The Ouzo

Almost 3 weeks off the bike due to illness(es). Great to be back, took it nice and easy.

its practically the last week of the year, most people are on leave, therefore everyday is friday.

well if you dont grease a bearing it will seize

Thanks, did not know planes had these. so its for backup power during load shedding

anyone want to explain RAT to us non aviation peeps ?

Well done to you too after that nasty crash. Your almost daily tweets and posts helps others more than you know. as you mention many times, riding is therapy. I need it to keep me sane. Plus I’m in the shape of my life, I’ve worked hard to get here and that is motivation to not give it all up.

Didn’t reach my goals this year, still did ever so slightly more elevation than last though. Illness and general tiredness room it’s toll. Since 947 I’ve not done much even though I planned to. A week off for holiday, then we’ve come back and have all had tummy bugs since. So have just decided that I’ll ride if I feel like riding for the rest of the year and try again next year for that elevation goal. Strava did however say I was in the top 8% for the year.

Exactly what I use. Turned it off the morning we left, then decided to turn it on the day before we came back, because it’s on a timer and I wanted to make sure that even if there was load shedding, there would at least still be warmish water in the geyser on our return.

Damn I was supposed to cut down this year. Oops.

Why did you not switch the geyser off entirely whilst away, or was there still someone at home? last week whilst we were away I had the geyser off, only turned it on the day before we were scheduled to come back.

Its like people are scanning the road for cars, bikes just dont register in their heads as something they need to wait for.

We dont run everything for the full 4 hours anyway. Family has been instructed if there is loadshedding they can finish the show they are watching and then TV etc. goes off. Priority is the wifes "office" . The trolley we bought has the ability to add PV panels. I wont do that now with the current house though.

but did he invest in himself or just "repossess" the high end kit from someone else ?

and yet the irrigation is going.

I'm running a 2kw inverter, powering basically similar to you. Works 100% fine. H Havent checked battery state with everything on after a 4 hour load shed, but from what I've seen with 2 hours it will handle 4 hours without getting into dangerously low battery level territory. (i.e. will still be above 50%)

depends on what you want to run though.

well it wont be anytime soon. so no hurry. I've got 2 lead acid batteries that I bought for my UPS. Put them in and the first time the power went off the ups let all the smoke out. Batteries are still ok, the part on the circuit board in the ups that holds the smoke is no ok. So UPS gets tossed and batteries will go into alarm.

thanks, going to look into getting one of these for the alarm.

havent gotten around to getting a stove top kettle or mokka pot yet, but I have a greek coffee pot that will make just enough hot water for 2 cups of coffee and have used this a few times. This and hearing all the MrD bikes hooting at the neighbours gates during LS while you're digging in to a home cooked meal is worth every cent spent on a gas install.

yeah we're looking at places at the moment. And since getting a gas stove/oven about 6 months back there is no way I'm going back to elec. And its not just for load shedding, we rather enjoy the way gas cooks too. So every house we look at we also look to see how easily it would be to convert to gas if it does not already have.

yeah since experiencing the seamless always on power of the "little" inverter I'm trying to factor in the cost of a proper system into the purchase when we buy a new place.

a bit of overshare there. hehehehe

Last week Saturday we left for a week at the coast. As I know my alarm battery only lasts around 45 minutes without power and I did not want the house sitting without an alarm for the entire week so I plugged it into the inverter. Also left the wifi plugged in so I could monitor somethings. Lo & behold the first day away and our area does not come back from loadshedding. A cable fault is the reported problem. We were off for around 18-20 hours. Now I'm stressing. Will the inverter last ? How bad are the batteries going to be stuffed ? I never got the sms to say the alarm lost power, and when we got back this saturday the alarm was still active, that means it never went completely flat. What damage it did to my inverter batteries I dont know though. But I was pleased that it lasted.

My comment in the other thread about my dad doing the longer route was more as a response to someone saying something about a lot of people not being able to do the long event. I don’t have the gift to put words down to eloquently express what I’m trying to say but let me try. there is obviously a market for the short route, it might even mean the whole family can ride a race that weekend and therefore justify the cost to travel to CPT. That’s awesome But instead of saying you can’t ride the long route rather say you don’t want to ride that distance. There is a difference. and if the shorter route can boost the CTCT so that it doesn’t fizzle out soon then go for it. I would have preferred a different route to introduce people to the race, but I guess logistically this makes the most sense.

BS. If my dad at 72 could do the full 109 with less the ideal training then you need to have a pretty good excuse to not be able to do it.