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MeridaV

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Posts posted by MeridaV

  1. There is a nice sircular route of about 60 km.

     

    From Stilbaai to Jongens, take the dirt road to Blombos (right turn close to Jongens). Keep going until you get a right turn to Riversdal(only right turn on road). Keep going until next right turn, also only right turn on road (some nice hills to climb). Keep going back to Stilbaai (awesome last section along river). Some seriuos short climbs.

     

    Enjoy

     

    Yip nice circular route that to accumulate some miles. I'll be in K.kgat (surf spot Stilbaai side of Jongens)from the 2nd and will probably try to ride it a couple fo times.

  2. If you distrust carbon, get light alu parts - you can shave kilos off your bike by picking the correct alloy parts.

     

    We had a disagreement about carbon frames before, so I guess that is why you are not including frames in your poll, but for my money - my carbon frame has been a joy from day one and no worries about failures. One of my riding partners has been racing and training on a Scott Scale Ltd for more than 15000km without a sign of frame trouble.

  3. To those who roll through red lights: Do you do the same when in your car – cross when safe and yield when you deem it not to be safe? Do you get righteously indignant when taxis do things that you consider to be illegal but they consider to be efficient? Do you see a significant difference? Once you start regarding laws as guidelines that you can decide to adhere to or ignore depending on your personal take on the risks and practicalities you are on a slippery slope

     

    On a positive note – “:Howzit “ to the roadie on the Madone that stopped opposite me (guy on matt black mtb with slightly euphoric muddy grin) at the red light on Constantia main road this morning. Not a car in sight and guess what we survived taking a 15 second track stand breather.

  4. Is this kind of language necessary.?

     

    Thats his mother for goodness sake, show some respect man, would you like someone speaking about your mother in that manner.?

     

    Technically, the article is just hot air as he is yet to be found guilty of anything, and anyway, why should his parents not defend him, would you not defend your child in the face of an attack.? I would.!

     

     

    The ref to "his mother" was intended as an ironic stab at people who presume to know Contador's motives, morals ... and even mother. Intended as an absurd statement that I thought would be clear from the rest of my post (devil, BOB, JuJu... )but since it did not: I appologise to you and your saintly mother. I see you do get my point about it being natural for parents to defend their children...

     

    plain salted?

  5. geesh, I always see people commenting about popcorn, but I never fail to be amazed at how worked-up hubbers can get about crap.

    I followed the link expecting to find some realy pathetic moaning by the dispicable Conatador and his slutty mother with comments from their closest allies the devil, Mugabe and Julius...

     

    ...real disappointment when I all I found was an article about a mother being worried about her son, that she said the pressure of the last couple of years is rough on him and that he has second thoughts about wether it is worth it... shocking, I would never have thought

  6. Rode with gripshifts for years. Changed back to triggers about 5 years ago and somehow found it just so much more intuitive - you know shifting up or down without thinking even after 8 hours on the bike....so my advice would be to test ride a friend's bike first and make a call on your preference before changing...

     

    oh and for me: SRAM all the way when it comes to triggers

  7. I just had to replace me G3 203mm rotor...R400 later :P

    I was also wondering about the Alligator, but my bike mechanic friend reckons the G3 gets better power out of the brakes.I think he also mentioned something about pad life.

    Anyway, dunno if that helps much.

     

    Thanks, yip all comments help.

  8. I need to pick disc rotors for my new wheelset and would appreciate some feedback on real experience with Aligator discs compared to the Avid Clean Sweep G3? The Aligator Windcutters are priced very well and apparently are lighter, but I would like to know about performance and pad life (subjectively it looks like a pad muncher). For what its worth, the rest of the hardware that I am running: Juicy 7s

     

    Thanks

  9. You should be fairly confused by now with all the different options :blink:

     

    For what its worth I used to run Larsen TTs front and rear and was very very happy with it. Tried Crossmark when I couldn't find Larsens and hated it on the front (be assured that it is not purely down to your positioning on the bike.) Changed the front for a Monorail and combined with the Crossmark rear it worked very well for me.

  10. Let's all take a deep breath and go back a step. Dummies are being spat because GT1 said "Covie I ride a carbon mountain bike, but not for weight saving, the ride is a lot nicer than aluminium."

     

    Covie and I then pointed out that this kind of blanket statement was a massive oversimplification.

     

    And nothing that has been put forward since, despite some sarcasm and use of polysyllabic verbiage has offered a coherent contradiction.

     

    That is all.

     

    Well actually GT1's statement was ridiculed. I thought that I should point out that while, granted there are many examples of carbon being used purely for marketing purposes that does not mean that GT1's statement is bull and I couldn't leave it alone when I read some of the incorrect statements about material properties. The true beauty to me of composites (in general) as an engineering material is that you can use the anisotropic properties to design something that has strenght and stiffness that is dependant on the direction of the load being applied - which is what I thought Covie was ignoring. Yes it does require decent design that utilises the material propperties correctly and no it will not solve a poor geometry, but that is true of all frame materials.

    (also think about it - GT1 said "I ride a carbon mountain bike, but not for weight saving, the ride is a lot nicer than aluminium." - he never said all carbon bikes ride nicer than alu bikes.... he just stated his experience which happens to be similar to mine on my hardtail)

  11. Never heard of a subjective journalist in my life before, They are not engineers, nor are they scientists they write what sells. That’s their job.

     

    Carbon has never ever, ever been known for a more "comfortable riding style" so stop selling your crap mate we are all stocked up here.

     

    Carbon has three qualities over and above Alu and that is strength and rigidity and eight there is no way in hell that any one of those can create a more "comfortable" riding style. In fact Velo is right the rigidity can create a more harsh environment. Your comfort is 100% attributed to your setup and geometry. It has nothing to do with the material the bike is made off. What carbon will give you if correctly designed is a stronger lighter more rigid bike and more direct steering and that is all.

     

    On a road bike they dont care about the riding style since you hardly ever do precision maneuvers, they concentrate soley on weight and and being rigid for acceleration.

     

    On a MTB it has to do with weight strength and rigidity since all three of those factors do influence a MTB. That being said to much focus are being done on weight part of carbon, rather than it being a rigid, stronger material. Hence you are hearing everyday of another carbon bike cracking up.

     

    OK "Mate" please spend a second or two and re-read what I wrote. (hint, there was sarcasm involved, so do not take it all literally and google the meaning of "objective" and "subjective" before you shoot you mouth off because it spoils a pleasant argument quite quickly if one realises you are engaging with the village idiot.)

     

    On the technical merrits of what you are saying and in defence of the "crap" that I am "selling" - your pseudo science is no better. You are correct that the carbon fibres are ridgid, but the matrix and the "design" of the lay-up results in an anisotropic material that can be more ridgid in one direction and less so in another. I suppose the reason why felt compelled to reply in the first place was that this is all basic second year Strength of Materials stuff and just because one is a natural sceptic does not change the fact that propper composite design can utilise this anisotropy. While I am at it, I think we should also clear something up about geometry....

     

    ....actually whatever - you'll continue believing what you want - so long dude, hope you have a nice ride

  12. W.r.t. carbon vs alu and my bullshitometer readings...sorry, this turned into a lengthy post.

     

    If you've ridden carbon and alu versions of the same bike, on the same day, over the same terrain, using the same everything and the same tyre pressures and then you tell me that the carbon rides plusher, I might believe you. I'm pretty sceptical that that's what anybody has done.

     

    Carbon is not a magical substitute for suspension. Depending on how it's been used, it can absorb road buzz. It got this reputation largely as a result of peoples' experience with it in road bikes. This is not to say that every carbon road bike offers a plush ride, or that every alu bike will rattle your fillings out.

     

    My road bike is carbon. And yes, it has a nicer ride than the alu bike it replaced. Of course, the bikes had different saddles, wheels, bars and tyres, so I can not claim on the basis of my experience that carbon makes for a better ride than alu.

     

    You can make more difference to the subjective feel of a bike's ride by messing about with tyre pressures than you can by changing fame material. (And bear in mind I am talking about the same frame design in different materials, not carbon bike A and alu bike Y).

     

    Borrow somebody's carbon hard tail MTB? Here's another can of worms for you...why would I want to do that when I can ride my own alu full susser?

     

    Finally, yes, the received wisdom is that carbon offers a better ride than alu. But the thing with received wisdom (for bikies) is that it is largely coloured by marketing spin and BS that sloppy journalists write in bike mags, and is not backed up by any kind of empirical testing. Received wisdom is usually flat out wrong.

     

    You appear to be missing my point, so let's say that you clearly have objectively come to your current position and I arrived at mine after twenty years of reading subjective jounalists' opinions and not riding mountain bikes... so long, life is too short

     

     

    PS It sounds like we'll have an equally divergent view when it comes to suspension

  13. Wow!

     

    My bullsh!t-o-meter just went all the way to 11!

     

     

    Calm your bullsh!t-o-meter down - it has to do with comfort regardless of geometry (which plays a massive role, but lets assume you have that to be a non negotiable). There is actual science to it if you are interested, spend a few minutes quietly in the corner with Google before ridiculing, or ask anyone who rides a hardtail carbon frame if you may take it for a spin

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