rudi-h

very impressive!

depends. sometimes seller pays, sometimes buyer. obviously from a buyers point of view, the supplier that includes transport gets the sale

last december 4 of us cycled from PE to Knysna through the Baviaanskloof over 6 days. The baviaanskloof part is awesome and 2 days from willowmore to patensie is a really lekker ride and not too hard. I suggest you camp in the reserve, i.e. doosklip or rooihoek (i think those are the names) book in advance, those campgrounds are booked up well in advance!

welcome to the hub. post specs, prices, pitchars etc. then the hub experts will all have an opinion and lead/mislead you to a decision!

I'm not a dietician, nor somebody who has been overweight that can claim "i've done it before", but on numerous occasions I have managed to lose a lot of weight in a small space of time when I put my mind to it. I don't know anything about your training programme, but running is a LOT better for losing weight than cycling. If I run 8km 3 times a week, it is virtually impossible for me to gain weight, no matter how many garage pies, sweets, chocolates etc. I eat. Don't know if you cross-train, but I would suggest that you try that. A few fast short runs each week will do wonders and it will also make you stronger on the bike

I seriously wanted to buy one before! Hoped to use it for a desert trip on the sand

ZAM-BUK! This stuff is great, just apply after a ride, really helped me when doing a lot of saddle time previously

Its very disappointing for KE and his fans and I really do feel for him, but I think it's good for the sport as a whole. For the first time ever in any sport it is becoming seriously "uncool" to dope, and the message is now clear that doping will f&^k up your career big time. I think this is a huge step towards cleaning up the sport completely!

You've got the right attitude so you are already 99% there! PS bike touring is probably the coolest way to see the country (any country for that matter), so loose the cigarettes, get fit and and come back to tell us when and where your first tour will be!

DG is really a tjop. I remember when they won the "queen stage" of the Cape Pioneer Trek with the R100000 prize money, he said something along the lines of: Great for the organizers to come up with the prize money, but its still peanuts to what other sportsmen earn... To be unthankful for a huge stage purse while you're on EPO does not show much character.

I think what Nedbank did by pulling their sponsorship is the only way to clean up the sport. It may be frowned upon in terms of individual rights from the clean riders' side, but the doper culture will disappear when doping will cause the fall of your team and potentially screw your team mates out of their careers.

or go for a rohloff hub. i did that and needless to say i havent had any shifting issues for years. in terms of maintenance its basically a SS, just need to do a R175 oil change approx every 5000km.

nope, the point is to do things naturally. i.e. getting your nutrients from real food and leaving your body to take care of hormone levels, red blood cell levels etc.

conrad stoltz once said... If it doesn't grow, don't use it! take the advice from a real champ and live by that!

Edit: forgot to quote NotSoBigBen: "Ah so now it's the doctor/pharmacists fault the rider took EPO? Just wondering ...." A doctor is an accountable person and by definition is bound by a code of conduct. The same reason why its worse if a police officer or a laywer is charged with a crime. A pro bike rider is just an ordinary guy that happens to be good at riding a bike. It doesn't make the bike rider "innocent" by any means. But I agree that if we can make the risk too high for doctors to prescribe this stuff, then it should not be so easy for a bike rider to get it.

is recreational drugs really common amongst professional people? Maybe i'm just blind but I've never come across friends or colleagues that are involved with drugs. We just often drink too much, that's all

Agreed. That's how I got down to 30 minutes on a 1.5km swim. I started out with 38mins. I tried coaching last year and joined Philippe's squad at Bright Water Commons VA. It was very good and I enjoyed it, just got a bit much and cannot get off work early enough anymore. One day I'd like to pick that up again

I generally don't swim. Only do one or two swims in the week before a sprint or an olympic tri. Obviously when training for IM or 70.3 I'd do a bit more, but way less than the benchmark. Have only been in the pool 4 times since 70.3 in Jan and managed the same time on my swims in 5150 and BSG buffelspoort than previously. PS i'm not a good swimmer. Takes me 30 mins to do 1.5km, but that never comes down, whether I swim a lot or not.

Over the past 8 years I have read a lot of training literature, trained with a HRM, even got a VO2 Max and Blood lactate test done with a proper training programme. In general I tried to get a good balance of long slow sessions, intervals, threshold sessions etc. I used to train between 5 and 8 hours a week all yaer round and although I am fit in the eyes of most, I was never good when compared to real sportsmen. My best performances only came since 2010 and have been: 2h50 94.7(2011); 6h04 IM70.3(2012); 13h36 IM(2011) with a lot of mediocre performances in between. So this year I started a factory and working 14 hour days as a result. For the last 5 months I literally only have time for 3 short runs (20-25 mins) before work in the week and I generally only manage one 1h - 2h bike ride on weekends. I figured that I am training so little (around 3 hours / week average) that I don't have to hold back for fear of over-training. Every session is a very hard "taste blood in your throat" type of workout and I really focus on speed, intervals and hills. I don't use a HRM, cycling computer or anything, I just ride and run hard based on how I feel and generally I try to use heavier gears on the bike that I used to. Its too early to say really, but this has given me better results than I used to get with more than double the amount of training. I can now run 8km in under 36 minutes and judging by recent bike rides I hope to finish the 94.7 in 2h45. I'm also hoping to do the last BSG tri in around 1:05. I used to be very prone to shin splints etc. and since I decreased my running time I had no injuries whatsoever I feel more energetic than ever and really having fun with sport at the moment. I guess this is not sound training advice, but I posted it cause it seems to work really well. Edit: chin splints would be bad

IMO no need to invest in slicks Yes, wear a camelbak then you don't have to worry about water and waterpoints Eat something every hour. Maybe a goo, maybe a bite of an energy bar or a banana. Don't eat so much that you feel stuffed though

so its only faster if you tend to f&^k around while riding your normal bike

so how does that affect the selection of the fastest bike?

How does your effort compare...? Surely a geared bike allows you to ride at a cadence where you get optimal power output at virtually any speed, so although I get all the benefits of a SS, it doesn't make sense that it makes you go faster, unless you generally don't push very hard on your normal bike. I would like you honest opinion on this, as I've said SS's are cool, but I don't think anybody considers them to be faster, otherwise we'd see the pro's riding them

So should we discredit all "good" performances in virtually all sports because as soon as somebody does something special then it's suspicious? Jens has never been the guy to beat for GC, so he is rarely chased down with the same effort than most of the higher placed riders. Often his breakaways are tactical moves by his team to achieve something different, like the 2011 tour when Jens was upfront to assist Andy when he later went for his breakaway to claim the stage win on Galibier. On average he doesn't ride harder than the rest of the peleton, he is just allways willing to be part of the break and his team uses him for exactly that.

Wow that's quite a detailed response. You clearly know a lot about oil, I just responded to the general question that the thread started with, which is along the lines of "why do I pay R150 for a 100ml bottle of bicycle oil?" and "can I use something cheaper without compromising ride quality and the life of my drivetrain?" I did not write the above to come up with the ultimate bike oil, I just attempted to apply basic knowledge of oils and its properties to try and evaluate the use of oils that you can buy at your local hardware store in a bicycle application. I believe I can learn from you, so if you wont mind, please give your thoughts as to what your preferred oil choices will be. Also as a matter of interest, I thought the pressure at the sprocket / chain interface is large due to the small surface area when compared to most industrial sprocket / gear applications. It would be interesting to have your thoughts on what additives would be relevant for a bicycle application.