls to be able to live in a place as beautiful as SA. At the end of the day, a country's beauty is all relative.

 

By the way, have your ridden here yet? Its in SA by the way....

Where is this? Looks awsome!