The Ouzo

Youngest daughters first “race”. was supposed to be mainly road with bits of gravel here and there, was totally the other way around. Road bike did well as a gravel bike. 8km at 8km/h

no, but she will check if you have a voucher to get some money off the swede

Werner is great and Thuli at the till points is great, but Mark at workshop I'll rather not deal with.

lets paint a different scenario whilst you're paying for your brake bleed, bike "safely" parked off to one side, some unscrupulous character casually takes your bike and walks out the door with it, Security is no longer instructed to check receipts, so this person goes unchecked. Would you be happy with that ? It grates me too that I need all my items checked like a criminal, but I also understand the reasoning behind it.

you are mistaken. I'm willing to bet that by price matching they are making little to zero profit on that item in the hope that they keep you as a customer and you possibly buy some more stuff from them. They probably also need to move a certain amount of stock from each supplier in order to secure more stock. If you really wanted to support the LBS and keep them around you'd pay asking price or meet them somewhere in the middle. This is not directed at you specifically. People keep bargaining business down for better prices, price match this, price match that, but when the business closes down because they are not profitable then its all "oohhs and ahhhs and why did they close, what went wrong. businesses take profit to keep the doors open, that profit is built into the goods and services. You are feeling the pinch, and so are they.

by doing this you are not supporting your LBS, to pricematch a big store like CL your LBS is most likely making nothing on the part.

I wasnt aware that the epic was around when Prost was young enough to do it.

I've often seen their sign on High rd when cycling past, always wondered about them

I see on Richard Baxters social media that he is leaving SA for OZ. Us jo'burgers are going to have to find another bike fitter

yeah, i recall F1 drivers and Rally drivers being extremely fit. And when it comes to technical stuff it also help that they have lightning fast reactions.

who needs teeth anyway, they just add weight

I use Pace and Power GT Gel, you buy a similar style bottle to decant into. Works well for me as it means I can continuously sip gel rather than trying to gulp and entire sachet every 30-45 minutes. Its also less messy in terms of gel going every where and empty gel packets leaking into your pocket.

Thanks for sharing. That Tankwa dust was blowing in my eyes reading this. Given the stress of the news leading up to the race and the conditions of the race, you can be proud of your achievement. Best of luck to your SO (and you).

tried making them twice. First time they went down ok, the second time I tried them I was doing SBR, its was hot, they did not go down so well. And perhaps the way I made them, but they were very crumbly and difficult to eat.

it was these supply chain challenges that lead to the panic ordering of stock, and in the motor industry there are still supply chain challenges, although on a much smaller scale

and cars had the same issue as bike post covid, once the stock panic ordered after lockdown started arriving, everyone was suddenly over stocked in a market where nobody had money to buy the stock. As with bikes, the motor industry is now in the poo, take a look around your areas and see long standing dealerships closing their doors.

sent you a PM

agreed, but with anything in life, its only as good as the human on the other side.

should have contacted me mate

do staff work for free ? do buildings cost nothing to run ? is R&D free? quoting material costs is being disingenuous, there are many other costs involved. Are the companies making a tidy profit ? I'm pretty sure they are, but I dont think its as big a profit as everyone thinks.

do you know how common Robert's scenario is ? It happens in many industries. In the motor trade you often get people wanted to "test drive" a car over an evening or weekend, only to find out they just needed it for an event, or to move house etc. Back in my childhood we had family friends that would buy clothing from a shop, leave the label on, atttend a wedding/part and then return the item.

a blury line defined by more blury lines

a bottle of wine @ R200 is deemed rubbish, sell that same bottle for R2000 rand and all of a sudden its a brilliant wine and desirability increases.

got notification from buffalo to pay duties on my order. Doesnt tell me which item has attracted the duties though. R65 duties on a R300 order.