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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, throttles said:

For a message saying race was cancelled midway due to heat. 46+ currently 👀🤷🏻‍♂️

Yea 46°c realy not fun at all. Awesome venue and trails will be back next year.

20240127_122017.jpg

Edited by Barry
Posted (edited)

This was LEKKA :thumbup:

 

Lekker gees amongst the riders.

 

We finished before 9:00, still in the 20's then.

 

 

Had a surprise guest in the ebike group.  Couple of pro's having a chilled day out.  Nice slow climb, getting some gap ..... then BLASTED those single tracks !!!!  Looking back over the one kloof I saw the three catching up FAST .... each and every tail whip was accompanied with loud laughter echoing over the kloof.

 

Banhoek-37.jpg.76fe49b11e5fa336101ec0a47ab9a1bb.jpg

 

I stopped to swop out the GoPro battery when they came FLYING past me .... still laughing out loud having a ton of FUN on the single tracks.

Edited by ChrisF
Posted
17 hours ago, ChrisF said:

 

Based on the weather of the last 6 weeks ..... my best guess ....

 

Nice comfortable cool start after 6:00.

 

Between 7:00 and 8:00 the cool lifts ....

 

8:00 to 9:00 it gradually moves from nice to high 20's ....

 

After 9:00 all bets are off !!!!!!!

 

 

 

Last Saturday it was a very nice 27 at 9:00.  Short coffe stop and 5km later it was reaching for 35 degrees .....

 

 

The one big unknown .... what wind will we have tomorrow ..... it heats up earlier on a wind still day ....

 

 

 

 

faster 40km riders may just miss the worst of the heat.  BUT, I am supposed to save matches for Sundays 102km race .....

 

 

Latter half of the long route may be good to plan to stop for water at each point ....

 

 

 

 

Off course .... energy output at the pointy end may well start feeling the heat earlier .....

 

 

 

 

PS - ignore these as the rumbling of a nervous first timer that needs to go to bed ..... I have ZERO knowledge of this trail !!!  Just some anecdotal information of the climate around it.

 

 

 

VOORSPOED ryers :thumbup:

Im doing the half on sunday…but single speeding. Hope i dont die🤣

Posted

Took a couple of videos at Banhoek .... HOW do you select a few minutes when most of the videos has nice shots ....

 

This is a single unedited GoPro clip, purely because it has a bit of everything in it.

 

 

 

Posted
9 hours ago, throttles said:

For a message saying race was cancelled midway due to heat. 46+ currently 👀🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Conditions changed quickly, later in the morning.

 

 

9:00 it was 29 degrees, back at the start.

 

By 11.00 friends doing the 63km suffered in the mid 40's ... my one friend says the last 20km they were passing people sitting in the streams

 

 

The were back about 15 minutes when the call came to cancel

Posted

Yeah… glad you had a good experience, but mine compared to previous Trailseekers was decidedly different.  I had planned to do the Winelands the next day and as such wanted to do the half marathon. But the 8:30 start was a terrible idea, started out and all good, but knew heat was going to be an issue as by 9 it was cooking already. What became immediately apparent was the lack of medics and officials on route, people seemed to be crashing quite a bit and having to head back quite far for help. It soon became a battle of heat adaption, people were suffering with the heat early on, came across a gent on the one climb violently ill from heat, I think it was clocking 38-39 at that point. Water points were 10k and 29k in, stopped at 29k and no water or anything available except naartjies and gels. Not ayoba… waited for some time for water to arrive, but by that stage people were losing their sense of humour big time, we had already hit 47 odd if Garmin is to be believed, it sure felt like it. But I was shot, and beginning to feel heatstroke symptoms and couldn’t  hold water down, so decided to bail with a bunch of people already having done so. The nice cold facecloth that we were met with in the past at the finish, no longer there. What I don’t understand is the heat was not a surprise and it’s not like these guys haven’t done this before. How is it possible to run dry at water points? Also, why start so late? 

P.S did announce my dnf to the officials. 

Posted
32 minutes ago, Murrob said:

Yeah… glad you had a good experience, but mine compared to previous Trailseekers was decidedly different.  I had planned to do the Winelands the next day and as such wanted to do the half marathon. But the 8:30 start was a terrible idea, started out and all good, but knew heat was going to be an issue as by 9 it was cooking already. What became immediately apparent was the lack of medics and officials on route, people seemed to be crashing quite a bit and having to head back quite far for help. It soon became a battle of heat adaption, people were suffering with the heat early on, came across a gent on the one climb violently ill from heat, I think it was clocking 38-39 at that point. Water points were 10k and 29k in, stopped at 29k and no water or anything available except naartjies and gels. Not ayoba… waited for some time for water to arrive, but by that stage people were losing their sense of humour big time, we had already hit 47 odd if Garmin is to be believed, it sure felt like it. But I was shot, and beginning to feel heatstroke symptoms and couldn’t  hold water down, so decided to bail with a bunch of people already having done so. The nice cold facecloth that we were met with in the past at the finish, no longer there. What I don’t understand is the heat was not a surprise and it’s not like these guys haven’t done this before. How is it possible to run dry at water points? Also, why start so late? 

P.S did announce my dnf to the officials. 

 

Were they possibly trying to avoid the 2023 issue of the kids and racers on the same single tracks towards the end at the same time ?

 

Even so, the very extreme spread of starting times were very strange.

 

Most of the ebikes were finished before 9:00, with the kids only starting at 9:30 .... into the heat.

 

 

Friends did the marathon, as part of their Tankwa training.  They have been doing a number of hot rides during the holiday.  They suffered towards the end !!!  Got to that last water point with only a little water left.  They made it to the finish line about 15 minutes before the race was cancelled.

 

 

Such a pity about the "very late starts" for some groups .... The ebikes started at 6:30 and had THEE BEST day on the trails. 

 

 

 

PS - Real pity you missed out on Winelands.  The maximum temperature was a very nice 24 degrees, with the slightest head wind to cool you down.  Yes, head wind for 90km ...

Posted (edited)

As much as the first two videos covered the contours and fun down-lines .... CLIMBS are very much part of the sport ....

 

Yet another unedited clip of Banhoek -

 

 

 

Edited by ChrisF
Posted
30 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

As much as the first two videos covered the contours and fun down-lines .... CLIMBS are very much part of the sport ....

 

Yet another unedited clip of Banhoek -

 

 

 

There was a guy 2 riders in front of me on this climb who clipped his handle bar on a tree and was launched off the side of the trail in a spot with a very steep drop off - he somehow managed to grab/hang onto a tree with both hands - stopping him from flying down the side… one of the craziest things I’ve seen on a bike 😅 and impressive. 

Posted
12 hours ago, ChrisF said:

As much as the first two videos covered the contours and fun down-lines .... CLIMBS are very much part of the sport ....

 

Yet another unedited clip of Banhoek -

 

 

 

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. 

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