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Glad to report back that after three operations my friend's scan was CLEAN.
EARLY DETECTION saves lives.
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14 hours ago, Underachiever said:The F..ers.
No Giro on DSTv it seems!!!!
But full coverage of the ladies Vuelta, and repeating the highlights of certain classics
The more things change, the more it stays the same ....
dstv has a long history of buying the rights, then geoblocking other sources. Come race day somebody makes the call and the premium wheels sport of the day is not broadcast live.
With umpteen channels broadcasting ball sports ....
Exactly why we switched off SS about 15 years ago.
1 hour ago, Kom said:Whats the longest multi-hour session you would have/will do before an endurance event of >6hrs? And how frequently will you attempt that volume to establish your nutrition approach actually works?
Kudos to you if you actually periodise your nutrition training leading up to an event, my suspicion is that many of us (especially myself) dont do enough of this, so when a multi hour event doesnt pan out as expected, we might discount that we had actually not ever trained for that volume of exertion in the first place.
Heaven forbid you actually do put in the hours. Work at getting the recipe right ....
Come race day a red mist settles in and all planning is forgotten, to bonk 2 hours later .. ...
Now I ride to the interval alarms on Garmin.
Just incase you are still not sure .... @Titan Racing Bikes is THEE way to go. 
PLEASE NOTE - if you buy second hand, the warantee is only transferable IF the first owner follwed the online registration process. If in doubt, contact @Titan Racing Bikes to check that everything is in order.
Yes, we have owned their bikes from when they were just "Titan" and have grown with the brand.
22 minutes ago, Ncayi said:I have had good and bad experiences with Cycle Lab. But they are still my go to place for cycling related purchases. In my experience, they have always course corrected when they have wronged me.
There is something I have been struggling with though. There is a persitent notion that one should carry some sort of shame when they support corperations such as CL instead of a LBS.
Do the advocates for this mantain the same approach with food and other things? Buying from the gogo at the corner instead of PnP and woolies. Use a taxi instead of supporting big bad conglomorates such as Toyota, Ford etc.
I gues my questions are.
-Whats the criteria for deciding which local business deserve undying support even if they dont make sense financially.
-Is one heartless if they just want value for money and not necessarily care where that is found?
I am not trying to be nasty or funny. Its a genuine point of interest for me.
For me comes down to service first, price a close second.
I go to the "big shops" for cycling computers, helmets and similar. Then again, on these items one tends to do more homework, and it inevitably comes down to who has stock and the best price.
Servicing of my bikes. I do most of the small stuff myself, so my bikes goes in for suspension and the likes. I have fixed up enough botch jobs from the big shops on friends bikes, no way my bikes gets booked in there !! For this my bike goes to my LBS, with which I have a trust relationship of nearly 35 years.
For me there is no "one answer" to your question. Each requirement has a different service provider that best suits the need of the day.
Then again, we are spoilt with MANY bike shops in a 10km radius from home !!
It is "easy" for us to support the one that provides best service, at a competative price. And sometimes that is the "big name shops", sometimes the LBS. OFTEN neither has everything on the shopping list of the day, so I do spend time in all of these shops.
54 minutes ago, Shebeen said:I figured as much....so general crowd, anyone doing this?
Your biggest challenge is going to get a supplier for 24" tubeless tyres.
Few years back that was not an option in SA, when Maritz was riding 24".
Maybe a call to your LBS, if it is imported they can get it in for you.
ORrrrrr .... Add a set to your next import ... sad that we are "nudged" to do this by the local distributors.
42 minutes ago, BuffsVintageBikes said:Those Cola Haribo's would go well with Brandy snaps 😉
It is rumoured THAT is how roadies discovered gravel riding ..... too much klippies and coke ...
34 minutes ago, Mook said:I am not a diabetic, yet @ChrisF nails the generic approach in terms of what/when. The standout advice that I will fall by has to be the post-ride Chocolate Steri-Stumpie.
Man, these little guys are evil and pack a recovery punch second to none. Saw a YT video some years back of the Australian Cycling Academy doing field tests on the effectiveness of a few recovery specific drinks, including a chocolate "steri-stumpie" type drink. Turned out that your local supermarket's chocolate milk took down most of the competition in that test.
Will admit I LOVE a coffee Steri-Stumpie
1 hour ago, Pandatron said:having ballooned to 107kg of extreme performance and then cut down to 79kg. Weight loss and trying to maintain some sort of performance was sucky and i was tired a lot. Then once at goal weight it took about 3 months to stabilize.
Its a tough road
Weight loss and exercise is a bumpy road, especially from my 110kg high.
Initially the weight loss seems reasonably straight forward. Then I hit a value on the scale, but my belt size kept on decreasing. Thankfully I had access to a student that took regular body fat % readings for me. In the next few months the scale indicate a weight increase of 4kg, as my body fat kept on decreasing.
Best wishes on that journey.
1 hour ago, lechatnoir said:mmm. seems insulin release isn't halted, rather insulin sensitivity is enhanced when muscles are doing work. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00123.2005 (the conclusion is interesting)
I wonder if there are any studies on chugging gels while out in the wilderness while being pre-diabetic? and then factor in a case where over-fueling is happening. what happens to the subject?
There are masters and doctoral studies done on diabetics and sports. I was fortunate to have a session with a dietitian that did her masters on diabetics and athletes.
Most of it was way over my head .... but a few key bits stuck.
YOUR DIAGNOSES is different to the next, AND this has a huge impact on what nutrician such a specialist will recommend for YOU. As a Type 2 diabetic with a constant HBA1C reading over a number of years I was recommended a particular nutrician strategy. It WORKS for me. Sure, took a good few rides to get used to it. But it served me very well at last years 3-day Trans Augrabies.
Should add, the strategy FOR ME includes:
- PRE-ride breakfast (biggest challenge for me is a races that start 3 or 4 hours after breakfast)
- first hour I should only need water, as the breakfast is still doing its thing.
- then the X per hour nutrician kicks in, until the end.
- Do NOT end the race hungry.
- Recovery meal, portion of carbs and a portion of protien, translation a chicken sandwich. And a Steri-Stumpie
PS - VERY easy to overdo fueling on training rides .... less effort, too much food, ....
PPS - if my diagnoses was any different, then she was going to give me a different "X per hour" .... most likely different food stuffs as well
certainly not a one size fits all when diabetis enters the story line ...
17 minutes ago, 117 said:You funny people you.
Its the part being treated like a criminal when trying to exit a shop, because they dont trust their own staff. Note i did say i was even happy with the price and time frame of the brake bleed, is that not good enough for happy service or did you miss that part? Cynical much?
LBS's dont follow that same warehouse mentality you seem to promote
Ag you wont understand. Go live overseas for a bit and it'll change your perspective on how customers should be treated, even at warehouse style stores
Point taken.
I do often drive past Builders and support the next hardware store for exactly that reason.
But this is part and parcel of the CWC/CL model .... on the odd occasion I there I KNOW what waits at the door ....
1 hour ago, 117 said:I needed a back brake re-bled and called CL in fourways to see if they could help (only reason is that i was 2km away from them and it suited my route for the day). I know a brake bleed is not the end of the world so i gave them the benefit of the doubt.
On the call i asked if it could be a wait for it job and they advised that due to being a little busy it'll be about a 2 hour or so wait. Win so far, i didnt mind that as i had other errands in the area.
I promtly relieved a call shortly afterwards informing me i need this done, that done, some other sh*t done etc, to which i promptly replied back that if they didnt understand my first instruction then its best i draw them a picture what i wanted done instead. Fine, we move on
Get there 2 hours later to collect the bike and its plastered with CL stickers in case some parts go missing.... now i must clean that crap off
I head over to pay and all is good. Im one of two at the counter and proceed to hand over a few beer coupons (not a bad proce i thought)
I then get lynched by the security on my way out insisting he checks my till slip. I demanded thay he first remove the tag off my bike before we proceed. Once done, he checks my slip as if i am the criminal stealing and not to be trusted... its actually his job to make sure the tellers do their job but he makes it out as if you, the customer, is the criminal.
I will do my utmost to avoid them in future, much like the same treatment you get at builders warehouse on exit
I should have rather supported an LBS in the area, they don't give you the same **** treatment as CL does.
Rant off, bye bye CL
Trying to understand your rant
1. Were the brakes bled properly ?
2. Till slip and security is a pain, but part of many shops.
3. Bikeshops gets a bad wrap when they dont check a bike .... they get a bad wrap when pointing out items that needs attention .... a no win situation. Personally, I like to know of stuff that are due. Sure, I may not add it to that jobcard, but I appreciate attention to details.
Maybe you got better service than you realise ....
27 minutes ago, The Ouzo said: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.
I KNOW I sometimes pay a bit more for a part at Mark, compared to the best online price of the day.
BUT ... his labour costs are reasonable. More importantly, fixed right the first time !
As this thread has turned into a CWC/CL bashing thread .... walked into CWC on Sunday with a damaged Garmin. Lady gave it one look and started doing the paperwork. @KB280DT and I did some window shopping, while she completed the book in.
In this instance the CWC staff was EXCELLENT 👍
5
8 hours ago, IceCreamMan said:.... Try to book a bike in for a service and it’s at least a 6 week waiting period.
NOT where we live.
Local bike workshops are having their queitest year in DECADES.
"Estimates", "predictions" these are good and well, even needed for business planning.
But at some point these "planners" need to get out in the real world. There needs to be some correlation between "predictions" and "end of year stats", else these predictions loose credibility.
2
Dankie @KB280DT
Nice early morning ride
Walker on Protea corridor .... time to test out the Garmin repair system, a.k.a. "how much must I pay in on a new one"
3 hours ago, BuffsVintageBikes said:Bike Market or Bike Addict?
I also had to take a second look ....
No gate at BikeADDICT. Also that slope looks wrong .... Also seldom that all partitions (back offices) are removed.
4 hours ago, _David_ said:And that's not cool. It feels like we're getting ripped off, not just overcharged. Instead of hiking prices, we should be making cycling affordable and accessible to everyone.
Uhmmm ...
But is cycling not affordable ?
Look at the wide range of semi decent bikes at places like Sportsmanswarehouse.
Decent, and still not expensive, models in Giant and various other brands ....
BUT ... we have champagne taste on box wine budget ....
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3 hours ago, madmarc said:I think BikeHub needs another name change
CPO = Cycling Prosecuting authority 😁
What we, the collective cycling community, need is an Etzebeth collection agency ....
Let's not forget how many of these bikes are re-distributed at the point of a gun. And we read all too often of our fellow cyclists that end up in hospital when they do anything but hand over the bike with a tip and a thank you ....
die stront moet stop !!
3 hours ago, betaboy said:I wouldn’t touch TREK!ever. They dropped the moral ball with the Greg Lemond saga! And acting disgracefully, I personally believe karma is on its way! Plus that brand is linked to the biggest cycling fraud to ever hit our sport! It has zero value in my eyes. Cycling will carry on regardless, hopefully Trekless.
The new challenges ahead is backup and parts, as more riders decide to have a forever bike!
Hiehie ....
VERY difficult for me to be objective on Trek.
I KNOW they have some excellent bikes.
I DO support some of their UCI riders.
BUT .... that dealer in Paarl screwed me over properly .... and to rub salt in the wounds the 2016 model EX5 really was a dud, at least mine was.
4 minutes ago, Shebeen said:I can see the power meter market being incredibly cut-throat going forward.
The technology has matured, the market has stabilised and it's ripe for a price war.
Problem is that most people who need a pm have one already, and they paid a lot for their current unit. Trying to get them to upgrade or increase the market is only possible with pricing getting slashed. You saw a similar thing with HRM watches and GPS units, but the market could handle both budget options and higher priced premium products. Power meters can only add convenience and accuracy going forward, and that will plateau (if not already).
In 3 years I see half the players left, charging half the price.
(the tech is exploding in sailing, but the pricing is still bonkers. https://theyachtrigger.com/cyclops-smart-link/#smartlink-products)
@DieselnDust knows Mike du Toit. He was using the fundamental strain gauges in power meters in cattle scales in 1999.
The fundamental technology have been around for decades.
The rate at which consumer electronics progressed was the key game changer.
Going to be interesting to watch how the consumer electronic experience evolves in the next 5, 10 and 15 years ....
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1
10 minutes ago, _David_ said:The problem is expensive bikes can deter newcomers and stunt the growth of cycling. High prices make the sport seem exclusive, turning potential riders away and keeping the community small.
Not sure if this is just an SA thing ....
A friend rented a bike at Bloemendal .... got hooked on MTB.
Bought a second hand HT .... I used a lot of my spares to fix that bike properly.
Took him about 2 months to reach the point where he "needed" a full suspension .... despite me introducing him to @Me rida my bicycle and explaining to him that it is the RIDER, not the bike, yada yada ....
Bought a full suspension off Bike Market .... this time I did not get involved in fixing it up ....
Took about 3 or 4 months until he broke the budget to buy a brand spanking new Scott Spark full suspension ....
Rode it HARD !! Lots of air time .... and could not (would not) understand why he had to keep taking it back to the dealer for the one suspension issue after the other. (my guess - he kept on bottoming it out with hard landings). Then winter came ... lekker om in die modder te speel ....
Two extreme mud events and the bike took a serious hammering, all this before the bike had even reached 1 000km.
He refused to pay for a true strip down and rebuild .... not surprisingly a few components have since seen early failure. Currently hanging on the wall as he cant get spares for the freebody, and wont pay up for a new freebody .... So a nice frame hanging on the wall, and no cycling ....
Sorry, back to the point .... is this an SA thing where "we have to" progress to the latest and greatest" at the expense of our budget ? His version of this "expensive hobby" may well put people off MTB ... while in reality that 2nd hand full suss could still have been serving him WELL, and the sport could have been relatively affordable ....
45 minutes ago, stringbean said:Everyone been predicting the bubble to burst for years and think it’s finally here.You can only take the p!ss with prices for so long.Continental road tire costs around 2k😳
Even those that can afford top end are thinking twice.
When you buy that 200k top end bike and 1 month later Spez are throwing it out less 40% you get pretty pissed.What will happen is cyclists will just hold on to what they got,no new or upgraded bikes while the industry falls on its face.
Lets just forget about all the BS marketing,just use what you have and go out and enjoy the ride😍
Welllll .... MOST have been saying this. There are the odd Hubber hell bent on telling us that the PREDICTIONS show a growing market, and that it is all good and well.
Back in the real world ...
1. Only buy new if you really have to replace at this point in time
2. DO YOUR HOMEWORK !!! Trek's local special is a JOKE compared to what they are doing overseas ! They are still milking us !!! Okay, at least they are one of the first brands to embark on big specials in SA. Some other brands are doing two-for-one specials in Europe, but hardly any discount here ....
3. As much as some Hubbers gets their knickers in a twist about "low balling" ..... the secondhand market is going to adjust as the real specials start on new bikes.
4. The more immediate issue .... it is getting stupidly difficult to get hold of some basic spares.
5. The closure of family shops such as Cyclosport is a vivid image of the REAL state of this industry.
7 minutes ago, Jordan Van den heever said:Hello someone send me this thread. I bought this bike last week in stellenbosch off fb marketplace (obv have all proof),took it for a service at chris willemse and posted it today and was contacted by an unknown person saying the bike was stolen. I then removed the add. Can the owner please contact me.
47 minutes ago, Toasted marshmallows said:Would also love a 29er 50mm slick
Panaracer have a few semi-slick options, in 50C.
I have used the semi-slick in 50C from Specialized. They do have 42C tyres with a slick centre line and gravel tread to the sides. Wonder if they have something like this in 50C ...
Every so often I want to go slick .... but some of the roads are narrow and do spend time on the gravel shoulder.
Let's hear what the others can add to this ....
New Bike Rack
in Buyer’s Advice
Posted
How many bikes will you be transporting ?
For 2 bikes rather get the three bike rack.
Tilt function is VERY handy on all vehicles, except those with side swing doors.
Yes, Thule comes at a premium. I would rather buy a secondhand Thule ....