River Rat

That's what's great about sport there is always next year! You can get your revenge on the stomach bug sooner if you want, by doing the Sabie Classic in Feb, this is one of the tougher races around. In fact I believe that the Sabie Classic marathon is almost on par with Sani Day 2.

What a great ride today, Mamba was its usual belligerent self. Man that climb sure can test you. The descent from Rocky Horror was just awesome some new single tracks added from last year. Made all sorts of new friends thanks for the ride Erik, Juri, Iris, Maynard, Shoaib , Suhayl and a special mention to Riaan for giving the last stage a go despite being laid low by a stomach bug. Boet when the body can't it just can't big up for trying though.

ACM you're going to miss an awesome days riding. If they keep the stage 4 course as planned you will have the iconic Mamba switchbacks which is a challenge for any rider. But my favourite is the decent including Rocky Horror followed by some of the sweetest single track around as you traverse the eastern face of the escarpment heading back to the start. I am guessing but the streams will all be flowing with crystal clear water clean enough to drink if you so wish. Well worth delaying the trip back home.

Yip that was a tough day for less than 50k, I'm almost happy that tomorrow's stage has been cancelled.

Day 1 done, venue was fine, the course was really muddy in parts. It has just started to rain again so tomorrow should be a tester.

Just collected the goodie bag. They have built a brand new venue or shall I say that they are still building it. What worries me is that they will not be able to handle the traffic through the entrance they used for registration on race day. Hopefully they have another plan otherwise expect hours to get into the parking.

One member of the family that is not happy about the fact that we're leaving for Sabie. He started sulking as soon as he saw that his food was not packed in.

Shrunken balls and a wet Mamba is an image that I now have to get out of my head, sies man!

Interesting question. I have taken my bike on a plane on a number of occasions without deflating the shocks without any problems that I know of.

Looking forward to this wet or dry. The Mamba is waiting for us!

Get a Spez, you'll have a better bike and make Vetseun jealous.

Agreed that we could have easily won the case was never a doubt but the effect of not taking action caught us totally off guard. The appeal case revolved around whether we were derelict in not resolving the issue. It is some time ago but if I recall the judgement found that our rationale of not taking action was reasonable and the onus was on the consumer to do his own diligence with the familiar term of caveat emptor mentioned more than once.

Whilst I feel for the little guy in this scenario I can identify with the problem that Spez is facing from personal experience. Sometime back I worked for one of the major construction companies and a small contractor used a name very similar to the company I worked for. At the time we decided that the guy was so small that we wouldn't bother taking any action regarding the brand as clearly the consumer could not be confused between the two, a sort Goliath and midget comparison. Boy, were we wrong. This small contractor undertook the construction of a private residence and went bankrupt before finishing the house. The owner decided to seek redress by suing us based on the fact that he was led to believe that he was contracting with a large company such as ours. Of course our defence was quite simple we were not the contractor and there was no legal nexus. We were quite surprised that the case even went to court and even more surprised at the outcome where the court found that the owner had to carry 80% of the liability for not checking whether he was indeed contracting with us. They also found that we were liable for 20% of the damages because we knew of the company's existence and nothing to address the potential brand confusion. This little problem for us had suddenly become a huge one because this little guy had left a plethora of bad debts and had defaulted on several contracts and the ruling had opened us up for all sorts of claims. We went ballistic in terms of legal action and won on appeal from a higher court after spending close 100 times of initial claim in legal fees. You can imagine what my approach will be if I see any potential confusion with any brand that I manage and it would not be that different from Spez!

First two days are easy, day 3 looks a bit easier than last year but still a toughie certainly tougher than Route 66. Day 4 with the Mamba switchbacks is one bitch of day. I'm doing it on about 7hours per week training wise and expect day 3 & 4 to take me around 5 hours apiece. That should beat about 40% of the field but the key to this race is your ability to climb if you haven't done enough hills you're in for a tough four days.

Great, we might bump into each other when I ride in Vtown which I do every once in a while. I guess I'll just look for a bike with a crossmark tyre that used to have a bubble!

Thanks for the advice, it would seem that the principle is to take the seat out of the equation thus allowing more opportunity to play with the center of gravity, correct?

I have bought a bike that has a dropper post. Can you guys give me some tips on when, where and how to use it? I get that it allows you to lower your center of gravity but surely there is more to it than just that.

My guess is that Spez regsitered it as a trademark in Canada in all things related to cycling which is normal practice. It would be interesting to know whether Fuji sell their Roubaix in Canada.

The way I see this little shop has gained a huge amount already. Who knew of it until Specialized took this action? I do see Specialized's point though, if they do not take action they would lose there intellectual property and anyone (including other manufacturers) could use it. Although, a simple solution might be to help this shop setting up a new name.

Pop the bubble and ride it. The Stan's will sort it out, this is a factory fault but not serious. I have had worse than this and used the tire until the tread wore out. I cannot be sure but my guess is that this might be caused by a big difference in temp when you inflate such as using a co2 bomb or when the tire is exposed exhaust fumes. Maxis will usually replace if your lbs does their job. As a matter of interest I have switched from crossmarks to ardents and have not seen this problem.

Thanks guys, expect the next episode when I see something on the trail and I find myself bored stiff on an aeroplane.

And that might be where the fun dies.

Yeah I whipped his hard ass.

There is something wrong with your post maybe another Czech this time with finger problems.

Just look for the top ten MTbikers who are legends in their own lunchtime .