rudi-h

I have the whole thing on Strava. If you send me your email or other contact details via DM, I can share my Strava profile, routes etc.

Thanks for the tips

Thanks Is there a way to get the 4k stuff downsized to 2.7, or do I need to download to PC?

Just installed it. It won't open the GoPro files. Said the file format it not supported?

Has anyone figured this out yet? I recently bought a gopro for a bike trip to Portugal next month and I'm definitely not intending to take a PC along. I get the point that the files are large, but with my drone (Mavic Pro) I can easily view and edit the footage on a phone, but GoPro Quick cannot even play the videos (taken in 4K, so not overly large), let alone cut, crop and trim. There's also no way that I can see in the GoPro Quik App to reduce the resolution to be able to do this. If anyone has some tips & pointers about how I can go about daily edits on my tablet whilst I'm in portugal it would be great. If I'd wait until I'm back to try and edit through hours of video footage, I will likely never get to the point of making a little film about the trip. Pretty frustrating having paid R12k for a camera with mounts, but your device can't even play the footage back.

Just turned the big Four-O. Seeing some guys my age (Philippe Gilbert, Valverde) still performing pretty damn well, I thought it's time for a serious fitness challenge. I've been pretty active for most of my adult life, but never felt that I really tested the edge of my capabilities. My 40's challenge is to run 8km @ 4m/km pace, i.e. 32m00s flat or better. Always more of a cyclist than a runner, my best runs were ~4m25/km over that distance in Jozi. I'm currently closer to 5m15s/km so I have a lot of work to do. I am also entered for 70.3 in Mosselbay, so looking for a multisport coach, but for this year the focus needs to be on running and losing weight (currently 92 and guess I'd need to drop to 85kg). Can anyone recommend a coach / training group for someone with these kinds of goals? Most clubs / groups / individuals my age are more focussed on stamina and endurance than speed.

Loctite is an interesting one. Loctite is not a bad product, but its application is very specific to certain types of joints and does not / should not be used as a rule. It does act as a thread lubricant too, which means that using loctite is better than not using anything at all, but using a thread lubricant (grease, nickel slip, copper slip etc.) is still your best bet. All the "prevent fasteners from loosening" technology out there, be it Loctite, Nord-Lock Washers, Spring washers, Nyloc nuts etc. are really just a safety net for when you have not done a good job of fastening the joint in the first place. I.e., if you use an appropriate thread lubricant and torque any bolt (stainless, aluminium or steel) to the correct torque / tension, the joint will never go loose and any further measures are redundant / unnecessary. Also, stainless steel and aluminium have a much higher tendency that steel to "cold weld" / seize compared to mid steel, which is why you never see stainless steel bushings. I.e. when not lubricated, these materials cause a lot more galling under the same conditions compared to steel fasteners. I would seriously question re-use of alloy / special fasteners, unless you can verify that everyone previously tightening that bolt has done a really good job of lubricating the threads before every use.

You are correct that you will over-tension a bolt if you apply a dry-torque value to a lubricated bolt. However, virtually all torque tables are based on wet torque values, so you generally do not run a risk of over-tightening when you lubricate threads. Here is an example of a torque table that provides torque values for different friction coefficients. Typically, a lubricated thread has a friction coefficient of ~0.1. A new and clean dry bolt would typically correspond to a friction coefficient of 0.15, but if it's slightly rusted or galled (damaged after multiple re-use), it can be as high as 0.3. If you google torque tables, a friction coefficient of 0.1 is typically assumed unless otherwise specified. *Note, steel cap screws used on bikes are typically grade 8.8 fasteners, unless it's a special aluminium / stainless bolt that should have a factory spec. You'd be good to use these values in yellow On your question about the tension. Its difficult to measure tension in bolts, hence torque is our best bet albeit somewhat crude and indirect. There are ultrasonic tensiometers, but the reading is not an absolute value and some calibration needs to be applied, so it's not practical for 99.9% of joints. This typically is only used for large fasteners on very critical bolted joints such as frame bolts on large Mining crushers etc. Those devices are not small / compact enough for M4/M5/M6 bolts used on bicycles anyway.

Incorrect. You are correct that there is a thing as dry torque values and wet torque values, it's important that you use the correct value. That said, wet torque is ALWAYS better than dry torque and there is not a single joint on a bike where dry torqueing would apply. The reason is two fold. Firstly, with a dry-torqued joint, almost 90% of the torque applied is to overcome friction, and only 10% converts into tension. Tension is what keeps a joint fastened, not friction, therefore a wet torqued joint always hold better and reduce the risk of over-stressing / stretching your bolt. Second reason is that threads get damaged on a microscopic level on the surface under dry torque, further increasing the friction coefficient. Thus, especially with bikes where we re-use and re-tighten fasteners many times, dry torqued joints tend to deteriorate over time, where wet torqued joints can be re-fastened 10's of times without any joint integrity loss. In cases where suppliers / OEM's / technicians advise you differently, it's simply because they don't understand bolting theory and do as they've been told. Even really reputable OEM's like CAT / Komatsu etc. incorrectly specify dry torque on some of their components. We challenge them on this and after review they always revert to wet torque.

Didn't read through all the messages, but effectively bike maintenance comes down to tightening bolts. There are a handful non-bolting tasks exist such as bleeding disc brakes, putting sealant in tyres and greasing a pivot, but the rest is literally all just about wielding an allen key. The ONLY way to tighten a bolt properly, is with a torque wrench. Anything else is guessing and second best. That's why it boggles my mind that not a single bike shop that i've ever been to uses a torque wrench to fasten bolts. It's simple. If you use a torque wrench and the appropriate torque sequence for every joint, there WILL NOT be any creaks, rattles or **** coming loose. So if you have a squeak or a creak. Loosen the joint and re-fasten properly by lubricating the treads and using a torque wrench. It will change your world.

I don't want to throw a spanner in the works here, but there are cheap automotive gear oils straight out of the box that will work as good or better than the "mix" that you propose. So unless you happen to have engine oil and bar oil to mix, I would just buy a small bottle of diff oil. That said, bicycle chains do not require a sophisticated lubricant by any stretch, so whichever concoction that you might use will generally be okay. Chain damage does not happen as much because of incorrect lube or dirty drivetrains, but rather the lack of lube. This is also the case for the dry-lube/wax VS wet lube debate.

It was. I did install the latest firmware from Garmin express though and this didn't fix the problem at home. Not sure what software version they loaded after I took it it in

So I started another thread to deal with this. It took 2 weeks, many emails and 3 in-person visits, but I did get my issue resolved. The experience was far from perfect and started off much worse than it ended, hence I would like to retract the comment of "useless aftermarket service". In summary, my watch "failed" / stopped working due to a software upgrade and I was told that the only solution is replacement of the unit at a hefty fee. After a lot of arguing and dialogue, in-person visits and emails I can now confirm that they loaded some beta software patch and it is now working and the software re-load / diagnostics was not charged back to me.

Latest (and likely final) update I received an email yesterday saying that they tested the watch and it's working just fine... I almost fell of my chair. After claiming that no repairs are possible and 2 weeks of emails, calls and drama it's just working again? I thought they were joking, so I just drove there earlier today to pick it up and truesbob, it's working just like the day I bought it... (still need to test battery life, but all good on face value) How did they fix it? - Apparently they installed some beta software upgrade/downgrade, which confirms that this whole failure was purely caused by buggy software... That begs the question that if buggy software is such a big issue, why don't they just do their software reinstall magic before sending a R4k quote for replacement? What would have happened if I didn't bitch and moan? - I would have no doubt pi$$ed R4k down the drain to replace something that was never broken. So some advice should your own Garmin fail: - Ask them to do a software upgrade / downgrade - Don't just accept the first quote, it might be worth digging deeper - Garmin initially seemed like a faceless organization. Via phone and email I could not get past the call centre who frankly were not really interested in anything other than offering me the R4k replacement deal. Only after my insistence to speak to a senior service consultant in person did I get through to a team of people who are qualified and capable to resolve these issues. These people do exist and I must acknowledge that they were helpful and supportive. Not sure if this leaves me as a happy customer, because I do feel that I had to "fight" in order not to get shafted. Similarly, it would be unfair to claim that the outcome was not satisfactory and that Garmin SA did not offer support. I'll go edit my posts on the other thread to align with this sentiment.

Nothing lasts forever, but as you state, all goods have a design life / expected life. I can assure you that 2 years is nowhere close to the design life for a top end sportswatch marketed primarily on the basis of its rugged design and durability. Not by my standards, probably not by yours and by their own admission (quoting a senior technician at Garmin SA) also not by Garmin's executives and shareholders. So if nobody seems to think this situation/outcome is acceptable, (except for some die-hard fanboys on LeHub), why should I or any other vulnerable consumer carry brunt of cost for manufacturing/quality defects that are no fault of our own? I work as a reliability engineer in the mining industry. Representing a global mining company with major accounts, we certainly don't get pushed around by suppliers and OEM's to bully us when defects / quality issues are identified, so why should ordinary consumers? Just because we don't have massive accounts in our individual capacities? Mining companies routinely claim out-of-warranty replacements (amounting to many ten's of millons of $ per year) on the basis that we prove manufacturing defects during post-failure investigations. I don't see why the same process cannot/should not apply to a consumer electronics company. Assuming they are serious about improving quality and durability, they should also have reliability engineering teams and failure analysts / diagnosticians who can inspect and test failed units and identify the root cause of failure by looking deeper into special / irregular product failures as and when reported... If the construction of the batteries are really so specialized hat failures are inevitable and they expect a certain % of premature-but-out-of-warranty failures (the statistics for this is kind of modelling is really well known, it should hardly come as a surprise), surely they can budget / plan for this and be prepared to replace this certain % of watches when such rare failures do occur... As for the arguments of needing to build clean rooms and employ skilled staff for repairs... Garmin published $4.2 Billion earnings in 2020 (quoting google) and reporting double digit year on year growth, so the argument of not being able to provide better after-sales service on the basis of resources / skills / facilities are pretty weak. There are local companies literally 10000 times smaller that have such facilities and provide specialized repairs (e.g. diesel injector suppliers etc.) As for options... If they really value my broken watch at R8k as some of you suggest and have a deep desire to compensate their longstanding and faithful customers for the sub-par product they sold at a healthy margin, then at least give me the option to refund my R8k and then they can keep the broken unit. Don't bully me into paying another R4k to get a product back that was still supposed to be working.