Trispoke

Get a towbar, otherwise you have to use a rack that hooks up to and presses against the bodywork of the car. Unless I am mistaken, you cannot use any of the racks where the bikes 'stand' on their wheels without a towbar.

It wouldn't be UCI legal with the smaller front wheel...

Riding a pair of Khamsins as training wheels - solid and smooth.

First - a big thank you to the guys and girls out there who have been defending Erica. She is one of the few people in SA who gives a damn about women's cycling. Second - how about leaving provincialism out of it. If you want to base the selectors where our best are racing, which seems to be the argument behind having them based in Gauteng, wouldn't we be better served by having them based in Europe?

No wait, I've got it - printed in three columns, and someone accidentally dropped the last line with the obvious names in...

Maybe this is new selection policy - post a half-baked team on the Hub, get feedback from actual cycling experts, and pick a better team!

OK, I know I am hallucinating again because I do not see Robbie Hunter's name up there...

Most people are in the cycling business for the love of it, because they certainly cannot be in it for the money. Yet after only spending a very short time in the business, I found the amount of lies customers tell and the amount of - let me leave this space blank for the sake of politeness - that bike shops have to put up with quite unbearable. I have the utmost respect for the guys who manage to stick it out in the business - I could not.

Just a quick anecdote. Guy walks into a shop with a bad attitude. Starts asking vague questions. Salesperson starts giving vague answers. Customer gets nasty, points to a bike and says 'How much does this bike weigh?' Bike in question in a partially built Raleigh lacking half of the components as the owner still has to bring stuff to build onto the bike. Salesperson asks whether the customer wants to know the weight of the bike incomplete as it stands there, they weight of the bike complete with standard build, the weight of the frame only... Customer strips his mrrrr and yells 'Stop f***ing waffling and give me a straight f***ing answer!' How I managed not to kick him in the proverbial I will never know... glad to be out of the business!

Listen, all those things basically do is to add resistance to breathing. So just press your first against your mouth and breath. Same effect, but much cheaper!

Quit cold turkey!

Hi, my name is Trispoke, and I am a weight weenie. I wish I could say that I have been thinking in a sober way about the weight of my bike, but no such luck. I am on the road to recovery though...

The reason many manufacturers do not provide weights is that many other manufacturers lie. Some frame weights you see posted are for unpainted frames without any hardware, occasionally even in a size that is not manufactured... Things can get strange. If you therefore see a bike that is advertised at 7kg, and another that is advertised at 7,3kg, it could well turn out that the 'heavier' bike ends up being lighter, as the manufacturer was more honest. However, you would have gone and bought the 'lighter' bike...

Well, if you will be using the wheels for triathlon, the 808 rim on the Zipp 606 rear wheel is 81mm deep, compared to the 65mm on the Bontrager. The front 404 rim is a tad shallower (58mm) than the Bontrager front. The combination of a deeper rim in the back and a shallower in the front should improve the steering stability of the bike, and the aerodynamics will probably be superior as well. As for the dimples as sales gimmick - they seem to make a very small difference in the wind tunnel. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to notice the difference on the road, but if a fraction of a second matters, they may just help.

If a frame is well packed it should not damage, but the luggage gorillas can break anything if they really try. In terms of backup it is always better to buy locally, but overseas pricing can be a big draw card. The biggest issue for a guy of your size will be stiffness, and there carbon is likely to be better than Ti.

Lightweights are awesome wheels - most of the 'unbranded' wheels you see under pro riders in the Euro bunch are Lightweights. The Obermayers are the lighter version, and go for around US$5500, same price as the LEW wheels. If I have to choose between the two, I would go for the LEWs. However, availability is always a problem, and more importantly neither wheel can be repaired/trued anywhere but the factory. Definitely worth it though if you feel like spending more double what you would on a set of Zipps...

Difficult choice. How much will you be traveling with the bike, and how often do you crash? Titanium is less likely to sustain catastrophic damage, and gives a great ride quality. Carbon is (for the same weight at least) quite a bit stiffer than Ti. So it depends on which characteristics you value in a bike, and on how big and/or heavy you are. For very tall guys I would say go carbon, as Ti is more likely to flex, especially on the lightweight bikes.

Agreed - sponsors are hard enough to come by, and if you then tell them that on top of giving you kit and paying for race entries/travel, they still need to shell out a couple of hundred per rider, you are suddenly minus one sponsor...

Quite often the sales people really don't know where the bikes are manufactured, as the manufacturers try not to let the cat out of the bag if it is built anywhere but Europe or the USA. And with many manufacturers having some of their bikes made in Taiwan and other made in Europe, it is getting more difficult by the day. And even if components and frames are manufactured in the same facility, it does not mean that the specs are the same, therefore an Oval product can be better than a Ritchey product, even if they have the same origin. I don't think most sales people intend to cheat you or lie to you - it is more often than not a case of limited knowledge. So if you know what you want, go and find it. Don't give the sales assistant hell just because you can.

Strength to Ryan's family, friends, and teammates. Rest in Peace, Ryan - you will be missed beyond what mere words can express.

Johan jou legend!

So does pepper spray have any performance-enhancing qualities? Apart from incapacitating your opponents, that is... I am just seriously worried about inhaling the stuff when reaching for a gel or something, and then having to confess past sins in front of the international media...

And to think I was complaining about the wiring on my Ergomo!

Well, Scott has an ISP mtb out as well - the top of the line Spark, if I am not mistaken...

The interesting thing is that the Great Dane has called a press conference for today... no real surprise there from a man apparently nicknamed 'Mister 60%' The thing about all the T-Mobile guys is that they are coming out and saying that cycling has a problem, even though they are not outing the rest of the guys in the process. And Zabel admitted to trying it once and having such bad side effects that he never used it again. That is in line with what Jeff d'Hondt alleged a while back.