Innholdsfortegnelse for Mar/Apr 2025 i Bicycling South Africa

“All the years I did the race with my dad, and now the chance to do it with my own kids…”– JON MINSTER, EDITOR “In 2018, riding with my 78-year-old dad, who was doing his first Cycle Tour.”– MIKE FINCH, PUBLISHER “My first time coming down Wynberg hill, riding the fastest I've ever ridden in a peloton until it was my time to lead the group and pull for as long as I could. What a thrill.”– MARK ARENDSE, SENIOR DESIGNER “Hours of hard work and racing Killarney every Wednesday night, to break 3 hours… then doing a 2:54 from E group that year. Mission accomplished!”– PAUL GODDARD, AD GUY “My first, on the route over Ou Kaapse Weg, back in 2001. I had no expectations and loved every six-and-a-half…

GERALD DE KOCK JUST WANTED TO PLAY CRICKET. Then he wanted to study sports science at Stellenbosch University. But the universe has a habit of sending the best intentions along unmapped highways, and he was diverted to the world of cycling – via a 40-year-long commentary career that started in Potchefstroom, during a Western-Transvaal versus Boland Currie Cup rugby match. To say it’s been a journey for South Africa’s undisputed ‘voice of cycling’ is an understatement. De Kock has been humming along on South African airwaves since 1985, covering everything from test match cricket to indoor hockey. Today, he’s synonymous with cycling, even if some excitable mountain bikers still confuse him with fellow commentator Arnold Geerdts… “I’d been playing cricket in the UK, then I was playing in Joburg for…

“PERFECTION IS ACHIEVED NOT WHEN there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” In recent months, engineers from two different cycling brands have referenced this quote during our discussions about new products. It comes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Airman’s Odyssey, though he is best known as the author of The Little Prince. De Saint-Exupéry, however, seems to be riffing on the Latin phrase Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, or ‘Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity’. This is a tidy encapsulation of the famous philosophical principle called Occam’s Razor, which is attributed to William of Occam, a 14th-century English friar and theologian. Basically, it means that the best explanation for something is usually the one that is straightforward and avoids unnecessary complexity. Like…

LIKE THE COMPONENTS THAT COMBINE to create the perfect bicycle, the Cycle Tour is made up of many moving parts. You might think it’s just something you arrive at on Sunday morning and leave later in the day after (hopefully) enjoying your ride, but that’s not even half the story. From refreshment station crew to elite athletes to the physios at the massage tables, everyone involved has a unique perspective on the event. Yet on one thing they all agree: it’s a day like no other. A coming together of everything that makes cycling, Cape Town and the events community of South Africa some of the best in the world. Ahead of this year’s ride, we spent some time with a few of the people who make the CTCT an annual…

PART I: PIONEERS The day before the Taliban clamped down on her freedom, a young woman went for a bike ride. She wore pants and a long-sleeved shirt under a sky-blue cycling jersey. Her ponytail flew behind her like a flag, free of the hijab she usually wore tucked into her helmet. Her smile was shy but also bold, with a pop of red lipstick. Reihana Mohammadi was 18 years old, a new member of the Afghan National Cycling Team. She lived and trained in Bamyan, a small and peaceful city in the rugged heart of Afghanistan. On this 30km ride, she was thinking about her next big race, three weeks away in Pakistan. She hoped to raise her country’s flag in her first international victory. Riding a team-issue mountain…

◼ It’s always a good idea to take your bike for a basic service before you line up at the start of a big event like the Cape Town Cycle Tour. But if you don’t have the time, or if you prefer to be your own mechanic, here’s how to work out what might be causing those irritating noises – and how to fix them. NOISE: SQUEAKING Potential culprits: Chain, pedals If your bike squeaks when you pedal but stops when you freewheel, a dry chain is the probable culprit. Clean and lube it first. If the noise persists, check your drivetrain, or consider replacing the chain. If the squeak happens with every pedal stroke, your pedals may need attention. Remove them, grease the threads, and reinstall. Spraying lubricant on…

◼ Garrett won the men’s tandem race at last year’s Cape Town Cycle Tour, racing with partner Paul-Dean Rörich. “I’ve done a lot of solo racing at the Cycle Tour over the years, but there’s just something I enjoy about racing a tandem,” Garrett says. “I’ve raced tandem often, even winning the mixed category with my wife – a true test of a marriage is to race tandem at the Cycle Tour with your wife! We’re still married, so clearly it was a good experience… “Paul-Dean and I are actually a bad example for tandem cyclists, because we only climbed on the bike once before last year’s race. I can tell you, I was a lot stiffer on the Monday after the race than if I’d been riding a traditional…

SOMETIMES, A NEW PAINT JOB CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN OLD BIKE TAKING UP SPACE IN YOUR GARAGE, AND A BICYCLE YOU WANT TO RIDE EVERY DAY. Or maybe you want to treat your child to a custompainted creation? Or you have a spare frame to turn into a commuter, or the colour you thought was cool a few years ago no longer matches your style – these are all great reasons to repaint a bike. Like everything in cycling, a custom paint job can be as expensive as you want it to be. But I'm not trying to convince you to send your neglected frame or your kid’s beloved bike off for a professional paint job. Resprays by professionals can easily run you almost as much as a…

HOT KICKS NORTHWAVE REVOLUTION 3 R4 500 / WWW.DRAGONS.CO.ZA THERE’S NOTHING LIKE NEW SHOES to make you feel like Tadej Pogačar when you’re flying up (and down) your favourite climbs. And if you’re going to take the leap and get yourself a new pair, you might as well keep up with the trends and go for white. Yes, white. We know black is more practical. We know black is more modest. We know black goes with everything. But white is just so darn… cool. Shoe brands have come a long way since the early 2000s, when white shoes had manky mesh panels that quickly went grey. The newest and best shoes use black for those parts of the shoe and restrict the white to the harder outer shell, where it has…

I'LL BEGIN BY SINGING SOME PRAISES. Without Strava, I'm not sure I'd have re-engaged with cycling at the level I did. Coming from just occasionally messing around on mountain bikes as a teenager to trying my best to race at an elite level, Strava has played a role in pushing me to ride faster, harder and longer than I’d ever done before. However. Over the past few years, I've become disenchanted with social media in general. Platforms that once seemed good for my motivation and mental health became burdensome. Strava was no different. Post-ride datachecking turned into mindlessly looking at what everyone else was doing, comparing stats, and ultimately getting annoyed by ego-fluffing ride titles and novel-length explanations of ‘why I didn't win the race or get that KOM’. I…

◼ BEST TIME TO RIDE? Autumn and spring in the Cape make for dream days in the saddle. The weather is normally mild – not too hot, not too cold, as Goldilocks would say if she were a cyclist. Summer can be hot and windy, but at least you won’t have to worry about rain. And in winter, if it isn’t raining and you luck out with a clear week, it’s probably the most spectacular time of all: the canola fields are in full bloom, the aloes are flowering and everything is green. ◼ WHAT ARE THE ROADS LIKE? The route mostly follows district gravel roads, which are generally in good condition – and quiet, with the exception of the odd farm bakkie. There are some sections along busier tar…

ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE CYCLISTS whose pre-ride routine involves giving your chain a quick lick of lube? Well, you’re not doing your chain any favours! Applying lube right before a ride is basically the worst way to lube your chain. There’s no time for the product to penetrate inside the rollers; rather, it sits on the surface and attracts dirt and grime. Instead, the best practice is to lube your chain right after a ride, or at least the day before your ride. If you clean and re-lube immediately after a ride – especially after wet or muddy conditions – you prevent grime from hardening, making future cleaning easier. If post-ride maintenance isn’t possible, applying lube the night before a ride still allows enough time for proper absorption. HOW TO…

◼ Daniels heads up the BMW MCC Moto Marshals. These are the motorbikes that under normal circumstances, you might not even notice on Cycle Tour Sunday. But if you need help, they appear miraculously at your side. “Our main role at the Cycle Tour is to act as the eyes and ears of the organisation,” says Daniels. “We’re out on the road and we’re very mobile, because we’re on motorbikes; so if anything happens that needs to be relayed to the VOC, we can do that quite quickly.” The Moto Marshals also act as roving mechanics on the day, something that has seen many a stricken cyclist smile with relief. “There are about 35 of us on bikes during the day, so we watch out for anyone who might need…

IT WAS LIKE AN ITALIAN OPERA. FIRST A BEAUTIFUL TRANSFORMATION, FOLLOWED BY SHEER BLISS – AND THEN THE ABYSS OF DESPAIR. In 2019, Luciano Pollastri, a human-resources specialist who grew up in France and who now lives in Madrid, weighed 150kg. He was flying 200 days a year for his job, eating obsessively, and working out only sporadically. That year he underwent gastric bypass surgery, then lost 68kg in seven months. Not long after that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, he mounted a bicycle for the first time in decades. Then he joined Zwift, the world’s most popular virtual cycling platform. Its roughly 1 million subscribers sit on stationary bikes and travel through a virtual world called Watopia, climbing pixelated mountains and traversing simulated forests and plains as they compete and…

AVOID AT ALL COSTS PLEASE, NO! LOOKING GOOD EFFORTLESSLY COOL…