THE BIKES It has been remiss of me not to talk about the bikes.....Our beloved bicycles. And it is a real advertisement that they are still beloved bicycles after 3763km each of butt-on-saddle contact...! So what makes a great bike? Or what makes biking great? There are two ways to talk about this. First for all the technically minded, component curious cyclists out there who go into a panic trying to pack enough spares for a 3 day stage race and would love to know what grade of carbon we chose and why and what spares we took for a 6 week Epic in a country that has a whopping sum total of 2 actual bike shops in it..... But also for the people who dont know what all this jargon means, who have at some point in their youth ridden a bike because it was cool or fun or hip. Because the wind in your hair was a freedom like no other, because long before you had a driving license you could jump on your bike and pedal madly down the road to meet your mates, or your boyfriend (girlfriend) or just get away from your parents. I have done all of this. I have also raced for my country on a super fast time trial bike (that did go super fast in those days!) honored to be selected to stand up next to the best women in Africa flying the Zimbabwe flag with pride. And then, when these days were over to get on a mountain bike for the first time and relive the simple joy of my youth, raising money for the S.P.C.A along the way. But these later, longer rides seemed impossible. How does one ride for 500km and not end up hating their bike? How does one ride over 600km a week for 6 consecutive weeks and not simply expire?...... I was about to find out.... Ashley and I each rode the Giant Anthem Advanced 29er. Carbon fibre. Twin suspension. Shimano XT throughout. Fox front fork. 29 wheels. This was the obvious bike of choice for such a ride but always the devils advocate I had planmed to make the Zimboundary journey on my brand new carbon Anthem 27.5. The only difference geometry wise being the size of the wheel. The 29 vs the 27.5. Luckily for Ashley and I the one and only weakness of this 27.5 wheel became glaringly apparent at the Vic Falls MTB Challenge three weeks prior to Zimboundary. While GIANT BICYCLES have been testing and researching this bike for years it is hot off the press (the 27.5) and unfortunately the tyre technology has not had time to catch up. In tech talk I was running a tubeless tyre with a lightweight sidewall. What this means in non-techno talk is that I was in big thorn and big elephant territory with an inferior tyre and no spare this side of the Zambezi River...... We had about 4 punctures that first day, one a big gash in the sidewall. Day 2 was worse. Now my tyres which were only 3 weeks old were both completely finished and I had used all the spares I had brought...... All credit to my team who stopped every single time the tyre went flat and we finished the day well in last place, sense of humor intact but me with some very serious decisions to make about taking this kind of equipment on Zimboundary. Everything happens for a reason and the group and I had lengthy technical discussions about the way forward. Luckily for the team Debbie Swales went home after 2 days and let me use her bike with heavy duty 29 tyres and slime installed and the last days ride along the Zambezi Gorge pointed out the logistical sense (there wasnt any) of a 3500km ride around the country with two completely different wheel sizes. I am sentimental about my bikes as anyone who knows me will tell you and with a heavy heart made the decision to change my weapon of choice and a quick and plaintive request to Giant Bicycles South Africa (with 2 weeks to go!) who promptly shipped me a carbon Anthem 29er the next day and kindly gave me 3 months to pay it off! The 27.5 was quickly sold to one of our top competitive masters and the new bike arrived with three days before our start....In fact I never rode this bike before Day 1..... In a classic do what the coach says NOT what the coach does Astrid and I set my measurements and off I went, Day 1, km 1, with price tag still attached.....!! The bike spares department was my responsibility and being a girl I took the easy and most practical way out - we took an entire spare bike, an aluminum Giant Anthem 29er. The logic of this is that we therefore had every single spare part we might possibly need. We also carried spare chains, disc brake pads and rotors, an entire bearings replacement kit for the Maestro dual suspension units, Michelin Wildracer heavy duty tubeless tyres, 10 pre slimed tubes, tubeless repair kits, and bottles and bottles of chain lube. We found the dry Teflon lubes just about useless and settled on the wax based White Lightning which is a liquid application but solidifies into wax once in contact with the air. Gareth Brown was an amazing bike tech and every day once he had set camp and put the bath water on the fire to heat he took the bikes aside and completely de-greased the chains and re lubed ready for the next day. We had a quick link on each chain to make this job easier. I cannot begin to describe the actual harshness of the terrain we covered. For example in Hwange we destroyed 2 of our vehicle tyres and had about 4 plugs in each of the remaining ones, yet we only once had to replace one of the bike tyres. We did have punctures but these were quickly and easily repaired with plugs and bombs. More impressive was the complete lack of break down of any of the components. A well known fact to any cyclist is that a new bike MUST return to the shop to be tightened up after its first few hundred km. of course mine never did and Ashley and I were both pretty incompetent at bike mechanics even though this is not exactly rocket science..... Botton did a lot of work at the times he was with us and critically taught Gareth who was far more valuable in this arena than either of us. The one incident when my crank (the piece the pedal is attached to) fell off completely was quickly repaired with a phone call to Cycleway in Harare where a very patient Conway Mohammed talked us through the job..... All in all we both believe this is a fine example for a couple of bikes. A total of 7526km, a pair of inadequate bike mechanics and very low maintenance beyond a daily clean and lube and all we suffered was a few punctures each and one mechanical between the pair of us. In fact if you include Graham Bottons participation (also a carbon fibre Giant 29er) the total is 8260km for the bikes. A great advert indeed!! Now my Anthem 29er is up for sale and I have put in a special request to Giant South Africa for the 2015 carbon Anthem 27.5 .......maybe after this advertising I might get a good discount....!!!
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 08:14:36 +0000