Dirt Tracker

My limited experience with Garmin has been an absolute shocker. Got a VivoActive about 4 months ago. Thing stop working 5th December and took it back to Sportsmans where the lady laughed and said she had a lot that hadn't been sent off and they were not promising anyone to look at them until after 15th January. It was rooted, wouldn't really charge, the touch screen wasn't working at all and the display kept glitching. The lady at Sportmans said she'd seen a lot like that and they just replace them. I finally got a new watch back Yesterday, without the charger. Now I have to wait for that to arrive or buy a new one. Less than stellar.

There are a range on insurances that you have to have to run any public event (PI being one of them) and some you can choose to take as an organiser and are a business decision. The owners of the events we're involved in, for up to 25,000 participants, take event insurance and cancelation insurance as part of their standard business model. It's been claimed on twice (in 5 years) and covered costs due to suppliers, sponsors, certified outlay and participant / ticket refunds. One claim was a cancellation by the hosting city for safety reasons their side and one was due to truely horrific weather (this one was a fight to get paid out and needed a lot of expert opinion / documentation, it was paid though).

Question though, did the organisers have insurance for cancellation? We're involved in staging mass participation events (not bike based) and have a lot of different insurances tp protect from a lot of costs and eventualities. There is a big difference between pulling the event as as a decision by the organisation and having it pulled for safety reasons by a certifying authority.

Flown back and forth with empty hard shell cases and soft bags rolled up. You always need to take them to oversized but that's never really an inconvenience. Just check the airline reg's and you should be good. Have heard of horror stories where people going out with an empty bag and coming back with a nice new bike in a bag / fresh looking 'i just bought a bike' box getting pinned by customs but I can't really see that happening and I've never had any issue what so ever. Normally I catch the customs guys eye and he has a look that's like 'that seems a lot of admin for me, keep moving and we'll both be good'.

Added a few kegs over the festive period and this searing heat in CT from the crack of dawn isn't helping get me up through Tokai without wanting to pass out as the mercury is pretty up there by the time the gates open. 🔥🌞

Like driving a car. Everyone going faster than you is a hoon or a show off and everyone going slower is a doddery danger holding up the rest.

If it's that gold Slade Trail in the classifieds then I'd personally got for that. It's got decent components and very nice fork (don't let everyone tell you a pink or a lyrik are the only RS forks around). The rest of the kit is pretty sorted and you're not going to need to update much for a while. You are saving on the original price but you're still paying less for the Slade esp if you offer R1000 or R1500 less, that will help with the shipping and we all know that the HT market is Niche and that one hasn't move yet. There was a similarly spec'd one on here a few months back I was looking at and that sat around for a month at R9500 I think and I has a haggle and the guy was happy to take about R1000 off the price to make the deal. Drop in an offer it they go for it great, if they don't it's still an okay price and if it doesn't' work out then you've got a back up in the Roscoe. Maybe take some extra money and upgrade the brakes, sell what's on there and it shouldn't cost too much. R30K for that Roscoe at original prices is nuts, you also have to ask how much is that to do with the exchange rate as well and to be honest parts of the bike industry are doing it tough at the moment. Also as soon as you've got it it's suddenly worth way less. I'd also say resale angle the slide is a better option as it's better kitted. Ride wise I've ridden the previous version Roscoe and that Slade and I liked the Slade more. The frame felt a bit more poppy and comfortable. The Roscoe felt a bit off the mark despite the slightly slacker head angle. Rest of the Geo is almost identical depending if you're comparing the same frame size. Pretty much same in the reach, chainstay lengths etc. Slight difference in ST and HA. Slightly longer wheel base on the trek and BB. All that said, I've just swapped out from a super long, slack Hard Tail and a 160mm enduro bike to 2018 Tranny Smuggler. The numbers between those are way different and look positively ancient (67 HA / 120m rear / 51 offset) but the Tranny was the most fun bike I owned back when they came out and having ridden out a good handful of times I can say it still rips, hammers down and always with a smile on my face. slipped on a -1 degree Headset and might add 10mm on the stem but not necessary. I've sort of given up analysing the numbers death. If it sit's in a decent range and feedback is good then it's a case of - Buy bike, ride bike on what's in front of you, like bike, ride back up and do it again.

Always ride alone. Never tooled up. Never had any issues despite needing a bike upgrade and having been paying insurance for many years and would give my bike to the first person who even looked like they might want to take it. Nuts. Never let fear or paranoia be my driving force. I do play well with others. Just don't have time to wait about while people get their lives together and pitch.

Thanks god for that. When this flashed up I thought it was the dreaded retirement out of the blue. Norco though? Always quite like the ones I’ve ridden but Min & the Cruz… it’s peas in a pod.

Hats off to @fingerscrossedbmx on creating this titanium full suspension BMX. Why? Well because you can and flat out it's awesome. Sometimes that's the exact amount of a reason.

I love a rowdy HT and if it's steel, with some modern geo then even better because they are great fun and a different way of approaching a trail and getting a very different experience. XC, Alu type HT's hold no interest for me as it's best of no worlds. Usually a pretty bumpy, rough ride that I would deffo prefer to be doing on a short travel dual sus. Usually I reckon a 130 / 140mm HT is a pretty sweet spot. Unfortunately there is such massive range in the HT market as they really start as the basic of the basic, hunk o' junk bikes through to high end makers like Kingdom. I know that sounds obvious but there are so many bikes out from big manufacturers that are entry level, awful geo and shouldn't even see a gravel path it can get overwhelming. The old Silverback Slade and the Banshee Paradox are great Alu HT frames. Issue is in SA there isn't really that much of a calling / market for manufacturers to bring them in. I don't think they even bring in the 2023 Slade do they? This is the reason I mostly get my frames off PinkBike or Ebay or generally UK shops as there is a wider range and prices are (usually) better than here plus as previous people have said there isn't the culture of those trail HT's here. In the UK there is a long tradition of fun, rowdy HT's and so many manufactures to choose from in Alu, steel, Ti and carbon. Keep an eye out on here, you'll be surprised what will pop up. There was a nice Nukeproof for sale, a large Steel Stanton Switch and I've even seen a Kingdom Vendetta kicking about (which I'm still kicking myself I missed). Rapide gets some good shout outs and the Momsens are always popping up but the geo isn't great, any of Dave Mercer's frames are always awesome. This is a good price and decent spec. https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/hardtail-mountain-bikes/677225/silverback-trail-slade RS rev' fork, dropper, Flow wheels, bit of XT... boom! People that make great HT's overseas: - Orange P7 - Commencal Meta HT - Stanton - Kingdom - Shand used to do the shug - Cotic - Pole Taival - Transition - On One Scandal, Vandal, Huntsman, Hello Dave, Wrekker, and Big Dog - Chromag Doctahawk is pretty extreme / Rootdown is less so - Kona Honzo - Nordest Bardino - Ragley Bikee - Nukeproof - Bird This list has 65 odd HT's with head angles, seat angles and standout features which is quite a fun place to start as well.

For anyone looking for a big steel rig with M8000 group, Ohlins fork and Carbon rims then this could be for you. https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/hardtail-mountain-bikes/670113/stanton-switch9er-hardtail-custom-lxl

For anyone looking for a big steel rig with M8000 group, Ohlins fork and Carbon rims then this could be for you. https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/hardtail-mountain-bikes/670113/stanton-switch9er-hardtail-custom-lxl

Send me your email and I'll send the print files.

Had this made up when I had mine. Only got rid of my V1 because it made all the trails too easy without riding DH lines exclusively. Such good bikes.

Uitsig was awesome. I've always hacked about for ages trying to get 3 other useless people together while life got in their ways. Now I can lone wolf it, get S*it done, get the discount and all with ultimate ease. Almost too good to be true and too easy. dropped it on a Tuesday, got it back Friday. Needed 2 photos (or 1 and old card) and the form they have there. Shout out to the lads and lasses of the bike park for sorting it. Edit: I don't think I got charged anything for the service. Which was a surprise. Did buy some new grips and a stem while there so win / win.

Nice. Loved my Bin Chook too!

That was Friday morning.

Guys in the UK were freaking out when I told them the snakes story and then followed it up with the video of the 3 decent sized bronze whalers that were having a heck of a time in waist deep Muizenburg when I pitched up for an early morning paddle the very next day. 🤣

Please let me know details as well. Would like to send my 3 to that to get them proofed.

100% the dogs were in their garden as well and we're in Constantia / Graylands so not exactly rural south. Thanks for the link, just ordered some nice long tongs for here and Breede. 👍

Seems so, just found out house a couple of doors down from ours just lost their their 2 dogs to a suspected cobra this arvo. Plus the daily sightings in the lower plantation around the rivers and the Labrador pool seems it has ramped up this year.

Just got back from a ride and apart from being thermo nuclear on the heat angle I managed to dodge 2 decent sized cobras one the way up. 1 at the quarry entrance and one at the top Faerie Garden entrance. Then on the way down at the very exit of the My Roots / DH 4 while hosting it I managed to see, not compute, brake, not brake as a very lazy large 'stick' was sliding over the entire trail.... then I rode over it's very tippy tail as it was going into the grass then ground to a halt. And man, it was p*ssed. It bolted onto the road and got pretty upright and pretty annoyed (understandably) and massive hood action and then a little voice in my head was like 'why HAVE you stopped about 2.5m from something bitey who you have blatantly annoyed'. Slowly backed away and rolled away, he stayed annoyed and upright as he faded into the distance. I guess all those 'it's snake season on the mountain' is true after all. On the plus side I did beat my PR down outta there to the parking!

Keep looking at this as a frame only option but I know that I'm not going to be able to stretch to a L... Looks like steel fun tho. https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/hardtail-mountain-bikes/678721/marino-cabala-enduro-29-hardcore-hardtail-l

Reckon that is a great choice. You'll have to report back if you pull the trigger. Just sold my Shand Shug... was a large frame and I wasn't nearly as large as I thought I was. That was a frame of note. 853 main tubes, Custom italian steel rear and dropouts. 64 degree HA. 29 or 650B+, 140mm front. Was so capable, climbed so well, nimble when needed, stable when needed and so comfortable doing 90% of the hectic trails I was dong on my longer travel dual bikes and 110% more fun on all the other trails. Miss it everyday. Being a slightly over sized on a long, slack HT which made it longer and slacker than perhaps it was designed for was a great eye opener and really given me some ideas for what I might look for on the next one.