Innholdsfortegnelse for Jul/Aug 2025 i Bicycling South Africa

“Tadej Pogačar. Because, who knows? Maybe Vinegegaard and his team will come to the race with extraordinary form and a creative plan to rattle Pogi in the mountains. They’ve done it before, they might do it again…” – JON MINSTER, EDITOR “Remco Evenepoel. The Belgian is salivating to race. Earlyseason form suggests he’s on track, and I think he'll peak come TdF time – and may even give Pogi a run for his money. He’s also a true animator; you know something’s going to happen when Remco lines up. Plus, he’s a great guy.”– MIKE FINCH, PUBLISHER “Also stirring the pot… Maybe this isn't Tadej Pogačar’s year, and he'll have to settle for the second step on the podium?”– MARK ARENDSE, SENIOR DESIGNER “Jonas or Remco… because I think Pogačar…

SAFETY WAS NEVER at the forefront of my mind in my early cycling days. From rocketing down descents to not always wearing a helmet to thinking safety accessories looked silly, I was doing very little to protect myself. I didn’t care. But with more road riding experience, and a dash of maturity, came a reality check. My first brush with distracted driving was when I watched a friend get T-boned midway through a ride on quiet country roads. Luckily his injuries were relatively minor, but it was a wake-up call. Not long after, a driver hit and severely injured a friend who was navigating a simple intersection. A former co-worker is now paralysed after a hit-and-run. Another friend lost his brother to a reckless driver ploughing through a group ride.…

DURING LOCKDOWN, while others were baking sourdough and Zwifting their eyes out, Marco Joubert was digging – and thinking – deep. “Before Covid, things were just starting to come together for me. Then everything flipped. I was still studying business, and I asked myself what I actually wanted in life. I thought about quitting; but then we started racing again, and cycling pulled me back in.” His current successes – a barnstorming third place at the 2025 Cape Epic, followed by a win at the South African National Gravel Championships – are the result of a three-year plan. “I didn’t want to be that guy who peaks for one race and then fades. I wanted consistency, week after week. It’s been an investment, and it’s not always easy. But now…

IT’S A FACT. Indoor workouts can massively improve your fitness and technique. Indoor riding also offers some benefits that outdoor riding doesn’t, thanks to the controlled environment. You don’t have to tussle with cars, for example, or wear multiple layers to survive the pre-dawn chill. A trainer is a great tool to get you through winter, and it allows you to squeeze in a ride when life might not allow you enough time to get outside. Of course, indoor riding can’t match actual riding when it comes to having fun, but that doesn’t mean indoor needs to be boring. With the right set-up, a good playlist and a plan that keeps your mind engaged, the time will fly by as you crank out the watts. Where do I start? You…

JUST BEFORE WE SENT this issue to the printers, I did the Berg & Bush Descent – a three-day stage race around Spioenkop in KZN. The name ‘Berg & Bush’ was familiar to me, as it is to most keen mountain bikers; but for years, I’d filed it away in the lexicon next to other classic races I’d never done, like ‘Sani2C’, ‘Tankwa Trek’, ‘Dr Evil’, etc. But standing around the braai nodding and saying “Ah, yes, Berg & Bush – I’ve heard of it” is nothing like packing your bike, flying to Joburg, shuttling to Winterton and actually doing the event. My mind was blown. Living in Cape Town, we sometimes assume (yes, arrogantly) that we have all the best mountain biking in the country, but I’d trade our…

THERE’S AN IMPORTANT and often overlooked category that fills the space between road-race bikes and dedicated gravel bikes. It’s usually called ‘all-road’ or ‘endurance’, but other names for this group pop up every few years. For a while, European brands used the term ‘Gran Fondo’ to describe this kind of bike; and when Specialized launched its first Roubaix model in 2004 (arguably the first production endurance bike), my colleague Matt Phillips recalls someone at Bicycling calling it ‘plush road’. The basic premise of the category has always been to essentially take a road bike, add a bit of tyre clearance for better compliance, give it lower gearing to better suit the average rider, and tweak the geometry to make it somewhat more upright and comfortable. It was meant for people…

NICOLAS ROCHE – NICO FOR SHORT – arrives on time, wearing shorts, sneakers and a linen shirt. He’s perfectly groomed, and his smooth, veined legs suggest he isn’t far off the shape he was in when riding in the World Tour for some of the biggest teams in the business: Cofidis, Saxo-Tinkoff, Team Sky and Sunweb. It’s February, and we meet at a quiet coffee shop in Stellenbosch while Roche is out visiting his mate, Lidl-Trek’s Jasper Stuyven. Stuyven is doing his earlyseason training in the area, and Roche is more than capable of joining him for rides in between some down time. At age 40, it’s been only three years since Roche retired from a stellar 16-year professional cycling career to concentrate on his job as a TV commentator,…

WAKE UP The mechanics are already at work, prepping bikes. Riders weigh in first thing. It’s all part of the daily ritual. “The first thing we did was fill in a mental wellness app,” says Jaco Venter. “Basic questions that went to the performance team so they could see where your head was at. Then it was off to the doctor’s room for the morning weigh-in. You’d also pee in a bottle you’d been given the night before.” BREAKFAST Meals are often served straight from the team chef’s truck, or prepped in advance and delivered to the hotel. Variety is not key, just consistency: rice with an omelette, porridge, toast, muesli, sometimes pancakes. “Back then, we weren’t overly focused on nutrition – definitely not as scientific as other teams,” says…

BEST OVERALL WAHOO KICKR V6 R19 999 / WAHOOFITNESS.CO.ZA PROS • Wi-Fi connectivity • Easy ERG mode • Folding and adjustable legs CONS • Only includes 11-speed cassette THE ORIGINAL WAHOO KICKR CHANGED indoor training for many riders. Five iterations later, the newest one is more of an update than a wholesale redesign, but those small changes are enough to put Wahoo ahead of the competition again, especially in terms of connectivity. Yup, the latest Kickr – and Wahoo’s second-gen Kickr Bike – are the only trainers available with internal Wi-Fi connectivity. With the addition of Wi-Fi, Wahoo aims to solve the most frustrating aspect of smart trainers: connection dropouts. ANT+ and Bluetooth are not going anywhere for power meters and cycling computers – both are good for portable devices powered…

I READ ONCE – MANY YEARS AGO, when people still read things – that a simple trick to keep the mind sharp and help stave off maladies such as dementia is to mix up your daily commute to and from the office. As I recall, the article said that changing your route every so often keeps the mind active and engaged. Essentially, when you change your daily routine, your mind ticks over instead of going to sleep. As anyone who has driven the same way to the same office every day can tell you, some mornings you leave home and the next minute you’re at your desk already replying to emails (or checking TikTok), with no idea of how you got there. This is the brain disengaging, to help you…

ON A MOUNTAIN ABOVE THE TINY SHEEP-AND POTATOfarming town of Aurora, with views east to the Cederberg and west to the Atlantic Ocean, you’ll find a cycling escape like no other. It’s called Potkook – after the mist that rises and bubbles around the mountain summit, like steam from a cooking pot – and it’s a slice of natural splendour where owner Riaan Landman has cut more than 25km of singletrack trails that celebrate the natural rock features and the fall of the landscape. And what a ‘fall’ it is… On the eastern side, the mountain drops steeply into Kapteinskloof; to the west, the view fades more gently across the Sandveld to St Helena Bay. Riaan’s engaging, tricky trails take it all in. You have to force yourself to look…

BE REALISTIC. I get asked this every day: “How many carbs should I eat?” Don’t worry about that stuff. What the pros do and what you do are two different things. Honestly, a pro rider and an amateur rider are doing two different sports. STICK TO THE BASICS. You have to ride consistently. Don’t go and smash a six-hour ride and then do nothing for a week. You’re going to hate the big ride, and feel terrible afterwards. Just try and ride as often as you can during the week. BUILD GRADUALLY. Get consistent first. Once you’re at a decent level, then think about getting a coach. Then maybe start worrying about all the extra little things you hear about online. But the main thing is to build yourself up…

WAHOO KICKR CLIMB R13 999 / WAHOOFITNESS.CO.ZA ■ Genuine improvement, or gimmick? The jury’s out on the Kickr Climb, which physically raises and lowers your bike’s front end to simulate the real-world feeling of climbing and descending. It’s particularly cool when you’re riding in a virtual world, like on Zwift; but the high price is a bit of a turn-off. It’s also only available for Wahoo trainers from 2017 onwards. WAHOO KICKR HEADWIND R7 999 / WAHOOFITNESS.CO.ZA ■ Like the Kickr Climb, the Headwind is designed to bring the real world into your garage. It intelligently adjusts airflow based on your speed or heart rate; and it’s powerful, too, delivering airflow up to 48km/h. It cools you down, it has a sleek design, and it offers a more immersive ride;…

I’ve always been a bit jealous of cyclists who get really into Zwift racing, or those who can endure a two-plus-hour ride indoors. That’s never been me. Five minutes after getting on the trainer, I’m already rethinking my plan to ride for 90 minutes and convincing myself that half of that is plenty. Another 10 minutes later, and I suddenly hate my perfectly dialled-in bike fit. A few minutes after that, I’m stressing about work. The whole time I’m wishing I was doing something else – anything else! I’m definitely not the only cyclist who finds the trainer monotonous, which is why the bike industry has come up with a number of pricey accessories designed to make indoor riding feel more immersive. As an example, Wahoo’s Headwind ‘smart fan’ attempts…