nuge

good, I'm in

good, I'm in.

Thanks K, much appreciated. Nope, I reckon it's long gone - there were quite a few kids wandering around on the side of the road, it's probably a souvenir by now! Don't worry about it, I'd had it long enough, which is probably why it fell off in the first place.

word of caution: although naval hill is a bit of a beast, make sure you guys are very careful taking the hairpin bend (sharp left turn) to get from main rd onto the start of the climb. The pace will drop dramatically to take the hairpin and make sure you drop into the small blade BEFORE you get onto the slope, you really don't want to drop your chain here.

nice to know i wasn't the only one!

just keep an even tempo, whatever that may be for you, seriously, you'll maintain a higher average than pushing hard for a bit and then flaking out. make sure you all take short turns on the front (no more than 10 seconds) and keep the rotation going. if you can organise more guys from the hub then all the better. also, it's no use saying, "right, you attack on the climbs" and all that. at this point, then key idea is to keep your team on the front and motoring at an even pace a la team columbia in pretty much every flat tour stage for the last few years! also, suffering is part of the deal, i'm always amazed at how hard the top guys have to push themselves to get where they want to be. riding fast hurts, there's no other way to say it i'm afraid! which brings me to the next question - SV's ride hard, there's no escaping it! as expected the whole group was shattered into large shards on hels and i got dropped pretty quickly from the front sliver of about 20 riders. i ended up in no-man's land for a few minutes before the main group of about 30 riders caught me in the last third of the climb. we tried to hit the descent hard to see if we could get close to the front group (narrowly missing a taxi who was, well, just doing what taxi's do i guess...) , but the front group had bolted, nowhere in sight. so we paced through the next 80-odd km's picking up stragglers here and there (like the remainder of the aurecon team on the agter paarl rd - one of their guys was in the front group) and ended up about 7-8 mins behind the winner. apart from losing my computer and trying a stupid and (very) short-lived late breakaway (seriously, what was i thinking?!) not much happened. can't say i'm looking looking forward to the cobra next sunday - that's really going to hurt!

ok, for a start, if you've got 3 guys riding together just paceline it all the way - don't bother responding to attacks which will only wear you guys out - in any event it sounds like the guys attacking in your cat get caught pretty quickly. also, sticking together and working evenly on the flats means you'll be able to keep the pace high and wear out the light guys before you even get to the climbs - they'll be too exhausted to attack.

ok, yesterday was my turn to lose something along the route - my cycle computer popped off the handlebar mount as we were going past the paardeberg prison. if anyone picked up a sigma 1606 please let me know. and yes, i know it's a serious long shot. i drove back along the route afterwards to no avail. i've also already mailed the PPA. cheers

it's tyre-melting hot here in town. enjoy, i'll be in my hammock knocking back a cold one

if it's pancake flat then the wind probably blows evenly and probably from a steady direction. find a stretch of road that'll take you straight into it or pretty darn near straight into it and ride in a big gear at low cadence (50-60 rpm). for "hill repeats" (or if the road isn't straight enough) turn around, rinse, repeat. hill training on the flat. done!

still rolling on a CAAD5 - it really is a beautiful piece of aluminium.

i love reading these seeding threads, makes me feel better about my own dodgy maths skills

dunno about cones, but for bearings have you tried "Bearing Man"? http://www.bearingman.co.za/ cheers,

soon to be on the inside of a chappies wrapper: "did you know if you drop a 26" and a 29" at the same precise moment they will both hit the ground and smash into tiny little bits at the same time?"

i'm in, i accept payment in jube jubes!

biltong all round then! merry christmas!

has anyone said you guys have way too much time on your hands yet?

holy crapola, you're telling me! we're heading off 3rd last - bummer

a 60kg waif will never understand... big guys need the 27 to get over the hills and the 11 to catch the little suckers on the descents. i should know (although i settle for a 25)

rode my first few argusses (argi?) on a frame precisely like that one, beautiful. enjoy!

i was advised by my lbs that mixing and matching sprockets may affect shifting - the sprockets on a given cassette are apparently specially designed to be sync'ed. now, i'm a sceptic and this sounds like marketing BS, but i'm also not prepared to fork out several hundred bucks to test a theory. in any event, cwc has an ultegra 11-28 http://www.cwcycles.co.za/product/shimano-ultegra-6700-10spd-cassette

go for it. take photo's before, during and after. ensure someone can upload to darwinawards posthumously.

if you replace your chain fairly regularly - i.e. just as it wears to 1/8 inch past 12 inches (google it), then you should go be able to through a few chains before your cassette needs replacing due to wear. just keep it clean - prolongs life more than you can imagine option 1: just get a new chain (sounds like you need it anyway) and change the cassette from your training wheels to your race wheels as needed (bit of a pain, but can be done quickly once you get the hang of it). i did this for a while, no worries. option 2: get a new chain and cassette. put the new cassette on your training wheels to "bed" in a bit. when you race, switch the new cassette onto your racing wheels and keep the old cassette on your training wheels. convenience personified. keep your chain and cassette clean, seriously prolongs component life. btw, if you're concerned about cost, there's really nothing wrong with 105, seriously. edit - i see you beat me to it, jb! good answer

just make sure you've got something in there for the punctures, hey Luke?

then you'd better practice your climbing! seriously