Berg and Bush 2013

[MTB_wannabe]

Old Solly is grumpy at the best of times, not sure he's going to like it when you rename him Solky.

I have to agree with you GWMC and Solly's are magical. I have done them a couple of times, but not in races, this will be the first time in an actual race. Last year in early April the wind was blowing a gale while on GWMC, got a bit scary at places...

spell checker was clearly not used for my last post

Back from the ride, and it was even better than expected! what a jol

[Wallee]

Anyone know what happened with the BMC bike draw? Was it done? Haven't had a call telling me I've won.

 

I was wondering about that too, then I realized the draw will most likely include people from all three events and probably only take place after the two day event

[MTB_wannabe]

It was certainly hot and windy - I really, really battled on Friday. But - the water tables were very well stocked and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Will be back in 2014!

+1

[MTB_wannabe]

ha ha...a mate's heading off to the great trek now with a pair of hardtails...I reckon puffadder on a hardtail must be quite bumpy

is it just me, or did they clear many of the rocks off puffadder? It felt smooth and ultra fast this year.

Last year I recall far more rocks (OK, I was on a hardtail last year, but still)

[Edgar]

 

is it just me, or did they clear many of the rocks off puffadder? It felt smooth and ultra fast this year.

Last year I recall far more rocks (OK, I was on a hardtail last year, but still)

 

It is probably from the increased use and the Joberg2c riders going up it. That will cause a smoother line. Believe me, going up ain't as fun as going down.

[Sniffie]

So you are saying the car temperature was wrong as well? The suburu registered 42 and that wasn't at the hottest point.

 

 

Yes it was wrong. Let me try to explain. (Excuse me if I have not got everything in my explanation spot on, it has been 29 years since I sat in the first year's physics class of Prof Lötz Strauss at TUKS.) Heat can reach the temperature sensor in your car in 3 ways namely conduction, convection or radiation. Now imagine sitting next to a campfire. If you hold on to the one end of a steel poker while the other end is in the fire you will after a little while feel the end in your hand heating up. This is conduction at work. Now hold your hands well above the flames. The heat you now feel is due to convection, it is warm air currents from the fire reaching your hand. Now stand some distance away from the fire. The heat you will still feel in your face is due to radiation. Same principles apply to the temperature sensor in your car:

 

Where is the temperature sensor? Underneath some metal panel of sorts being baked by the sun, or somewhere beneath the bonnet picking up heat from any or all of the engine, radiator, gearbox, bonnet or ground whether the ground surface is tarmac, paving, gravel or sand. This picking up of heat can happen through one or all the processes of conduction radiation and convection . Could hardly be a true reflection of the real temperature.

 

Manufacturers will obviously try to lessen the effects of these processes of heat transfer by trying a combination of things: 1. Using materials like ceramics or certain plastics which are not good conductors of heat to mount the sensor somewhere on the body. 2. By keeping the distance between the sensor and warm parts like body panels or engine or drivetrain parts as big as possible the effects of convection and radiation will be lessened. 3. Mounting the sensor in a well ventilated area will lessen the effects of convection. I think you can imagine that due to the construction of a car it is impossible to find the ideal spot where any possible outside influences on the sensor, except that of the real ambient temperature will be nullified. Once a car parked in the hot sun on a concrete or tarmac surface gets moving, and there is some kind of air flow around the temperature sensor, the influence of convection becomes less while the influence of radiation and conduction stays roughly the same and so the temperature registered by the sensor drops. It did not suddenly as if by magic got cooler when you started driving.

 

I work outside all day and what's more I have an electronic weather station at home, recording daily minimums, maximums, barometric pressure etc, etc. I think after all the years I have a fairly good idea what 30 ^oC, 35 ^oC and 40 ^oC feels like. I also have vehicles with temperature sensors and I can correlate their readings with the weather station and that is how I know that a vehicle parked in the sun or even partial shade like under a tree will often register a reading of 15 ^oC higher than actual.

 

I am not denying that it was very warm on Saturday, just not 40 ^oC. If it was 42 ^oC, and even hotter like you claim sometime Saturday, the local hospitals in Harrismith and Ladismith would have been flooded with heat stroke sufferers because even some off the non participating people and locals in the area would have contracted heatstroke. There is a reason why the army suspends training if temperature rises above 41 ^oC, and that reason is that it is downright dangerous, even for extremely fit and heat adapted young servicemen. Ask any of the men (or women) who did a stint of national service at some of the warmer places in South Africa like Oudtshoorn or Lohatla what 42 ^oC feels like. It is unbearably hot. Even the air that you breath feels warm in your lungs and everything, even plastic or wood that you touch feels warm because everything is at least 5 ^oC warmer than your core temperature.

 

But hey, if you want to believe it was 45 ^oC and hotter over the weekend don't let me stop you! At least we are in agreement over the most important part of this thread and that is that Berg and Bush is one of the best events out there! And that most of us had the biggest jols of our lifes despite the heat, dust and wind! Big 's for all the organizers.

[Forthefun]

EPIC , Cape pioneer and the Trans African travers ,across South Africa. For proper riders. The other races are fantastic as a great sport hobby trails. Ideal for the majority that train four times a week and ride FOR FUN. And if you are in not in the top 50 your testing your self and your buddy's only. To me that's sounds like real fun. But don't kid your selves. The top 50 are the snakes. The rest .... We kid our selves. But its real fun.

 

Can't get enough. But I to would shy away from riding at 42-48c I to must be a sissy. Clever me never.

 

[Wyatt Earp]

EPIC , Cape pioneer and the Trans African travers ,across South Africa. For proper riders. The other races are fantastic as a great sport hobby trails. Ideal for the majority that train four times a week and ride FOR FUN. And if you are in not in the top 50 your testing your self and your buddy's only. To me that's sounds like real fun. But don't kid your selves. The top 50 are the snakes. The rest .... We kid our selves. But its real fun.

 

Can't get enough. But I to would shy away from riding at 42-48c I to must be a sissy. Clever me never.

 

I would like to see someone do J2C on 4 times a week of riding and finish everyday within the allotted time .

[Ratty]

Oh, and get off the riding line when you are walking, goddammit!!

Edit: (Particularly on Mike's Pass. I'm not saying I would have made the final bit, but I might have, and I'd like to have tried... )

 

Couldn't agree more - it was nice and dry this year and worth a shot - unfortunately not to be...

 

Too easy this year, hell even I nearly made it all the way up and I suck at climbing (had to walk the rocky section with everyone else, but my lungs were happy). Don't know what they had in those jelly beans at the waterpoint.

[rouxtjie]

EPIC , Cape pioneer and the Trans African travers ,across South Africa. For proper riders. The other races are fantastic as a great sport hobby trails. Ideal for the majority that train four times a week and ride FOR FUN. And if you are in not in the top 50 your testing your self and your buddy's only. To me that's sounds like real fun. But don't kid your selves. The top 50 are the snakes. The rest .... We kid our selves. But its real fun.

 

Can't get enough. But I to would shy away from riding at 42-48c I to must be a sissy. Clever me never.

Wahahahha funny post....where does 32nd at the babbas half put me

[Mtblife]

((So you are saying the car temperature was wrong as well? The suburu registered 42 and that wasn't at the hottest point.))

 

It was hotter than 41c at ground zero. Garmin use a sophisticated temperature sensor on their device. Its records max and averages every min.

 

Sniffie, I to have rather elaborate understanding of such devices and temp reading apparatus. I will tell you that in parts of the ride according to the graph I studied it reached past 41c and it is likely that it reached 44c. As at that specific point the reading was recorded. Even if the calibration was out by a degree, which is unlikely as the averages were very high and 43c could have been for a short period, but I assure you no mystifying with presence of science will negate what is fact. You may befuddle some, but some who ride bikes also have lectured on physics to post graduates so you are saying the car temperature was wrong as well? Possible, but I am happy to use the Garmin graphs as accurate reading at that point at that time.

 

The suburu registered 42 and that wasn't at the hottest point. Take it that it was past 41c for a good hour or two at some time around 12.30. I don't believe it reached 48c as one cyclist wrote, but I am sure there were temps on the trail of 41-43c at some parts of the first days ride for at least one or two hours for the slow riders.

 

Moral ride fast.. Very fast.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Mtblife

[Sniffie]

I am sorry if you think my intention was to befuddle anyone, far from it. Simple fact is if you ride with a garmin or any other device with a "sophisticated temperature sensor" on your handlebar or stem it will be in direct sunlight most of the time. This radiation from the sun will heat up the body of your device and this heat will be transferred to the sensor eventually. Common sense tell me that this temperature reading must me higher than that on a similar device left in the shade.

[NotSoBigBen]

I am sorry if you think my intention was to befuddle anyone, far from it. Simple fact is if you ride with a garmin or any other device with a "sophisticated temperature sensor" on your handlebar or stem it will be in direct sunlight most of the time. This radiation from the sun will heat up the body of your device and this heat will be transferred to the sensor eventually. Common sense tell me that this temperature reading must me higher than that on a similar device left in the shade.

 

Just 2 comments that make me wonder ....

 

1) The same 'radiation' is heating one's body?

2) They weren't riding in the shade ....

[Sniffie]

Just 2 comments that make me wonder ....

 

1) The same 'radiation' is heating one's body?

2) They weren't riding in the shade ....

You are right on both accounts, but the whole debate is about temperature readings. For temperature readings to be comparable the world over meteorologists have devised protocols for recording this. Temperature readings are taken in the shade at 1.5 m above ground level. To be more accurate and comparable actually inside a stevenson screen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevenson_screen Off course it will be warmer in the sun, maybe 20 ^oC or even more. If you put your garmin inside the stevenson screen the temperature would be much lower than on your handlebar in the sun, that is the point I am trying to make. Temperature forecasts on weather maps are for the temperature in the shade.

[Wyatt Earp]

Big discussion about the accuracy of the temperature and in the end of the day everyone will agree, it was moer hot.

[davetapson]

((So you are saying the car temperature was wrong as well? The suburu registered 42 and that wasn't at the hottest point.))

 

It was hotter than 41c at ground zero. Garmin use a sophisticated temperature sensor on their device. Its records max and averages every min.

 

Sniffie, I to have rather elaborate understanding of such devices and temp reading apparatus. I will tell you that in parts of the ride according to the graph I studied it reached past 41c and it is likely that it reached 44c. As at that specific point the reading was recorded. Even if the calibration was out by a degree, which is unlikely as the averages were very high and 43c could have been for a short period, but I assure you no mystifying with presence of science will negate what is fact. You may befuddle some, but some who ride bikes also have lectured on physics to post graduates so you are saying the car temperature was wrong as well? Possible, but I am happy to use the Garmin graphs as accurate reading at that point at that time.

 

The suburu registered 42 and that wasn't at the hottest point. Take it that it was past 41c for a good hour or two at some time around 12.30. I don't believe it reached 48c as one cyclist wrote, but I am sure there were temps on the trail of 41-43c at some parts of the first days ride for at least one or two hours for the slow riders.

 

Moral ride fast.. Very fast.

 

Yeh - I dunno. I lived in Oshakati for a while, and when we had days of 40 deg plus, it was absolutely SCORCHING.

 

I can remember walking out of the office door just to walk to our barn and just turning around before I even got off the stoep. And I was acclimatized to the heat. Admittedly there was a lot of reflection off sand that may have played a part, but there is no way it was that hot on Friday.

 

Mid 30's sure, maybe high 30's. Mid 40's? Nah. My polar says 46 deg. Maybe it got that hot (it's black, and was in the sun), but that wasn't the temp that we talk about when when we talk about weather temps (which are measured in a Stephenson Screen i.e. in the shade).

Edited October 16, 2013 by davetapson