ChrisH

Don't try putting on a long sleeved jersey when standing in a doorway.

A couple of years ago I bought a Salomon hydration pack rather than a Camelback, for the simple reason that Salomon sponsor stuff like AR in a big way in South Africa and the other one doesn't. Then I mailed Salomon to tell them why I buy their product so they know their sponsorships pay off. What did they do? Sent me a R300:00 off voucher for my next pair of trail shoes that's what. 2 years later that pack and those shoes are still going strong. Salomon is a cool product to support.

When my LBS earns my money and gives it to me as a present then I will feel guilty giving it to his competition. Till then I will spend my money on what I want and where I want with none of this weird guilt that cyclists seem to have about it. That's like feeling you have to have sympathy sex with an ex girlfriend. I have just received a shipment of stuff from Chain Reaction and will feel nothing to ask my local (and brilliant) LBS to fit the parts. In fact they will even collect my bike and the new parts from my house for no extra cost as part of their service. They charge premium rates for a fantastic job, I pay them, everyone is happy. And they've never asked me for sympathy sex either.

My new wheels were smooth from the word go. I even compared them to the old ones and they freewheeled for almost 20 seconds longer than the old 'worn in' wheels.

Hey Turk182, now you have moved to Gauteng you can shop at Cajees for cheap.

And that's where you can get them in the Northern 'Burbs.

I bought a pair of Kenda Nevegal UST's from Cycle Factory Warehouse in Montague Gardens two weeks ago.

I can almost guarantee that Action Photo will not answer an e-mail. I have sent 8 mails and phoned them 4 times to resolve a problem. They have no idea of what customer service is, but I guess when you have a monoploy and a captive audience that is to be expected. Finally after all my attempts, I got Sonya to send me a response that was meaningless. I am still waiting for her reply to mine 2 weeks later. Most of my mails have been very polite, but I am nearing the end of my tether with them. Mailing the owners of the place got me no further either. Pathetic!!!!

Having just upgraded my wheels, I am now keen on getting the Fox Forx Float Talas RL fork to replace my old 05' Manitou Black. As seen here at Chainreaction. http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=13830 Is this, as my LBS says, worth the wads of money it will cost, and is there anything else I should be looking at that could cost a tad less than the Talas. Will I even notice the difference between my current Manitou and the new Talas.

Cycle Factory Warehouse Cape Town http://www.cyclefactory.co.za/

My new wheels are fantastic!! Stans ZTR355 tubeless rims with DT Swiss comp spokes laced to Ringle Dirtyflea hub. The wheel set is only 900 grams lighter than the previous set ,but wow, what a difference losing 900g of rotational weight makes. I can't believe the difference these wheels have made to the bike. Accelerating in the single-track used to be so sluggish and such hard work, now I just apply what by comparison feels like a small amount of pressure to the pedals and the bike rockets forward. The wheels are rigid and smooth, and better still make the coolest 'brrrrrrr' sound when I free wheel. And they free wheel for miles.

Put a very big book under the front wheel.

With new Kenda Nevegals, brake rotors and XT cassette, approx 6K

Anyone know anything about Ringle MTB hubs? Are they good, bad or indifferent? I am looking at a wheel set with Z355 rims and Ringle hubs from Cycle Factory Warehouse in CTN. TitusTi I would value your opinion if you would be so kind even though these are your mates

I think it's a 45 min class followed by a 90min one but with the same instructor. I am going to give it a go next week and see what gives.

It's obvious you lot weren't brought up in cold northern climes. No way is it cold in the Cape. Ever. Chilly maybe, but never cold. In my day we had to walk 10 miles to school in waist high snow, dressed only in shorts and a thin shirt. BOT. Wednesday night, Gardens Virgin Active. Spin from 5:30pm till 8:00pm and win prizes. Or so the instructor said last night.

Bring your lights to play at Tokai tomorrow night. A bunch of us are going to ride there, then party* afterwards. *Picnic 'coz we are 'toppies'.

What about these, on 'special' from BikeHut. Are they worth a look for a spare set of wheels? Azonic Outlaw Wheelset Light enough for the Cross Country trail rider and strong enough to take the biggest drops. Hubs convert easily from Quick Release to 20mm Bolt-Thru axels. 36 spokes, cartridge sealed bearings. Available for FR/DH frames requiring 135mm or 150mm wide spacing <?:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /> Comes with axel conversion kit. Front QR / 20mm Rear QR / 12mm Specify 135mm or 150mm Spacing White rims with black hubs & spokes Only R2995 per set

I was at a Government planning meeting for the 2010 World Cup yesterday and they said that they will make sure that the Argus Cycletour and 94.7 are cancelled in 2009 and 2010 so as not to take any publicity away from South Africa's World Cup. Apparently they want to have a 'focussed media' ChrisH2007-04-01 00:45:07

Mampara your avatar is driving me crazy. I keep hitting my screen to kill it

I bought my wench the Marathon 4. It's a damn fine bike for the bucks if like her, you are never going to get even close to the limits of an entry level bike. On the other hand if you are like me and have delusions of ability way beyond the sad reality of how bad you realy are, then go up the scale one step to the Marathon6. RSP is 15k and you can almost always get a discount of a couple of hundred on that. For that kind of money you get a Rock Shox Reba Race 100mm fork with Pop Loc remote, Fox Float R rear shock and Juicy 5 brakes. http://www.raleigh.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=206&Itemid=69

But they didn't say when it would break did they? Be afraid...be very afraid. And from now on you can ride in front of me at Majic. ( I have an excuse for being at the back now)

RodTi here are my thoughts after a year of Edge 305 use. The Garmin does everything the Polar can do on the HRM side of things. The training center software put out by Garmin is universally recognised as being garbage, but Sportstracks software (http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/) is free, well donation ware at least, and makes Polar's software look cheap and silly. I have been using the Garmin and this software for over a year now and never had a bug, glitch or loss of data. You can also import your historical Polar data into it, so you won't have two separate training logs. The sportstracks software is so clever that when I downloaded my Argus data it automatically recognised that it was the Argus route and entered the correct route headline. Last winter I got a little bit lost in Lebanon (by 13km's) and used the return to start option on the Garmin. It took me unerringly back to where I needed to be without any fuss. Lets see a Polar cater for that kind of stupidity I also have a Polar 625x which my fianc? uses most of the time, as well as a S510 as my wristwatch. There is nothing wrong with the Polar at all, it is just that the Garmin does so much more. Polar are releasing a GPS module for their latest watches (similar to the thing Timex fiddled with a few years back), but I shudder to think of the combined cost of their watch, speed and cadence sensor, GPS module, USB-IRDA dongle, etc etc. It's worth a look when it comes out I guess.