[Event] 99er Cycle Tour

[Skubarra]

Looking at the resuls now, did no one tell the peeps in % this is a race not a coffee ride? 🤷‍♂️🙈

[Newest]

10 minutes ago, Pure Savage said:

Why is it the last road event for the year for them? Tour de PPA, WP road league, CTCTT?

Ramadan starting next week... and it will be the last event for this summer for most members.. not the entire year. We do have 2 none muslim guys who will do the rest of the races. So all the best to them. 

[BuffsVintageBikes]

Great event once again @NicholasH, congrats to you and the entire 99er Team 👏

I did the Trilogy once again with a few mates and thoroughly enjoyed it (as usual) 😊 I think it's got a perfect mix of tar, gravel, mtbing 🙌

That Bull standing at the one A frame was the only thing that rattled me the whole morning... Yoh, that was a solid piece of rump steak, I'm seriously glad he was so chilled 🙃

BTW, there's a Gravel road around the back of the Fisantekraal Airport so it can be avoided (well for the Trilogy riders anyway) 😊

[NicholasH]

Just now, BuffsVintageBikes said:

Great event once again @NicholasH, congrats to you and the entire 99er Team 👏

I did the Trilogy once again with a few mates and thoroughly enjoyed it (as usual) 😊 I think it's got a perfect mix of tar, gravel, mtbing 🙌

That Bull standing at the one A frame was the only thing that rattled me the whole morning... Yoh, that was a solid piece of rump steak, I'm seriously glad he was so chilled 🙃

BTW, there's a Gravel road around the back of the Fisantekraal Airport so it can be avoided (well for the Trilogy riders anyway) 😊

Morning 🙂 

Yes, that bull was on my ride when I did the trail marking on the Tuesday. My bike marshals (that you saw dotted along the route) actually took pictures of that beast! (Just don't wear RED on race day)

We used that gravel route the very first year when it was 60km total. The problem is you cannot get from there to the other side without crossing the main road to get an 80km route, hence we all using the 4 way intersection now.

Also, I spoke with the (then) landowner and he has just sold his farm to the Airport Co, and they want me to sign a waiver document as long as my arm in case someone gets injured on their land, etc, etc. It just got too complicated for many reasons. 

What I loved about this year's Trilogy was that mielie field bit. I think it caught many people out (locals were familiar with it) esp those on gravel bikes....

[DieselnDust]

51 minutes ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

Hey all, thanks for the explanation wrt the Sunday. I do respect the right of religious freedom. We all have the freedom of belief and this aint the USA. No offense intended. 

I think the race was well run from what i saw and i only have ever done it once but it seemed  very popular and I am observing that as a result of its popularity you may need to think about how you take it forward, which I say as a result of past experience.

I really dont do many road races without road closures any more because of what i saw and what happened up country. There was a time when there were races every weekend and especially in the lead up to CTCT they got very big. I also used to do as many as possible so have ridden every one on Saturdays and Sundays in Gauteng North (who also raced on Saturdays for religious reasons) and Sundays, with entries from 500 people in the late 90's to 8000 at its peak. This was in Gauteng. Some of them are still running but with markedly reduced numbers, mostly because no one wanted to attend any more.

Ride for Sight, Hyper to Hyper aka the fast one. Edenvale cycle challenge, Race for Victory and many through the cradle. Sun city was very popular and is the one that I saw the worst bunches across both lanes with oncoming traffic. Not cars but large trucks out near the mines and going head on into bunches because the race was too popular and the roads could no longer accommodate the amount of cyclists and as a result they were massed across both sides. The less serious incident involved multiple crashes in the racing bunches from the squeeze when the people all tried to get behind the white line.  Some of those were pretty bad.

The more serious were fatal and made me think twice about whether it was worth it 

In Jhb the trucks and taxis have (or had but i dont think its changed) a far less accommodating attitude towards cyclists especially out the backroads in Vereeniging and remote roads.

Just a suggestion - ultimately you want your ride to be safe. if people do stupid things in a fun ride its really up to them but I have seen dead people lying in the road owing to trucks passing cycling bunches (race in the cradle a couple of years ago) too close and riders getting pulled under the wheels. I can't recall the specifics but it was a non road closure race and happened on the entry to the cradle on the Krugersdorp side when the road narrowed.

If anything happens it's really the organisers that will come in for flak and truth be told hindsight is always 50/50.

My 2 cents worth - riding your ride I got a strong sense of deja vu from the old days at the peak of road racing (insanity) in Gauteng when the bunches were huge and all manner of events took place. Personally my safety and having worked out i am done with PB's dictates i am very selective about rides and who i ride with but so be it. I have been there, (and maybe took part in some of the craziness when the red mist descended) and would say i am a very luck survivor of many very close shaves in bunches when they were massive and really out of control.

Use it, dont use it - hopefully you never have any issues and never have to recall the above. 

 

 

I completely understand your reservations and it is valid. 
race organisers have a massive problem to get full road closure.

1) cost 

2) approval 

the cost issue is a big one for the 99er organiser because it’s a school that owns and runs the event. They mitigate the risk somewhat through the very early start and the route being out into the countryside. 
I started in A and we didn’t have a big problem with riders staying in the lane probably due to losing about 20 riders in the first crash at 1,5km. So bunch size does help. 
but when we caught % they didn’t allow us smooth passage through and forced us in to the oncoming lane. Fortunately this was on Adderly Road which was closed but B was chasing us down and they started only 2 or 3 min behind us. They don’t make it across but took a minute out of us. If they had caught us then we’d have had a problem keeping everyone in the left hand lane. 
This problem occurs in many road races. Often riders with lower indexes drop back to ride in slower groups to help their buddies improve their seeding so that come DC, they can smack talk for KOTAS. So slower groups end up catching the faster groups and chaos ensues.

personally I’d like to see this practice stamped out because it creates a lot of problems come The Fun Ride World Champs with okes and gals being seeded in groups they can just about hang onto. The psychology of this is quite interesting and there’s probably a few PhD studies in getting to an understanding of what drives people to cheat in this manner to achieve a good FRWC seeding while not actually being fast enough to be there. Many of these riders do t seem to have more than a few years of cycling under the belt. Last year in 1A there were plenty of 2 xFRWC finishers in the bunch! How!?! Back in the 80’s and 90’s your seeding was updated once a year , in August , before the new fun ride season began. They took your Argust time and you were grouped and there you stayed until you improved your Next Argust time. The. They introduced the index system and you were allowed one re-seed during the season other than your Argust finish timing time driven seeding. 
today, you are reseeded after every race. Pick tour race appropriately and you can jump from Z to B within a couple of races if you have a buddy or 2 helping you. Fast but they haven’t learned the ropes and bunch riding skills. Still totally dominated by time pressure with no big picture thinking and certainly lacking a safety mindset.

e.g. during the 99er I loved my spot in the bunch and who I wanted around me based on their similar riding style and fitness that I could determine from pedalling and overall smootheness. The jerky chaps I steered clear of. Except there was this one box who continually insisted on pushing up on my left hand side despite me sitting on the yellow line. At one point, somewhere around 66km he does this again but this time there’s no shoulder and his mate decides to push me on my right to slow me down and tjunes me to give his buddy space to Join the line. 
Well someone can just FRO and he’s lucky I didn’t nudge him Into the ditch for endangering not just Myself but the rest of the bunch behind me. I left him out there in the dirt but it’s this kind of unacceptable behaviour that is endemic in the present road race community. They have t paid their dues and the system has made it easy for them to climb the ladder too fast without learning the ropes. And hence road racing is crazy dangerous today. 
 

now on approvals, sure they could get full road closure approval but probably only for a limited time like maybe 9am. This will help but it will cost the organisers a lot more money and that means raising the entry fee which may reduce the numbers. Remember a lot of the event structure is build in experience of what worked , what can work in future and how much it will cost. I’m sure every event organisers first prize from the CoCT is full road closure but it’s just not possible to shut down large parts of the city every weekend for bicycle races when we already have a massive congestion problem.

what is achievable is maybe more time between the groups departure and definitely stamping out behaviour of A index riders dropping back to help their D and E indexed buddies. The “how” is a problem but as we have seen, wee have a morally corrupt society where on the one hand we scream at drunk drivers killing cyclists but leave a bicycle race after 3 beers and definitely over the limit. The only way to fix this is to reduce the number of times seeding runs are conducted 

[BuffsVintageBikes]

Ah, that's a pity, that airport detour was actually quite nice but ja, I can understand the apprehension to sign your life away with a waiver.

Yoh, I cursed you with the mielie field detour. I didn't mind the wet section, I had the skills for that but that dry, rutted field had my eyes bouncing in their sockets... not to mention what was happening in my bib shorts 🙄 I missed my MTB for those few minutes like you can't believe 😄

BTW... the flattened mielies weren't caused by us, it was the medic on the quad bike trying to get to the youngster that took flight over the A frame and needed attention 😲 Shame, hope he's ok, Francois was kind enough to stop and stay with him until he got attention 👏

[Paul Ruinaard]

Sorry maybe am too old but videoing or photographing on cell phones in the bunches is now cool as well.

Makes for great social media posts I am sure. Not sure if you can say the same for how much it impacts your control and where your attention is....

Clearly age and wisdom comes from doing stupid things and having narrow escapes that allow you to survive.

Its called survivor bias - if you did it once and got away you dont think its dangerous. 

 

[NicholasH]

56 minutes ago, BuffsVintageBikes said:

Ah, that's a pity, that airport detour was actually quite nice but ja, I can understand the apprehension to sign your life away with a waiver.

Yoh, I cursed you with the mielie field detour. I didn't mind the wet section, I had the skills for that but that dry, rutted field had my eyes bouncing in their sockets... not to mention what was happening in my bib shorts 🙄 I missed my MTB for those few minutes like you can't believe 😄

BTW... the flattened mielies weren't caused by us, it was the medic on the quad bike trying to get to the youngster that took flight over the A frame and needed attention 😲 Shame, hope he's ok, Francois was kind enough to stop and stay with him until he got attention 👏

Aaah, great. thanks for the explanation. I chatted with the medic and told him sort of where to go, given that he cannot go over A frames. At least now I have an answer to give to the farmer when his corn crop is reduced this year!🤣

I stood and watched for an hour or so on the knoll near the airfield just before that rutted bit. many guys went right onto the smooth bit soon as they could. Last year it was way worse and one or 2 ended up clipping barbed wire on the left. Then that muddy section near Spes also caught many out. I watched with a smile seeing how different approached that. From full brakes and getting off to going left through the field and others going full gas while their bike bounced like a ball.

Like I said to a passing rider (who chirped me..) "it is NOT a gravel race, its the Trilogy CHALLENGE" 🙂 

Edited February 9 by NicholasH

[NicholasH]

So, without going into details or specifics at this time : A general question with a simple answer of "Yes, No, or Same"

Was this year's experience on average better than last year's (2025) 99er?

Edited February 9 by NicholasH

[NeoOne]

On 2/6/2026 at 9:37 PM, NicholasH said:

Not that I am aware. However, i don't see an issue if you leave bags in the Racetec area. BUT we cannot guarantee security etc... 

So that would be at own risk...sorry 

Maybe rent a few metal gym lockers for the day and provide these at a fee to buitelanders like us from Cowteng and Pumilanga or those wh arrive with an Uber?  Just a thought?

 

My race:

I did my first 99er and I was seeded $, but being a solid B, C on Zwift I “dropped back” to A- batch. A big pileup a few km from the start split the group slightly and meant matches had to be burnt to catch the front up. A solid 40km/h first hour = more (limited Lyonn matches) The rollers made for an interesting and fun chain-gang experience. <The last time I was pummelled like that was Cyclelab A and B group in the heady days of 3:00 Argus form ~circa 2018/9. >
 

At the time I was questioning my life choices and only managed to hang on till 42 km. Then it was an ITT for 15 after Philadelphia-ish vicinity. Can’t be sure cos I was bleeding a bit, sans a power meter and was caught up by B group and eventually some fast C’s. I hanged on till around 7km to go, when a few of us were shelled out the back for the home stretch. It was an adventure and a learning curve. I will definitely be back next year and hopefully better equipped for B or C group to the end. I loved it. Can’t believe I lived in CT for 6 years and never was told about this race. 

Edited February 9 by NeoOne
Avg Speed typed incorrectly

[NicholasH]

Just now, NeoOne said:

Just now, NeoOne said:

Maybe rent a few metal gym lockers for the day and provide these at a few to buitelanders like us from Cowteng and Pumilanga ?  Just a thought?

 

My race:

I did my first 99er and I was seeded $, but being a solid B, C on Zwift I “dropped back” to A- batch. A big pileup a few km from the start split the group slightly and meant matches had to be burnt to catch the front up. A solid 49km/h first hour = more (limited Luton matches) The rollers made for an interesting and fun chain-gang experience. <The last time I was pummelled like that was Cyclelab A and B group in the heady days of 3:00 Argus form ~circa 2018/9. >
 

At the time I was questioning my life choices and only managed to hang on till 42 km. Then it was an ITT for 15 after Philadelphia-ish vicinity. Can’t be sure cos I was bleeding a bit, sans a power meter and was caught up by B group and eventually some fast C’s. I hanged on till around 7km to go, when a few of us were shelled out the back for the home stretch. It was an adventure and a learning curve. I will definitely be back next year and hopefully better equipped for B or C group to the end. I loved it. Can’t believe I lived in CT for 6 years and never was told about this race. 

 

My race:

I did my first 99er and I was seeded $, but being a solid B, C on Zwift I “dropped back” to A- batch. A big pileup a few km from the start split the group slightly and meant matches had to be burnt to catch the front up. A solid 49km/h first hour = more (limited Luton matches) The rollers made for an interesting and fun chain-gang experience. <The last time I was pummelled like that was Cyclelab A and B group in the heady days of 3:00 Argus form ~circa 2018/9. >
 

At the time I was questioning my life choices and only managed to hang on till 42 km. Then it was an ITT for 15 after Philadelphia-ish vicinity. Can’t be sure cos I was bleeding a bit, sans a power meter and was caught up by B group and eventually some fast C’s. I hanged on till around 7km to go, when a few of us were shelled out the back for the home stretch. It was an adventure and a learning curve. I will definitely be back next year and hopefully better equipped for B or C group to the end. I loved it. Can’t believe I lived in CT for 6 years and never was told about this race. 

"Maybe rent a few metal gym lockers for the day and provide these at a few to buitelanders like us from Cowteng and Pumilanga ?  Just a thought?"

That is a very good idea! I will def present to committee for next year! Thanks, that is the kind of feedback we are looking for 🙂 

 

Yoh, dude you been living under a rock? 🤣This is the 27th running of  99er. Glad you enjoyed!

[zeerpuD1]

Saturday is 100%. Give our guys from out of town time to relax the evening after the race and be fresh for the long drive home (550km) on Sunday so pleeeease don’t move to  a Sunday.

Just stick to the tradition. It works very well. Cyclist just need to be aware that it is not a full road closure event so apply some commenbense if it is available 

[DieselnDust]

32 minutes ago, NicholasH said:

So, without going into details or specifics at this time : A general question with a simple answer of "Yes, No, or Same"

Was this year's experience on average better than last year's (2025) 99er?

Yes better

[Skubarra]

22 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

I completely understand your reservations and it is valid. 
race organisers have a massive problem to get full road closure.

1) cost 

2) approval 

the cost issue is a big one for the 99er organiser because it’s a school that owns and runs the event. They mitigate the risk somewhat through the very early start and the route being out into the countryside. 
I started in A and we didn’t have a big problem with riders staying in the lane probably due to losing about 20 riders in the first crash at 1,5km. So bunch size does help. 
but when we caught % they didn’t allow us smooth passage through and forced us in to the oncoming lane. Fortunately this was on Adderly Road which was closed but B was chasing us down and they started only 2 or 3 min behind us. They don’t make it across but took a minute out of us. If they had caught us then we’d have had a problem keeping everyone in the left hand lane. 
This problem occurs in many road races. Often riders with lower indexes drop back to ride in slower groups to help their buddies improve their seeding so that come DC, they can smack talk for KOTAS. So slower groups end up catching the faster groups and chaos ensues.

personally I’d like to see this practice stamped out because it creates a lot of problems come The Fun Ride World Champs with okes and gals being seeded in groups they can just about hang onto. The psychology of this is quite interesting and there’s probably a few PhD studies in getting to an understanding of what drives people to cheat in this manner to achieve a good FRWC seeding while not actually being fast enough to be there. Many of these riders do t seem to have more than a few years of cycling under the belt. Last year in 1A there were plenty of 2 xFRWC finishers in the bunch! How!?! Back in the 80’s and 90’s your seeding was updated once a year , in August , before the new fun ride season began. They took your Argust time and you were grouped and there you stayed until you improved your Next Argust time. The. They introduced the index system and you were allowed one re-seed during the season other than your Argust finish timing time driven seeding. 
today, you are reseeded after every race. Pick tour race appropriately and you can jump from Z to B within a couple of races if you have a buddy or 2 helping you. Fast but they haven’t learned the ropes and bunch riding skills. Still totally dominated by time pressure with no big picture thinking and certainly lacking a safety mindset.

e.g. during the 99er I loved my spot in the bunch and who I wanted around me based on their similar riding style and fitness that I could determine from pedalling and overall smootheness. The jerky chaps I steered clear of. Except there was this one box who continually insisted on pushing up on my left hand side despite me sitting on the yellow line. At one point, somewhere around 66km he does this again but this time there’s no shoulder and his mate decides to push me on my right to slow me down and tjunes me to give his buddy space to Join the line. 
Well someone can just FRO and he’s lucky I didn’t nudge him Into the ditch for endangering not just Myself but the rest of the bunch behind me. I left him out there in the dirt but it’s this kind of unacceptable behaviour that is endemic in the present road race community. They have t paid their dues and the system has made it easy for them to climb the ladder too fast without learning the ropes. And hence road racing is crazy dangerous today. 
 

now on approvals, sure they could get full road closure approval but probably only for a limited time like maybe 9am. This will help but it will cost the organisers a lot more money and that means raising the entry fee which may reduce the numbers. Remember a lot of the event structure is build in experience of what worked , what can work in future and how much it will cost. I’m sure every event organisers first prize from the CoCT is full road closure but it’s just not possible to shut down large parts of the city every weekend for bicycle races when we already have a massive congestion problem.

what is achievable is maybe more time between the groups departure and definitely stamping out behaviour of A index riders dropping back to help their D and E indexed buddies. The “how” is a problem but as we have seen, wee have a morally corrupt society where on the one hand we scream at drunk drivers killing cyclists but leave a bicycle race after 3 beers and definitely over the limit. The only way to fix this is to reduce the number of times seeding runs are conducted 

Back in the 80s and 90s there were 2 funrides/races every weekend, now there are 5 or 6 in a season excl CTCT. So unfortunately we will never get to system again where people build up seedings over a long period and learn the skills as they move up.

I dropped back to ride with friends in a lower group, for me I have no desire to mix it up with elites in $, too dangerous for me and as a mamil I cannot compete with youngsters racing bikes for a living. Also I don't like riding in % as its way too negative & slow, too many peeps doing "racing tactics" at a pace slower than the alphabet soup groups coming from behind. Yes occasionally too big bunches can form but I think it happens less than you think, very difficult for most people to hang onto faster riders that go fast enough to catch multiple groups.

[leon_pro]

Loved the Trilogy... did it last year and this year was great!

Not to open a can of worms regarding Gravel bikes vs MTB's but
Had a few chuckles when the "gravel bikers" complained about the guys in the A batch on mountain bikes, and how "dangerous it is for them". 
I pointed out a few of the gravel bikers to the said people who were riding in the drops in a group of around 30 guys with no hands close to the brakes, yet we were seen as dangerous. 

10min faster this year on my time of last year!  

The mix is really good and the mud and technical stuff really evened out the playing field. 

A-frames still remain a challenge for a lot of people! and when you have 2 x BIG Black Steers Patties next to the a-frame people forget all skills! 

Love the reaction of the road back markers when the faster trilogy riders come past in the last 4km....Dirty and hauling! 

[NicholasH]

3 minutes ago, leon_pro said:

Loved the Trilogy... did it last year and this year was great!

Not to open a can of worms regarding Gravel bikes vs MTB's but
Had a few chuckles when the "gravel bikers" complained about the guys in the A batch on mountain bikes, and how "dangerous it is for them". 
I pointed out a few of the gravel bikers to the said people who were riding in the drops in a group of around 30 guys with no hands close to the brakes, yet we were seen as dangerous. 

10min faster this year on my time of last year!  

The mix is really good and the mud and technical stuff really evened out the playing field. 

A-frames still remain a challenge for a lot of people! and when you have 2 x BIG Black Steers Patties next to the a-frame people forget all skills! 

Love the reaction of the road back markers when the faster trilogy riders come past in the last 4km....Dirty and hauling! 

Yep, being in the position I am in, I get it from both sides : gravel guys asking MTBs to not ride the race. MTBs moaning about gravel guys on the drops. And then of course eBikes in the Trilogy

As I said in a previous, "can't keep everyone happy" but I think on the whole the positives were way more than the negatives.

I even had a request that the Trilogy be a stand-alone event at another time of the year....