Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Bicycling South Africa

AT THE TIME OF WRITING, THE CAPE TOWN CYCLE TOUR WAS STILL GOING AHEAD, thanks to a scheme to bring in water to offset the ‘water cost’ of the event. So, on 11 March my 77-year-old father Brian and I will be on the start line for his first-ever Cycle Tour! // We plan to ride every metre together. WE WILL NOT RACE. We will not set a time goal. We will simply do it to finish. That will be enough. A MONTH AGO, I WAS UNSURE HE WOULD MANAGE THE FULL DISTANCE – BUT WHEN I STARTED TO NOTICE HIS STRAVA RIDES TOUCHING THE 80KM MARK, I KNEW HE WAS ON TRACK. // He’s been a determined sportsman all his life, with Comrades…

1 Trim fat from a 1kg chunk of topside. Slice into 1cm-thick strips. Rub with red wine vinegar. Mix 50ml brown sugar, 15ml coarse salt, 5ml bicarb, 60ml crushed coriander seeds, ½ tbsp crushed black pepper, ½ tbsp paprika/chilli flakes. + To make slicing easier, first seal the beef in plastic wrap and freeze it for an hour. 2 Rub mixture into meat. Place in a resealable plastic bag or a glass container covered in clingfilm, and refrigerate for 12 hours, mixing every couple of hours if possible + Experiment with different spices, and more or less sugar and chilli, according to your taste. 3 Preheat oven to 90°C. Place metal cooling racks on two baking sheets. Remove meat from fridge and shake off excess spices. Arrange the strips on…

In the world of ultra-endurance mountain-bike racing, Karl Platt is a giant – a legend who’s carved his name no fewer than five times on one of the cycling world’s most coveted crowns: the Absa Cape Epic winner’s trophy. This year he’s hoping to make it a record win number six, after illness and mechanical setbacks wreaked havoc with his and partner Urs Huber’s 2017 campaign. The affable BULLS rider has been using SA as a base for the past decade to prepare for a tough racing season that traditionally kicks off with the Attakwas and Cape Epic. While it’s always a treat bumping into Platt on the trails, this time it was his unbranded BULLS Wild Edge Team prototype bike that stole the show, and had us rubbernecking like…

Local manufacturer Enjoy Fitness has nailed its latest creation – the Climber bib. Designed to appeal to the ardent rider, naturally these shorts conform to European standards, particularly in terms of design and ergonomics. They’re made of 220gsm imported Italian lycra, they’re high in quality, and they’re designed for a tight and streamlined fit. We’d be lying if we said they weren’t comfortable… Where most bibshorts feel a tad constrictive around the waist and below, a dome-shaped Croatian-sourced chamois ensures your manly bits will never be strangled again. One of the hallmark features is undoubtedly the crossover design of the straps, which creates more ventilation by freeing up fabric and reducing clutter across the chest area. The fit? Amazing, thanks largely to 70mm printable leg elastics with heat-resistant silicon that…

“Wash your helmet in the shower with soap. Rinse it well.”– Joël Nankman “Hose off muddy stuff before you put it in the wash. It’ll get cleaner, and you won’t grind dirt into the rest of your clothes.”– Lydia Tanner “Consider a washer without a central agitator, which can tear up tech fabrics.”– Matt Phillips, test director “To get the reek out of synthetic fabrics, soak clothes in water with 1 cup of white vinegar for 15 to 20 minutes before washing.”– Emily Furia “Skip the fabric softener.”– Joe Lindsey, contributing writer “I always use the ‘extra rinse’ setting when washing kit. Detergent residue can degrade fabric – and also foam up on your kit when it rains. Not a good look.”– Leah Flickinger, editor in chief “Line-dry everything! Hanging…

Talk us through the day you won the Xterra Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii. The Xterra World Championships is always an incredibly stressful day for professional, elite and amateur athletes alike. But it’s the day we’ve all prepared so diligently for, and waking up on race morning knowing you’ve done all you can in training brings a certain calmness to the situation. I ran through my usual pre-race routine, and before I knew it we were on the start line, ready for whatever the Maui Gods had planned for us. The swim is my Achilles heel; that’s usually where I lose the majority of my time to fellow athletes. But this day was different. I had the swim of my life, and exiting the water, I was right on the…

MELISSA ZAMMIT Age: 35 Operations manager at a cardiovascular research company RESULTS CRACKED THE TOP 10 I RACE CATEGORY 4 cyclocross, mostly local races. My goal is to upgrade to Cat 3 next year or by the end of this season. I wanted to be more competitive, but I noticed I wasn’t seeing that many gains from cycling alone. I was plateauing. I’d done weight training as a runner. But when I started cycling, I never connected weights and the bike. If I did lift, it was with lighter weights – I never thought I could lift heavy loads. Maximum Overload helped me overcome this mindset of limiting my abilities by settling for easier weights. I surprise myself now with how much more I can lift. I was sore at…

ONE DAY, NOT LONG AGO, I LOGGED ONTO STRAVA AND NOTICED A SINGLE, GLARING COMMENT POSTED BENEATH A RECENT RIDE: “It’s a beautiful day outside. Why are you riding Zwift?” I felt a twinge of shame. It had been a beautiful day. Instead of blue skies and the satisfying hum of rubber on tarmac, I was bathed in the pale light of my LCD monitor and the mid-frequency whine of my Wahoo KICKR. Instead of chatting amiably with ride companions and sprinting for street signs, I was harvesting ‘ride ons’ (Zwift’s mid-ride version of a ‘like’) and competing for virtual jerseys. But here’s the somewhat ugly truth about why I wasn’t riding outside: I just didn’t feel like it. (Note: if you’ve read this far without knowing what Zwift is,…

I used to wonder if I race to train, or if I train to race. But I’ve realised that the question isn’t really relevant. Cycling is knitted into my life. I ride a bike when I travel. I ride a bike to work, and to the shops. My wife and I ride to have picnics. I ride a bike to go camping with mates. I run a business that takes small groups of riders on fully supported cycling trips throughout the country. When I’m forced to take a few days off the bike, I quickly understand that I can’t not ride. Motivation isn’t a problem – cycling keeps me cycling. MAKE IT HAPPEN Sneak a few kays into your life whenever you can, and you just might find that riding…

1 TRIGGER POINT MASSAGE BALLS I’ll use these while driving to relieve pressure. 2 ALLSTAYS APP Provides info about safe places to park and camp in the US, and works without cell phone service. 3 WE BOOST When it looks like we have no cell phone coverage, this gives us a signal boost to get a text out. 4 ACTION WIPES Basically, bigger baby wipes, for when we can’t find a shower. We reuse them to clean the bikes. 5 PEE BOTTLES It’s very disruptive to open the clunky van door in the middle of the night. Pam also uses a GoGirl, a flexible funnel designed to help women pee in compromising spaces. 6 TYRE LEVELLERS Place them under your wheels to level out the vehicle before sleeping, so you…

This single-leg crossover plyo bench jump from Maximum Overload strengthens quads, glutes, and core, and builds explosive power and overall coordination. It builds your max sustainable power – you’ll fend off fatigue and maintain speed for longer. See it on video at bicycling.co.za/box-jumps. THE MOVE Place a sturdy box or bench, about 30cm tall, off to your right side. Place your right foot on it, with your left foot on the floor. Pushing through your right foot, drive up over the bench into a jump; and in one motion, place your left foot on the bench as you move your right foot off the bench and land it on the floor on the other side. Now repeat, pushing through your left foot. THE WORKOUT Do 10 jumps (5 on each…

How did the combination of the various Wattbike sessions with the weekend LSD rides improve my performance? I structured your programme to ensure that you had at least two key high-intensity interval sessions per week on the Wattbike. We follow the principles of polarised training, which recommends a training split of 20% very hard and 80% very easy training. Since you did the very hard portion of your training in the Endurance Studio, the outside rides were scheduled for you to accumulate the 80% of easy riding. And how did the Grucox sessions benefit my performance? The Grucox bike is an excellent tool for increasing functional strength on the bicycle. It allows you to perform eccentric cycling, which results in greater strength gains compared to normal cycling. What did the…

We used three different sets of pedals for our testing operations: Look Keo Blade Carbon for road, and Shimano XTR and Look X-Track Carbon Race for MTB. While there’s no ‘correct’ pedal/ cleat set out there, it’s important that you find a combination that works for you. In terms of MTB pedals, Shimano has a reputation for appreciably hardy and resilient examples. Take the standard PDM pedals, for instance. They’re tough, and can withstand many a blow from rocks and other nasties. If it’s weight you want to shed, you can always upgrade to the XT units – or better still, the XTRs. The XTRs are a lot lighter, featuring hollow chromoly axles, while still retaining all the hallmark features of the standard pedal. That said, some riders prefer the…