To Hell with the Full Moon

Watch the moon set and the sun rise simultaneously,

not possible anywhere else on earth.

Heads up y'all:

I am organising a "To Hell with the Full Moon" ride. A stunning ride at the best of times, even better doing it there and back at full moon.

Moon and Sun info for the relevant days: Prince Albert

Friday January 9 2009
MR 18:28
SS 19:45

Saturday January 10 2009
MS 4:19
SR 05:34
MR 19:27
SS 19:45

Sunday January 11 2009
SR 05:35
MS 05:35 (Full Moon 5:28)

Provisionally:

Friday January 10 2009
Ride from Prince Albert, up the Swartberg Pass and then up and down and up, down and down, up and down to Gamkaskloof (about 6-7 hrs)

Saturday 11 January 2009
Explore the valley, get a sneak preview of Die Leer, sleep in the shade, swim in the river.
At about midnight, start back, aiming to be at the top of the Swartberg Pass before dawn to watch the moon set and the sun rise over the Karoo.
Free wheel down to Prince Albert for breakfast.

There is a place to get food down in the kloof, so all one needs is a hammock to hang under a thorn tree.

If enough people ride, we can organise a backup vehicle to come into the kloof.

Apologies for the formatting, came out differently from how it was meant to!

General Cycling Stuff

This snippet from South African War history:

At Graaff Reinet five hundred bicycles were confiscated under military orders.(Where are they now??) This step was necessary because of suspected disloyalty among the Dutch-speaking British subjects in the region.(56) In Pretoria the Boers also strictly controlled the use of bicycles. At the time of Winston Churchill's escape from Pretoria, two Englishmen were jailed for having left the town on their bicycles without a permit.(57) The fact that on both sides strict measures were taken against the use of the bicycle by civilians is an indication that it posed a real threat as a quiet, relatively fast, and cheap mode of transport.

I've spent quite some time during the last two weeks doing an apprenticeship under Olaf at Crosstown Cycles recently (mostly doing the highly-skilled, technical stuff like hanging new racks and fixing punctures)
Actually, it's a great learning experience for me, watching a highly-skilled and highly experienced person like Olaf working on a bike.
Sure as hell beats sitting in Prince Albert waiting for the municipality to realise that the view in front of them is the edge of a cliff and that the lake they can see is a mirage.

Flying (and landing) on one wing

I saw this for the first time today.
Rather difficult to describe what it says to me, but it says a lot.
Have a look.

A similar thing happened in the early 80's when an Israeli pilot landed an F15 on one wing.

Some days it's just not your turn to go.

Schlumpf -ing it up.

OK, so my (now deleted ) comments about the SRAM Hammerschmidt were posted in deep ignorance.
The real deal appears to be at www.schlumpf.ch
Two ratios 1:1 and 1:1.65 from the Speed Drive. (The Mountain Drive and Super Drive are a bit much at 1:1 and 1:2.5 either way)

No longer fokkofpolisiekar.....

......it's now fokkofsinglespeed when I get my hands on one of them

which at 275 Sterling probably ain't gonna be anytime soon

Think of it: 32:16 on a 29r works well, and then to kick the button over and you've got 32:11