Gumpole

normally they will match the crank arm length t othe size of the bike. I think 54/56 is 170 56/58 is 172.5 58/60 is 175. I dont think crank arm length is that critical compared to the rest of the setup. I have always had a 170 but went for a 175 on my last bike - not a huge difference. ..of course its easy to adjust your seat height, expensive to adjust your crank length.

Time RXE, R600 what a bargain. and 1g lighter than RXS. I weighed them in the shop while waiting for some sales assistance. Had no knee problems since using them (previously SPDs), however that probably has little to do with pedal choice.

, if you can average 98 for the race, then you can easily do 98 for a hill - just in a smaller gear. You will have to switch to the 39 though!!! thats what it is for. If you are standing then a lower cadence but nowhere near 40. If you cant do that then you need easier gears/ triple/ compact to help! I had a friend who decided to do the argus (40s, smoker, overweight, unfit) and she bout a second hand bianchi - old 7 speed with an easiest gear ratio of 42/21! She walked up the mineshaft at kyalami which was good training for walking up almost any hill at the argus!! final time 8 hours. If she had a bike with granny gears she would have been able to finish it a lot quicker and climbed most of the hills.

Even more important for weak cyclists not to be pedalling at 40 RPM. Imagine riding a flat race at 30km/h (or 23 or 47km/h, whatever speed you can maintain with a lot of effort). Now imagine you are in the 53-11 gear and grinding away at 40 rpm - its just stupid. I think weaker (or rather new riders) get into this macho 'out of the saddle struggle against the mountain' mindset when infact they are actually being very inefficient. Not all people can climb at very high cadences like LA does but at 40 rpm you are either popping your knees or going much too slow.

Another thing - when climbing a hill in a race you are ALWAYS working very hard. so slowly spinning seated like you were doing earlier in the ride hiding in the bunch isn't going to work. Climbing seated at a slow cadence is crazy... get easier gears if necessary. Once you drop below about 70 rpm (cadence) you are just wasting your time while seated. unless I think to climb well/ or train to climb well you must be able to do 1. high revs and/or high power for a perid of 5 to 15 minutes. Sitting or standing isn't all that relevant. .. and lose some weight, easier from the body than the bike.

SITTING is more efficient, but I prefer standing on steep climbs, I reckon that if it is verry verry steep anybody will stand. If it is flat you sit - you just need to find the point at which you switch between the two - up to you. I also enjoy standing because it is a break for my butt and muscles are used slightly differently.

Was a waste to have a protour rider and the show and not have something better to ask him. Maybe Robbie is like LA and the presenters have a set of questions that they have to ask, no more. Would have been great to have Owen ask him, 'Robbie your tip of the week, maybe you could share with us how the peleton dopes and gets away with it 95% of the time' 'mmm rrr U MM mm , well Owen, like, mmmmm try and mix some longer rides into your training schedule'

1. Its impossible to have a 0% testosterone level 2. The lab never published anything to that effect. 3. Robbie is a lekker outjie and a brilliant bike rider (and I bet he knows a few things from hanging around the doped up peleton) but he is no medical/ doping expert. besides, anybody in the world would protest the innocence of a (former) team mate, and friend, ESPECIALLY when he is still looking for a contract for next year. so maybe I'm a suurtiet.

it will be closed this thursday and next monday and also maybe next tuesday.

Dr Suess: 30.6 was for the 60km, I dont think anyone went the longer Irene route. I normally sit at the back, or a little off the back to give myself some room in case of accidents (and a bit more work). I think the rolling hills around JHB are one of the reasons that it is difficult for everyone to keep the same speed. 2 weeks ago I stopped when a lady had a puncture (as did about 4 others) I though this was the decent thing to do and was looking forward to some hard pacing. My f*k, I was hanging onto that little group for dear life, I did nothing to help the pace at all, just hid in the slipstream. Agreed that the club100 marshalls and ride captains do a brilliant job, especially while controlling intersections.

Being relatively new to a cycling club I discovered a strange new phenomenon on our sat AM ride. I joined Club 100 in June to try and get people to cycle with to train for the Jock as most of my cycling buddies retire between March and October. I generally did the sunday rides that were a 70-80k ride at 25/26km/h. There was a slightly earlier ride for the A group but everybodty else was just there trying too keep in shape or avoid freezing to death. Later I started doing the saturday morning rides, a little shorter, half an hour earlier start and I can do 80 or 95km and still get home before 9am so the family is happy. saturday ride structure is something like this: As leave before I arrive. Bs leave in a medium size group (30-32km/h ave + a longer ride) C1s leave (28km/h ave) C2s leave (27km/h) Ds leave (beginner short group) So here is the problem. Most people aren't beginners, Nobody will dare ride with A except the good guys. Similarly the B group. So C is always a big group (hence the split into C1 and C2). But now as people start getting fitter everybody seems to believe that they should start in C1 as C2 is too slow, B too fast/ long. Second problem is the average guy who dusted off his bike in september and struggled too keep the speed of the group will be much too fast for the group in October. sooo... should ride groups change their speeds as the year goes by? - like they have winter start times? How many people should start off together in agroup ( I imagine start groups are based on robot change cycles?? If a club has 100 people wanting to start in the C group and they break them up into 4 groups will the cyclist's ego be able to handle starting in group C4! this was based on last saturdays ride that started off with 3/4s of the Cs wanting to start in C1 instead of C2. the pace was very high and we finished the ride in 30.6km/h - with wind! (not that I'm complaining). The group (which I believe should finish together) ended up finishing in dribs and drabs.

haha, the armstrong antennae are working. That would be K. Armstrong not LA

I think he got caught out accidentally by Carte Blanche who went after him quite naturally because of cyclings well documented doping/drugs/landis/festina/ullrich/basso/fuentes/ferrari/hamilton/armstrong/heras/phonak/libertyseguros/drugs/doping problem. Besides the cops are getting ready to implement 'operation christmas bonus' - tracking drivers on the N1 left hand lane without passengers.

sorry, not contract movements of our pros, but the poo story ... http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep29news Doping hits South Africa The cycling scene of South Africa has been shaken recently when Shawn Lynch, a former track racer twice suspended for doping practices, admitted in a TV show that he specialized in advising sports people how to use banned substances. On Sunday, September 24, Lynch told Carte Blanche on M-Net that the persons he advised included children and cyclists. In an interview with Beeld, Lynch said: "It's not as if I tie up children and then inject them with something from behind. The parents approach me and ask me to help." Products on which Lynch allegedly advised included steroids, growth hormones and EPO. Lynch this week denied having also supplied any of these banned substances, but Carte Blanche claims it has footage of the cyclist admitting to "sometimes supplying illegal substances", which will be aired this upcoming Sunday. Lynch claimed that during his time as a track rider, a senior cycling official had always warned him in time when he would be tested for banned substances so that he could take precautions. He also added that the challenge was "to always be one step ahead of the Institute for Drug-free Sport," and confessed to selling substances when he was in Europe. Lawrence Whittaker, president of Cycling South Africa (CSA), has reacted on Thursday on the affair, sending out a press release in which he assured that "CSA has zero tolerance towards drug use. We will do everything within our power to root out this growing evil which threatens the future of our sport, at every level. With particular reference to the Carte Blanche programme, we will have to follow up individuals concerned." Whittaker also announced that a fund to fight doping in the sport was being created, and said that he was "currently exploring the viability of voluntary polygraph (lie detection) testing for cyclists, the idea being that cyclists who voluntarily and successfully undergo a lie detector test establishing that they are drug free will be given a wrist band to wear. [...] Lie detector tests are, I understand, 98 percent accurate. "I stress that this would be a voluntary programme and my sincere hope would be that it would gain massive momentum over a short period of time and at a fraction of the cost required for expensive blood and urine testing," the statement continued. "Hopefully we could get to a point where, if a leading cyclist, was not wearing the wrist band, he would feel compelled to undergo the test or drop out of the sport altogether. To ensure viability, questions would only be asked about a cyclist's history over say the last 6 months, but the test would be done at regular intervals and a national register would be kept."

cyclelab and club100 are fairly close, depending where in kyalami you are

Change the 185 to 188, some of those spinning instructors are really tough!

But it is a lot higher than even last years (summer) measurements

Especially for Bikemax and the training guru types: I've noticed that in the last few weeks my max HR seems to have increased. I was doing a club ride and at the end of it there is a long drag going up towards woodmead on the old PTA road. I was pushing fairly hard but not too much - I felt like I could keep up the pace for a long time. I check my HRM and it says 177. I got a huge fright, this is usually the highest I can get it at the end of a long hard hill. Any way I carried on at 174-179 up this hill and still felt ok. After this (in spinning classes) I have tried to get my HR up high and can easily get it up to 185. Previously 179 was my highest that I had recorded. I think that my HR has increased +- 10 bpm for the same exertion (or perceived exertion) I usually weight 71kgs but seemed to have put on a few kgs this winter (despite the Jock training). I was 72/73kgs on the day of the race and since then have 'grown' to 75kgs. Is the higher HR readings because of the additional weight (the increased HRs do kinda correspond to the increased body weight)? If I can get my HR this high now, why not previously? Am I fat and unfit and about to keel over from a heart attck? I feel good on the bike and Witkoppen drive didn't seem to tough last week.

Hey Michelle, were you doing the race for seeding purposes? If so wouldn't it have been faster to ride in the open sections (where everybody is trying to ride a consistant but fast race) rather than racing ladies where everybody is racing to win and doesn't care about time??

https://www.bikehub.co.za/forum_posts.asp?TID=3404&KW=american+classic Marius you are two powerful, or two heavy, or have a very jerky riding style for the AC wheels

Ok Cruxie, I'll look out for them on sunday night, hehe. Bang, bang, Bang, "mmm, Michelle, I'm still asleep, please go and get that" "no way, you should have been up half an hour ago training" Bang, Bang, Bang " oh ok, I'll get it" stomp, stomp, stomp creek " Hey Michelle get up, I'm on TV, I think we won the lotto" " yay, I can upgrade to a Cervelo at last"

Hopefully its Microsoft and not Mallo or the TCS guys... Jason, Jason where are you today?

called them: open mon-thurs pm after 5. pay at main gate from 4:50, I can imagine what a stuff up that will be. No morning rides anymore