The Ouzo

for some reason I kinda like it

the other important factor to take into account is that many of these attacks happen by surprise, so very little to no time to pull any sort of weapon out.

I also recall a mtb event heading through KNP over a couple of days.

Mine goes into the shower with me after every ride and gets rinsed off. But my helmet is the smelly problem, and I'd bet the same solution for you will work for me.

on this topic. I've found that once the stench is there its basically impossible to get rid of with normal washing. Has anyone used any of those antibacterial sports sprays to get rid of the smell ? was it successful and which one did you use?

I solved that with some anti rattle tape that auto electricians use.

with so few items in that huge saddle bag you can most definitely go smaller. Forget about putting your phone in there, that just inviting problems.

I dont get the fascination with wrap straps, everything is out there exposed to the elements.

if you're ruining the aesthetics of the bike by mounting bombs on your bottle cage then you as might as well use a saddle bag. I have bombs in the saddle bag, but bombs and tubeless sealant dont mix well (or so the story goes), so the pump goes with me. With all that in your pockets your jersey must hang rather low. my phone gets its own pocket, nothing else goes in there, if I must put something there it wont be anything hard that can possible scratch the phone. I had one of these until I lost it during the wet argus a few years back. Small, compact, neat.

a tube from temu, probably comes pre punctured.

If I'm putting my tools/spares in my back pocket then where does my food go ? If I'm putting my tools/spares in my bottle cage then where does my second bottle go ? Screw the style police, I'll use my saddle bag thanks. (Although I try and keep it as small as possible, if I could afford one of those fancy new tubes that role up small then I could reduce the size of my saddle bag further) As it is my pump goes in my back pocket already

Good luck. You've put the training in, you're looking strong, you should be fine.

thats what was also confusing. It gave me a time limit to select items, so i scrolled through adding random stuff, with about 5 minutes left on the clock I then went to checkout, and all indications were that I needed to pay for the random stuff before receiving the voucher, it was around R1000 worth of goods and I was not prepared to go further to find out what would happen.

They enticed me with a discount coupon. i went onto the app and had a spin to win thingy. Spun the wheel and won R1500 voucher. Cool i thought. Started adding random crap to my cart, go through the checkout process only for it to tell me i must pay for the stuff, and only then will I recieve the voucher to be used with my following purchase. eh, not this time Temu.

its the sprinklings of white gravel underneath it thats making me chuckle

I'm noticing there are very few roadbikes on this thread. just saying.

and it still looks ugly

Nice one Dale, glad to see you on the mend, physically and mentally.

Is there not and adjustment on the carrier to tighten or loosen the mechanism that goes over the ball ? Towhitch balls should all be the same size, but I'm guessing its got to do with the size of the gooseneck from the car to the ball. I'm sure the Thule should have an adjustment. If you dont come right, either take the car and carrier to Thule or Audi, they should be able to assist. (I'd start with Thule)

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.