Ahlers Loft

Graaff-Reinet → Pretoria. 782–833 km, liberated at 07:20am this morning. The longest race of our season so far.

Our model reads a 1 259 m/min velocity — which puts the leader home at 17:54. Sunset is at 17:51.

Three minutes. That gap is smaller than our own typical miss on a race this long, so we are not calling it either way.

Will the leaders make it home before dark?

Our second race today, Victoria West, we did call at 1 305 m/min, home at about 17:19 in Pretoria, comfortably in the daylight.

pigeonraceanalyser.co.za

We can't tell you when your first pigeon will hit your landing board. Nobody can...

What we can do, is read the wind and the heat along the route, and tell you roughly when the first birds are due.

To measure is to know...

pigeonraceanalyser.co.za

We called the Richmond winner to within eleven seconds! 767km... 11 seconds. Let that sink in.
We published a winning velocity of 1 359 m/min at 07:20 this morning — fifteen minutes before the birds were let go at 07:35.

The winner flew a 1 359.4m/min Just one beat the prediction.

That's 0.4 m/min out... Three hundredths of one percent. Put another way: over a flight of nine and a half hours, our number was about eleven seconds off the bird. Of 363 pigeons in that race, exactly one beat our call — the winner himself.

Now the other half, because we publish both.

Noupoort, the youngbird race the same morning: we called 1 398, the winner flew 1 467. Sixty-nine out, 4.7%, and 57 birds beat our number. Noupoort was liberated at 07:15 — five minutes before we pinned our call.

Same morning, same model, same forecast.

Ten calls on the record. Average miss 35 m/min. Every one under the winner. All of it on one page:

https://pigeonraceanalyser.co.za/model-vs-reality/

The two TPA races are away this morning — Noupoort with the youngbirds at 07:15am (~680 km) and Richmond open at 07:35am (~760 km).

Our calls, both pinned at 07:20am:

Noupoort — 1 398 m/min
Richmond — 1 359 m/min
Both ± 38 m/min

Eight races scored so far, average miss about 36 m/min, and every miss is on the page next to the hits.

Think we're too fast, or too slow? Put your number in the comments — we'll hold it against the real result.

https://pigeonraceanalyser.co.za/this-week/

Called before the baskets even opened.

Saturday's two TPA races, both races predicted at 07:00 — before a single bird was in the air:

Middelburg (JO): we called a 1192 m/min velocity. The winner flew a 1217m/min. Only 6 pigeons of the 547 beat our number.

Britstown (Open): we called a 1183 m/min winner. The winner flew a 1233m/min. Only 31 pigeons of the 431 beat our number.

See every call we've ever made, scored against the official result: pigeonraceanalyser.co.za/model-vs-reality

Free to use. "To measure is to know".

OFFICIAL CALL — TPA, Saturday 8 August 2026

Middelburg (Youngbirds): 1 192 m/min
Britstown (Open): 1 183 m/min

Both froze at 07:00 this morning, before either race was liberated. Middelburg went up at 07:30, Britstown at 07:45.

Two races at practically the same distance — about ~ 710 km on the TPA average — but on different lines. Middelburg comes down from the Eastern Cape, Britstown from well out west.

Both calls, the live wind maps and the predicted flight lines:
https://pigeonraceanalyser.co.za/this-week/

Free. No sign-up. Your data stays on your own device.

OFFICIAL CALL — TPA, Saturday 1 August 2026

Colesberg: 1 311 m/min Strydenburg: 1 229 m/min

Both froze at 07:00 this morning, before either race was liberated. Colesberg went up at 07:45, Strydenburg at 07:50.

Colesberg is the kinder of the two — about 4 km/h on the nose over the route, though there is a 13 km/h crosswind at the drop, so expect them to take a moment to settle on the line. Strydenburg is the hard day. Around 8 to 9 km/h against on average, 20 on the nose at liberation gusting to 31, and it does not let go for the first 200 km.

Realistic spread is ±38 m/min. And the model calls the winning speed, not the winner — birds and race craft settle the day.

Both calls, the live wind maps and the predicted flight lines: https://pigeonraceanalyser.co.za/this-week/

Free. No sign-up. Your data stays on your own device.

What's new on PigeonRaceAnalyser : the wind maps on the race pages are now 100% our own.

Until now the maps was Windy embedded. It served us well, but it had one issue. It drew the GFS weather (wind) model, while our ETA prediction is computed on ECMWF wind. So the picture and the number came from two different forecasts — and they do not always agree.

So we built our own map. It is drawn on the same ECMWF wind the prediction is computed on — so the map and the number tell the exact same story. It runs on our own site also.

Have a look at this week's TPA Derby race (Colesberg) on Saturday: https://pigeonraceanalyser.co.za/this-week/

To measure is to know.

Tomorrow at 08:00 the baskets open at "Hardekool" for the Ellisras 360 One Loft Race. Before a single bird is in the air, PigeonRaceAnalyser has made its call for the winning velocity home to the loft at Lephalale:

Predicted winning velocity: 1 265 m/min (±100) First birds at the loft: around 15:10

It is 544.5 km almost due north. The birds meet a headwind of about 15 km/h out of the Free State at liberation, easing as the morning goes on, a short push behind them over the Waterberg, then the last hour into the wind again. Dry the whole way, 7 °C at the release and into the mid-twenties by the time they reach home. The model calls it a neutral day.

That is the machine's prediction, on the record, made before the birds fly. It firms overnight with the forecast and freezes at liberation as the official call tomorrow morning — and in the afternoon the result marks its homework.

One Loft races are the fairest test in the sport: one loft, one trainer, one liberation, every bird under the same conditions. That also makes them the cleanest data we have, which is why this model is calibrated on Ellisras 360's own winners from 2023 to 2026 — not a generic curve algorithm. The page shows predicted against actual for every race they have flown this season, misses included.

Live call, the wind map along the route, and the full track record: https://pigeonraceanalyser.co.za/ellisras-360-one-loft-race/

Good luck to all the participants!

To measure is to know.