ChrisF

Do we have to wait till Friday to reply .... 🤣🤣

@patham makes a good point, it really is worth it to invest in some training, especially when starting out in MTB. Sure, as we push the limits you do go over the edge of the berm, thats part of learning. But a ton of scrapes and bruises can be avoided by basic skills training. Enough riding buddies out there that can give you a 30 minute session before heading out onto the trails. Then session a few bits of the trails to hone in those basic skills. Also, fatigue is a blood thirsty monster .... my stupidist and potentially worst accident was after 3 hours on the trails, HOT, tired, foggy ... actually stopped to pour water over my head, but just a bit as I had to keep the rest for drinking. Shook it off and about 1km further I went airborn over an A-frame .... DONT ignore these near heatstroke symptoms ... in fact, the hotter, the earlier you start sipping water, regularly.

I have a set of T-handles on the side of the tool trolley. Second drawer is dedicated to an assortment of bits, Spinner, T-handle torque wrenches, a 4-12(?) N.m torque wrench. For the bigger torque items I go to the car tools. I managed to get a case with an assortment of bits ... those non standard bits that can turn a small d.i.y. job into fun. This is also in drawer 2. Makes life a LOT easier when everything is at the ready. Oooo, and if you get an ebike ... a 5mm hex bit in an extension is kept at the ready .... only way to backpedal the chain.

Very wide range of decent helmets from R900 .... Do consider MIPS technology, or similar from various brands. I was more than surprised by the price range available at Specialized bike stores. Not all heads are shaped the same .... some helmets just dont fit, others just work.

I do believe my Kickr Core works on this principle. Dont know how/if my Garmin can tap into that information like it can on typical sensors. Which effectively means that I can only record time, cadence and heart rate on my Garmin during an indoor ride - more accurately, I dont know how to record more directly onto the Garmin. The physical file dump of the fit file seems the only way to get all the data back to Garmin Connect. Which is okay for a non-Vitality user. Do wonder though if this works for Vitality users.

Any chance of a regular Sunday ride overlapping with a part of the race route ? Or actually poeple (let's not correct this spelling mistake) that ride the race without paying ? Around here it happens that a normal weekend route overlaps with one or other event. With the one-tonner I knew it in advance and actually went trail riding instead.

Size of that tube ? (glo my spares is vir die grootter fietse, maar sal gaan krap)

Blown shock .... or simply not wanting to lock it ? Baffels the brain ... but there are people that WANT to keep those shocks OPEN on long tar rides .... maak glad nie sin nie.

To some extent this is NOT Discovery / Vitality. And I am NOT a Vitality fan .... for various other reasons, but in this case they at least seem consistent, sadly so. STRAVA wants a golden handshake before Wahoo or IndiVelo can auto upload their rides to Strava. Thus the hack to load the fit files across .... Now the bit I dont understand yet - How do you record an indoor ride on a Garmin device .... easy enough to link the heart rate and cadence monitors .... but where do you get the speed from ?

I do follow your ride posts. You two certainly make the best of the opportunities life have presented you. Please keep posting those stunning pics. Packing a bike ... actually did my first one this weekend. Neighbour's kid is flying up to Joburg for bursary work. Thanks to Chris Willemse cycles for giving us a bike box for free. Turned into a mini training session .... . Wheels off ... check the bearings, and just as well as the rear one was just too loose. . hold chain out the way and check the BB bearings. Lubed the chain. . check brake pads . They wanted to fit tubes with slime ... got a nice deal at CWC. . Driving back we spoke about swopping out tubes, and I picked up that he had done a tube swop before .... . Thus the training started. Explained how to use the low part of the rim to drop the tyre bead to help get the tyre off .... worked so well I could get off without tyre leavers. I quickly put it all back .... now let him remove it. I like to put the smallest bit of air in a tube before fitting it, then let him fit it. Second wheel I stood back. . Now to remove the pedals .... he certainly learnt that L and R is not the same thing, and that fasting happens in different directions (spanner to the top, turn to the front) . Only put in a bit of air in the tyres, not sure if one may load the bike on a plain with fully inflated tyres .... . Made sure he had a toolbag for a spare tube and a few basics. . Packing the bike in the box went easy enough, even though we had to loosen the front clamp to slide the bar about 40mm as the box was just that bit too short. Makes for a nice snug fit. Will hear soon enough how well our packing efforts lasted the flight to Lanceria, think it will be with Safair.

Thats in the same price range as Rapid Sports, and a couple of other local producers. You can only buy directly from them ... thus no mark-ups on mark-ups .... There are so many decent products on the bike shop shelves, but after too many mark-ups to get to that shelf the price no longer makes sense. I have costly Assos Bibs ... sure, it is a nice product. But I still use my Rapid Sports products 99% of the time, for a quater of the price. BUT, you have to fit these garments to know what size works for your body shape. With cycling tops, I use XL in most brands. With Ciovita (which makes the tops for the charity I support) I have to use the XXL. Surprisingly, not (just) because of my tummy, but because of my upper arm and chest measurements. Can say this for Ciovita - their sizing charts, for their tops, are spot on !! You just have to check EVERYONE of their parameters.

I certainly dont have the bicycle experience to answer that question. Which is why I was asking @Prince Albert Cycles to jump into the fire .... Skuus ou maat. As a person that rides those roads daily, and regularly take out tourists, he must have seen what WORKS. Sadly, also should have an idea of what best to avoid (even though it might be anecdotal and subject to a million other factors). @michaelbiker must be one of the very high miler bike-packers on this forum, and with that comes a wealth of experience, of good and bad ..... His comment on MAINTENANCE obviously is at the route of so many issues. And all too often it is not the lack of maintenance but the bike/brand/material that gets blamed .... PS - I am toying with the idea of getting a gravel bike (not bike packing, then the scale might differ ... the more I gym the worse the scale is towards me) ... thus following these threads, and trying to learn as much as possible.

They were built STRONG back then ....

Only reason I have some idea of this, is that I got the second set just before getting the "roadie" (HT with gravel tyres, used on the road only ... apparently I am not allowed to call it a gravel bike). The ebike comes with an odometer, which clocked over to "0km" a few months back, i.e. is has clocked over 10 000km. Granted it was a demo, so I am now at about 9 500km on this bike. As with so many things bike related ... less wear on the shoes on the road, as compared to trail riding. Those soles take a pounding as we work through the single tracks .....

. Early batch starts ?? Has been happening in the Western Cape.

My first set of 2FO did about 5 000km on trails, when I added road rides to the mix. This set become my road shoes. I bought another set of 2FO for MTB. Road set is at about 15 000km. Sure, the pins have worn into the soles, still works perfectly on the road. Top of the shoes still look good. Fair to say that I am a happy owner. Mix of wider feet and high bridge means I struggle to find shoes that fit properly. 2FO fits, and lasts.

Any recommendations on wheels ? Must be a bit of a juggling act to keep the wheel weight in check, while getting something strong enough for a loaded bike packing trip over corrugations ....

Anatomic cycling, if you can get to their shop. The single biggest complaint about all clothing manufacturers relates to sizing .... Large in one brand is XL in a few others, is XXL in yet more.

@Prince Albert Cycles your recommendations for "best" frame material for those long bike packing rides around Prince Albert ?

Let's hope so. He is no longer sitting in the same meetings ....

Following ....

Our paths have crossed on the trails. My comment has more to do with @'Dale work with athletes. Evaluating people is key to his profession.

As an ebiker I obviously would like to fault @'Dale .... fact is we do see some of this behaviour out there. More to the point .... few as qualified as @'Dale to analyse rider behaviour. sure, whish he was wrong ... but when chances are he is correct, at least for the groups he encounter

unless the group wants help with a head wind ...

@RobertWhitehead