RobynE 🚵♀️ Posted June 9, 2025 Posted June 9, 2025 Thank you to Attie and family/team for a fantastic event yesterday. Kiddo and I only made 57km of our 145km target on the tandem - lots learnt, some stuff to change up on the bike, but most importantly we loved our time together yesterday and that was my goal as a mom. We really had a lot of fun out there. The 57km we experienced varied between sublime and ridiculous. Sublime because of: the location - it is so beautiful out there. Route was well marked, road users were few and mostly respectful. It felt like a really safe route. I think we had 4 cars pass us over 57km and there were no dodgy characters that we saw. There were some epic sections of really good gravel where you could get up some proper speed and keep going for miles. It was as the name suggests a gravel ride with not too much road. Ridiculous because of things that the organisers have little to no control over - weather and what comes along with it. When the wind picked up on the sections we were on it was clear that keeping those roads smooth is seriously challenging. I live on dirt roads so understand the mechanics of it all. Most of those roads have been graded down to bedrock. There isn’t much else to be done. Just had to pick your lines and do the best you could. Everything was very rideable barring a few sections of soft sand - and this was on the tandem. Obvs I don’t know about the 80-something we didn’t manage to get to but I’m going to assume the roads were much like the last 17km that we were on when we got swept - windy and somewhat corrugated and lots of soft sand, and the pretty brutal headwind. It can’t, realistically, be helped. I think that the definition of gravel is still a bit loose. I consider yesterday to be what one would expect of gravel. There was nothing technical - just a bit jarring in some places. Race To The Sun was more technical in some places (we did the first 50 miles on the tandem). It was great having a quick howzit with Kaze Pete and Danger Dassie (my @ won’t work for some reason) and of course Attie. And a couple of other okes who kindly asked how we got on and expressed interest in our effort. Cheers gents. We’ll definitely be back next year and with some changes (gearing - 53/39 11-34 Sora just doesn’t work on gravel, kiddo’s seat - she was very sore on the Selle Italia Diva, and rear disc brake - v was touching a lot) leading to feeling good on the bike I reckon kiddo and I will be good for the 92km 💪 Scary Rider, Prince Albert Cycles and 'Kaze Pete 3
Scary Rider Posted June 9, 2025 Posted June 9, 2025 38 minutes ago, JJDT said: Sorry to hear but hope you recover fast and will join next year bar any unforeseen incidents. Thank you! Think I'm going to do the training bubble thing...just have to find a bubble...🤣
RobynE 🚵♀️ Posted June 9, 2025 Posted June 9, 2025 On 6/4/2025 at 6:52 AM, RobynE 🚵♀️ said: Crosswind on the tandem is going to be heaps of fun. Emphasis on heaps. 😂 And on this note, as we went around the bend and gunned down that beautiful hill towards WP1 at our top speed for the day of 56km/h, the crosswind nearly picked us up and deposited us into the veld on the left 😂 Lots of tandem pilot lessons learnt yesterday 👀 🧠 Scary Rider 1
'Kaze Pete Posted June 9, 2025 Author Posted June 9, 2025 Event photos available for browsing/purchasing at https://photofrog.co.za/events/9q5q8-crater-cruise-2025 Scary Rider 1
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