SA Gravel Champs 2023

[Comrade J]

Just last night on Instagram, that this year's event is being held on the 13 August at Karkloof

https://www.gogravelmidlands.co.za/

 

[peetwindhoek]

I believe the course was proper and the strongest won!

[Rowl]

Results are here:
https://results.finishtime.co.za/results.aspx?CId=35&RId=4184&EId=1&dt=2

[buckstopper]

Was this race (135km + 2700m ascent and gnarly roads) just too hard for most? Apparently built by a guy who rode the freedom circuit on a bike with drop bars and who suggested people put big tyres on....

Probably a harder parcour than gravel worlds. Saw a comment by former pro about the mtb descent. 29/130 (1 in 4) non finishers on the 134km one lap circuit.

I would agree that SA'S should be tough, the danger of crashing removes the incentive to ride (for me at least). Is there a CSA rep who knows what a gravel route should be who okayed the event. Would be interested to get their take. 

[ajnkzn]

Argus is a harder route than gravel worlds was. 
 

There’s nothing stopping you from taking a descent slowly if you are worried about crashing. 
 

Study the route, ask locals about conditions if you can’t pre ride portions of route, put some tougher / bigger tyres on your bike and work on your skills. 
 

If you look at Matt’s bike he didn’t have huge tyres on, isn’t a light guy and was fine (clearly) on the descent. 
 

That’s the beauty / point of gravel racing, conditions change and are supposed to be challenging. 
 

Or it would be road racing. 
 

P.S. the section in question was the victim of roadworks where shale / gravel had been put down and due to the normal vagaries of SA public works, had not been fully crushed / compacted yet. 
 

The organisers made it abundantly clear both with caution signs and with repeated warnings in race briefing packs and prior to each batch start that the road was bad and caution had to be taken. 
 

All of the other jeep track / forestry road sections that are not manicured had at the least been swept and checked for any obstacles - one section I recently rode that was full of sticks etc from tree felling had literally been scraped clean so due care was 100% taken. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by ajnkzn

[Jewbacca]

I think it's rad... Some years various champs suits sprinters, some years climbers, some years classics specialists etc In MTB some years the routes are technical, other years less so.

Everyone races the same route, everyone there takes the same risks.

I'm not in the 'make it as hard as you can' camp just for the sake of it, but in reality one has to race what is in front of them. 

What suits you might not suit others, so there is always someone who will feel the course isn't what they wanted.

But then everyone knows this. Sometimes it is just forgotten when things don't go your way.

Looking at the results for the Elite men it looks as though most of the strong men managed to get where they needed to get in an order resembling a reasonable predicted outcome

 

[mecheng89]

44 minutes ago, ajnkzn said:

Argus is a harder route than gravel worlds was. 
 

There’s nothing stopping you from taking a descent slowly if you are worried about crashing. 
 

Study the route, ask locals about conditions if you can’t pre ride portions of route, put some tougher / bigger tyres on your bike and work on your skills. 
 

If you look at Matt’s bike he didn’t have huge tyres on, isn’t a light guy and was fine (clearly) on the descent. 
 

That’s the beauty / point of gravel racing, conditions change and are supposed to be challenging. 
 

Or it would be road racing. 
 

P.S. the section in question was the victim of roadworks where shale / gravel had been put down and due to the normal vagaries of SA public works, had not been fully crushed / compacted yet. 
 

The organisers made it abundantly clear both with caution signs and with repeated warnings in race briefing packs and prior to each batch start that the road was bad and caution had to be taken. 
 

All of the other jeep track / forestry road sections that are not manicured had at the least been swept and checked for any obstacles - one section I recently rode that was full of sticks etc from tree felling had literally been scraped clean so due care was 100% taken. 

You sound like you were part of the organizing committee.

Edited August 14, 2023 by mecheng89
Attitude

[mecheng89]

2 hours ago, buckstopper said:

Was this race (135km + 2700m ascent and gnarly roads) just too hard for most? Apparently built by a guy who rode the freedom circuit on a bike with drop bars and who suggested people put big tyres on....

Probably a harder parcour than gravel worlds. Saw a comment by former pro about the mtb descent. 29/130 (1 in 4) non finishers on the 134km one lap circuit.

I would agree that SA'S should be tough, the danger of crashing removes the incentive to ride (for me at least). Is there a CSA rep who knows what a gravel route should be who okayed the event. Would be interested to get their take. 

Apparently he "only" came third in the 30-39 age cat. 

[ajnkzn]

53 minutes ago, mecheng89 said:

You sound like you were part of the organizing committee.

I’m not. 
 

I was there and rode one of the shorter races so feel that I am fairly well qualified to speak to the conditions. 
 

 

[buckstopper]

3 hours ago, ajnkzn said:

I’m not. 
 

I was there and rode one of the shorter races so feel that I am fairly well qualified to speak to the conditions. 

What bike did you ride mtb/gravel?

[binxc]

I rode the 134km and I consider my technical skills to be middling at best - there was one sketchy section. It was well marked and they warned you at the start about it. It was also in the race briefing document and was as a result of recent roadworks that were not completed. I was on a MTB and it was perfectly rideable. Would I want to have ridden it on a gravel bike? Probably not in my personal capacity - but I would have made it down with caution. If you're choosing to ride a gravel bike at a national championship, I would assume you had the skills to match - and it was maybe a kilometre on and off of dodgy gravel out of 134km. The rest of the roads were either good to average for South Africa.

The high attrition rate seemed more to be a combination of poor conditioning and the heat. I think a lot of gravel bikers mostly use these weapons on tar with a few connecting gravel roads, and then take strain when there is 99% gravel and 2400m of climbing to boot. I have passed far more gravel bikes dropping out due to mechanicals on Karoo Burn and C2T.

[peetwindhoek]

What a champ! He was happy with the route

[buckstopper]

@binxc have you ridden 100km+ on a gravel bike with only your 40mm tyres pumped to 2 bar+ as suspension at 80% intensity for, say 5+ hours? My interest in terms of this race (a race, as opposed a ride to finish), is that it is called SA Gravel Champs - ie a gravel bike race. Riding a soft or hardtail even is surely very different. Suspension, bigger tyres, steering, much easier I would say. 

[J Wakefield]

4 minutes ago, buckstopper said:

@binxc have you ridden 100km+ on a gravel bike with only your 40mm tyres pumped to 2 bar+ as suspension at 80% intensity for, say 5+ hours? My interest in terms of this race (a race, as opposed a ride to finish), is that it is called SA Gravel Champs - ie a gravel bike race. Riding a soft or hardtail even is surely very different. Suspension, bigger tyres, steering, much easier I would say. 

Did you also miss out on the participation medal? 
 

 

[binxc]

16 minutes ago, buckstopper said:

@binxc have you ridden 100km+ on a gravel bike with only your 40mm tyres pumped to 2 bar+ as suspension at 80% intensity for, say 5+ hours? My interest in terms of this race (a race, as opposed a ride to finish), is that it is called SA Gravel Champs - ie a gravel bike race. Riding a soft or hardtail even is surely very different. Suspension, bigger tyres, steering, much easier I would say. 

I don’t need to - I acknowledge I need comfort over speed. But I wasn’t there to win it, just enjoy a challenging event in a scenic area. If I had been there to win it then I would have had to have been on a gravel bike and prepared accordingly. My point is that the roads were generally better than the majority of gravel races I have experienced in SA, barring a few outliers in the Western Cape or if you’re lucky and the roads have just been graded. Unfortunately we can’t expect the consistent high quality of the roads they have at gravel races in the USA or Europe. A serious gravel challenger here is going to have to be prepared to deal with the suffering on a rigid bike with smaller tyres and drop bars. The speed of the winner seems to indicate that there wasn’t a problem with the course. 

[buckstopper]

 Wasn't even near there. Just saw comments by a couple of racers who's views I rate is all.  I'm really trying to understand (the mindset of the organisers of) gravel racing in SA vs say, Europe. 

If my fitness is at the right level I'll give my age group a go. I wouldn't ride a national champs race for a participation medal. Racing can be fun though, even when it's super hard. I recently did a mtb race on a gravel bike and I've done a Swartberg 100 on a gravel bike. There's a risk element to this and having done a pelvis and a shoulder, maybe my appetite for a big off is not as big as those a bit less long in the tooth. 

 

38 minutes ago, J Wakefield said:

Did you also miss out on the participation medal?