Cape Town Cycle Tour 2024

[droo]

4 hours ago, MongooseMan said:

I was just wondering how long we'd have to wait for a box and whisker plot

@JM_NEL did you do the 99er one?

I'm also keen to see this...

[Spinnaroonie]

Any race reports with hot pickled onions and extra chilli???? 

[Shebeen]

7 minutes ago, droo said:

I'm also keen to see this...

it's on pg 58 in my browser

very nicely done.

 

https://forum.bikehub.co.za/topic/195804-cape-town-cycle-tour-2024/?do=findComment&comment=3954355

[droo]

9 minutes ago, Shebeen said:

it's on pg 58 in my browser

very nicely done.

 

https://forum.bikehub.co.za/topic/195804-cape-town-cycle-tour-2024/?do=findComment&comment=3954355

Saw this while getting through the rest of the thread, thanks. 

@JM_NEL good job, very useful for us wannabe alphabet soup racers to see how we stacked up against the rest of the field. 

[Phillippe Coetzee]

7 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

@cadenceblurEverything starts with setting goals that are achievable. Its pointless trying to get a sub 3 when you've just started cycling and need to drop a lot of body weight while also gaining a lot of physical strength on 1 hr per day of available training time. Or maybe you're just trying to raise your ceiling, then that's a different discussion.

Every goal has to be realistic and backed up with a suitable training and nutrition plan that is sustainable. I've seen quick fixes cause more long term motivational and physical damage whilst allowing that short term goal. That is not worth it in my view. 

So here's my step by step guide. I won't break it down to sub bullets yet till you can share some information @Phillippe Coetzee

 

1. what kind of cyclist are you currently? Weekend warrior on road, mtb, gravel, or combinations
2. how long have you been cycling?
3. How many hours do you currently cycle, or spend on other physical activity?
4. Do you currently or have you in the past participated in any sport at a high level and what was that sport and how recently?
5. How many hours per week do you work and on which days?
6. Is this work stressful or do you enjoy it to the point that stress is low?
7. Is your family supportive of your sport leisure time or do you have to share your leisure time
8. How much time per week do you have for physical activity alone?
9. What are your sporting goals?
10. Do you have any health issues?

 

More detail than this would start to delve into personal information that starts to require one on one discussion with disclosure agreements. But with the above and if the moderators don't see any issue with you sharing, we can help guide you and others who are looking to raise their ceiling.

 

Step 1:  set your goals

step2: get your family on board and arrange your life around the time required to achieve the goal

step3; get help. that may be  coach or someone or bodies who have achieved similar goals and are consistent. One hit wonders won' help, consistency is key because they have been through the highs and lows and are still plugging away.

step4: start your plan, including getting nutrition going in the right direction. Ride your bike, go to gym. start small and build sustainable love for your activities. We eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Step5: measure progress. Whether that's just the number of exercises, time on the bike average speed, time improvement over a course, measure, record, measure, record, measure, record, including weight loss. everything that you can.

step 6; learn the necessary skills: whether road or mtb, there are specific skills to learn. Bike handling is one skill, bunch riding is another, following a wheel in the bunch, braking, balance, cornering etc. are all skills that make or lose time.

step 7: enter some events even if just to practice skills but also to build your confidence and get your seeding up. Races are also where you get to know other riders and how they behave. This knowledge will help you when the chips are down in key races. You will know who to follow and who to avoid. Its pointless following someone to the front of the bunch just before Edinburgh Drive when yo know they're going to blow half way up.

There are certain things I don't prescribe because everyone's circumstances are different. I don't advocate clubs although this is a good way to find  a regular riding crew. Often you get advice in clubs that is not very good and sometime you find club that are brilliant. Be discerning here and find a club with a culture and members that aligned with your goals. If you're going to spend time with people make it valuable. Its pointless being a racing snake in a leisure club.

Power meters are nice to have but not essential at the beginning. When looking for the last 1% then I will say its is essential. At least have a heart rate monitor. These are relative cheap today with many players in the market.

 

I've probably missed a few points but the above are points of consideration that should spark some healthy conversation 

*please note I am on phone if the format of the message comes out weird or if it sends halfway 😂

I am 23 now, weighing 85kg and is 186cm

Also note I want to lose 10ish kg, not that I am fat, just want to be lighter and more healthy.

also I dont want to do a 3h tomorrow, I know stuff takes time and I am happy with that. But one needs to start somewhere.

I dont have a riding group, I cycling with my gf’s dad but I know we are to slow for 3h goal rides if it makes sense. 

I cycling with a dual sus Titan racing Cypher.

 

1) The kind that tries to cycle daily. (If that counts)

2) I would day the last 7 months I was pretty active in the cycling world, trying to practise a more and consistent.

3) I try do cycle 1.5h a day for 4 days a week and try to do one longer ride over the weekend of around 3 ish hours. (9-11 h weekly on a good week.)

4) I was a pretty decent 400/800m athlete in high school. (2016-2018)

5) Self employed but studying full time so busy with studies 6h per week and I would say working around 4ish Hours per day.

6)Work is not stressful at the moment. Its cycling related.

7) They are supportive

8 Quite a lot honestly, probably a few hours a day and more over weekends. 

9) I want to be a strong cyclist like I was in my running. I dont want to poer poer at the back, I want to test myself. Current goal will be close to 3hours on the 94.7

10) Stomach issues now and then hehe.

 

Hope this helps

[ChrisF]

1 hour ago, WaynejG said:

What is the reason for the minimum time for the E Bikes? 

 

Somebody sat down and did some maths ....

 

Then sucked their thumb .....

 

"Legally" only 250W pedal-assist bikes, with a spedd assist limit of 25km/h may be used, as per the relevant SANS regulations (as copied from the European regulations)

 

Allowing for faster speeds down hill, and only the legal 26km/h on uphills yada yada .... they came up with 3:50.

 

My knees are reasonably buggered.  If I push it hard, I manage a 3:45 on a good weather day.

 

 

Practically, the minimum time is the only way to try and minimize the impact ebikes can have on race results, i.e. towing other racers to better race times.  Though the hour delayed start should be enough .....

 

 

[RoadNoob6]

9 minutes ago, Phillippe Coetzee said:

*please note I am on phone if the format of the message comes out weird or if it sends halfway 😂

I am 23 now, weighing 85kg and is 186cm

Also note I want to lose 10ish kg, not that I am fat, just want to be lighter and more healthy.

also I dont want to do a 3h tomorrow, I know stuff takes time and I am happy with that. But one needs to start somewhere.

I dont have a riding group, I cycling with my gf’s dad but I know we are to slow for 3h goal rides if it makes sense. 

I cycling with a dual sus Titan racing Cypher.

 

1) The kind that tries to cycle daily. (If that counts)

2) I would day the last 7 months I was pretty active in the cycling world, trying to practise a more and consistent.

3) I try do cycle 1.5h a day for 4 days a week and try to do one longer ride over the weekend of around 3 ish hours. (9-11 h weekly on a good week.)

4) I was a pretty decent 400/800m athlete in high school. (2016-2018)

5) Self employed but studying full time so busy with studies 6h per week and I would say working around 4ish Hours per day.

6)Work is not stressful at the moment. Its cycling related.

7) They are supportive

8 Quite a lot honestly, probably a few hours a day and more over weekends. 

9) I want to be a strong cyclist like I was in my running. I dont want to poer poer at the back, I want to test myself. Current goal will be close to 3hours on the 94.7

10) Stomach issues now and then hehe.

 

Hope this helps

@Phillippe Coetzee @cadenceblur some input, I am 26, I started cycling and did my first CTCT in 2021, I got a sub 3 last year (2023) starting from group 1A.

I rode two or three times a week until Autumn 2022 when I started doing 6 - 8 hours a week spread over usually four or five rides. I also rode a high-end bike (I dare say it but it makes life easier). I also did several races from summer 2022 throughout the season to get a good seeding.

I would suggest joining one very fast group ride once a week.

Hindsight being 20/20, I would have made my goal sub-3 by 2024, the time spent etc. You don't want to wake up one morning and feel sick of cycling. Pace yourself and enjoy the ride.

Edited March 11 by RoadNoob6

[capediver]

This tells me everything I need to know:

Get a bigger bike...

Carry more Game bottles....

 

[Meezo]

1 hour ago, Jbr said:

ooof, didn't go that far in the analysis. all I can say is that usually I aim to do rougly 390/400w for 3,5/4.5 mins on the main climbs, and yesterday those numbers were waaaaay below that on chappies and suikers, I pretty much did those climbs at 107% FTP 😅. Yet I somehow finished close to the front of the main bunch.  🤷

2‍98 NP / 251 avg / 284 weighted for 70kg. the gap between avg and NP says it all I think. I must say when I rolled to the front of my group at the top of Chappies willing to use my motorbike racers skills to close the gap in the descent and was hit by a block headwind I immediately regretted it 🤣

Haha, has me and @babse riding at threshold on training rides... Then he's on zone 2 ride... 

Then humbly finishes in the front of the group while I'm still in bed and @babse negotiating with grim reaper on Chapmans Peak 

[Shebeen]

2 hours ago, Jewbacca said:

The guy in 6th place is one of the owners of a prominent bike shop in the CBD recently accused of arrogance! hahahahaha

The irony

(E bikers under allotted time... the quote never quoted)

Thought someone might pick that up, I'm just posting the publicly available data.

since they are reorganising the data, here it is for now. I'm not sure what UOF means, people have a time at the finish, and it looks like timecut is 7:30.

 

quick stats attack from here!

1014 entered the 109km ebike race (officially). 638:376 male:female so about 63:37% gender split

those who beat the timecut are in a (14:3) 82:18% gender split

So it goes to show, the proportion of male chops on ebikes IS higher than the usual population

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mayo916]

I did not see any crashes in the "&" bunch but it was sketchy and stressful (More so than previous years), especially the first half and when the guys from "@" joined when we caught them.

There was just one guy I identified that rode very dodgy in "&".

During the race, I couldn't figure out how such a strong rider could have such poor bike-handling skills in a bunch.

When I googled him now, I saw he is a triathlete and it all made sense.

[Phillippe Coetzee]

11 minutes ago, RoadNoob6 said:

@Phillippe Coetzee @cadenceblur some input, I am 26, I started cycling and did my first CTCT in 2021, I got a sub 3 last year (2023) starting from group 1A.

I rode two or three times a week until Autumn 2022 when I started doing 6 - 8 hours a week spread over usually four or five rides. I also rode a high-end bike (I dare say it but it makes life easier). I also did several races from summer 2022 throughout the season to get a good seeding.

I would suggest joining one very fast group ride once a week.

Hindsight being 20/20, I would have made my goal sub-3 by 2024, the time spent etc. You don't want to wake up one morning and feel sick of cycling. Pace yourself and enjoy the ride.

Thank you, I struggle with a hard bike (If it makes sense, like a Hardtail.) Dont think ill survive on a road bike. Main reason why I want to keep a mtb is because a lot of my friends cycle with mountain bikes and I would still love to join them so a HT wouldnt be a bad option but yeah. Still undecided

[Jbr]

6 minutes ago, Meezo said:

Haha, has me and @babse riding at threshold on training rides... Then he's on zone 2 ride... 

Then humbly finishes in the front of the group while I'm still in bed and @babse negotiating with grim reaper on Chapmans Peak 

Come on, we were just finishing with the war stories when @babse arrived, wasn't that far behind 😅

[Shebeen]

I wasn't going to bother with the 42km ebikes, because who would bother crooking there? Unfortunately I looked, and my faith in humanity was disappointed.

The minimum time finish for the 42km ebike is 1:50. Maybe this is too slow, because of the 146 finishers in this category, 70 were under the minimum timelimit.

Some started with the first batch at 9A, which includes some youngsters (u17s won this race on acoustic bikes - but behind the first hero who average this could be a fun challenge actually for juniors to race). but it would be impossible to have an actual tactical race, and if it got any sort of prestige there would be dads on ebikes pushing little jonny up edinburgh drive before long.

 

edit: removed the names, they need to rethink this one i reckon.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 11 by Shebeen

[DieselnDust]

1 minute ago, Phillippe Coetzee said:

Thank you, I struggle with a hard bike (If it makes sense, like a Hardtail.) Dont think ill survive on a road bike. Main reason why I want to keep a mtb is because a lot of my friends cycle with mountain bikes and I would still love to join them so a HT wouldnt be a bad option but yeah. Still undecided

Keep the Mtb and get a second hand road bike. No substitute for the right tools for the job. Why would you want to punish your Mtb on tar anyway??

just read your response to the questions . You have a lot going for you; youth time and prior athleticism. You just need some guidance on training and a good meal plan. Training on the Mtb is not a bad idea and shouldn’t stop you starting your journey asap. 
any Mtb event experience that you can share?

[Phillippe Coetzee]

4 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

Keep the Mtb and get a second hand road bike. No substitute for the right tools for the job. Why would you want to punish your Mtb on tar anyway??

just read your response to the questions . You have a lot going for you; youth time and prior athleticism. You just need some guidance on training and a good meal plan. Training on the Mtb is not a bad idea and shouldn’t stop you starting your journey asap. 
any Mtb event experience that you can share?

Never done a mtb race in my life 😵 Would love to do one.

Not the most skillfull cyclist out there. (Bunny hopping over pavements, doing wheelies etc.)

But I have a good athletic background and I love to push myself, did a 48s 400m and a 1:54 800m, not the best but not the worst.

Have strong genetics as well in the sporting world (my parents.)

I would probably be willing to sell my Dual sus for a hardtail tho but dont know if its worthit. 

Edited March 11 by Phillippe Coetzee