Johan Bornman

Get the Deore hub, unless the XT hub is of the older generation with a steel axle. The new alu axle Shimano hubs are absolute rubbish. That Deore hub is the same as XT circa 1995 or thereabouts and is one of the best hubs MTB hubs Shimano ever made.

You miss the point. Roadies brag about how hard they can pump their tyres whilst dirties brag about how low they can go. It is apparently a moerava secret that at extreme pressures the point of diminishing returns in benefits was 6 bar previous and that at extreme low pressures you dent your rim. Nevermind 10 bar rattling the fillings from your teeth on anyting other than a smooth tennis court.

Of course you can fix it. It is a standard butyl tube and nothing other that contamination prevents a patch to vulcanise perfectly to it. Clean the area by either abrading it with some sandpaper or using a non-oily solvent like acetone or alcohol. This is to remove the release agent (Spray and Cook) that is still present on the outside of the tube after manufacture. Make sure none of the sealant re-contaminates the area. Do NOT touch the sanded area and judge your job by looking for a uniform dull patch on the otherwise white-ish tube. Apply solution to an area larger than the patch. Wait for it to dry completely. This will take 5 minutes on a hot day, 20 on a day like today. Now peel the foil from the patch and without touching the business end, apply it firmly. Leave the cellophane on there for now and apply pressure. Leave it for a good 20 minutes before attempting to remove the cellophane. Do this by folding the patched area double and pricking the centre of the now-stretched area with a sharp knife to split it. Now peel it from the inside out. Don't attempt to peel from the outside in unless you're good at it. Your tube is as good as new, you are R60 not out of pocket and the environment smiles.

Anecdotal. Example: Buy a Golf. My car now has 100000kms on the clock and I've never hit a cow.

What are the units of measurement of "ummpfff"...

Nice to see they're back in the triple business. They were absent for about 5 years. These are of course road cranks and used to go under the name Racing Triple. Useful for tourers who liked Campag because of the caliper open device that sits in the brake lever. Pair that with a Shimano caliper and you have a brake that opens extra wide for fat tyres.

You are right, the Baviaans is brilliant. I've been back there three times in two years. I usually sleep over at Bergplaas on top. Basic but OK. If you go solo and just move quietly and sit still, you'll see a world pass by you. Buffalo, giant tortoises (torti?), kudu, snakes, the works. No leopards yet. Maybe next time. I'm doing it again in March 2013 but this time I'll extend it both ways - from the Patensie side all the way to Cape Town and from the Willomore side, all the way back to Pietermaritburg. One month. Anyone wanna join?

Rolling resistance is directly linear to tyre and tube thickness. Unfortunately, puncture resistance is also directly linear to tyre and tube thickness. There's the dilemma. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Im pretty gatvol of this as well. Ecven some of the really obscure distributors simply close shop and go watch the Sani/Epic and pretend they're offering support. On a slightly different note, why is it that men like to bring their bikes in for a service at the last minute, whilst the women make arrangements months before? I absolutely hate planning but I didn't know that all men do?

Nothing's broken. Your freehub needs a service which may or may not require new bearings. This will depend on the model of wheel.

There is no improvement. However, new fashion caught up with Hope and their existing rear hubs did not have a bearing with a large enough ID to accept larger axles required by through-axle designs on the rear. They then had to redesign the hub with a bearing with a larger ID and that bearing turned out to be proprietary on what was then called the EVO. PRO II and PRO II EVOs have four bearings in the rear hub. On the Evo two of those are now Hope-only specials. To further add insult to injury, they don't sell those two loose, you have to buy them as a kit that retails for more than R500-00. On the noisy freehub issue, I've never been successful at silencing it with grease. That works with other hubs like Campag but these Hope pawls are so fierce and spring-loaded that they laugh off any grease I have. Has anyone really been successful?

If you don't need the 142mm and through-axle capability or the rear, try and get PRO II hubs not PRO II EVOs. The Evos use a proprietary bearing that is hideously expensive whereas the PRO II uses standard industrial cartridge bearings.

This analogy may help you - Ask yourself whether the area of grass to mow on a 400m althletic track is more or less than that on a 3km horse racing track? If I knew how emoticons worked I would have posted one of a tonque-in-cheek oke.

I sincerely doubt that's the reason behind bigger wheels. I suspect it is marketing but...we can post-rationalise this forever and never find the reason. Bigger wheels don't protect you from the perils of low tyre pressure - bump through. Of course that is true, but weaving that into bigger wheels makes it scientifically difficult. You seem to want to do the math, go ahead, do it. I'll give you a hint, you're looking for the relationship between a larger surface area at the contact patch and the pressure in the tubular structrue. Torque, from braking and/or pedalling, is NOT evenly distributed through the hub. The reason is simply that the hub is not infinitely flexible. Lightweight hubs with small centre diameter are very poor at distributing torque across. There is definitely twist in there. However, I'm not disputing your diagnosis marketing hogwash, just questioning your flawed reasoning for saying it is hogwash.

It makes a huge difference. Suddenly your quick release is quick again. Quick Release was developed in pre-Lawyers-lip days and it is a PITA to fit and remove on suspension forks. With TA, your wheel removal is quick. Howver, you may have issues with roof racks, workstands etc that still rely on QR. Do it...but the stiffness aspect is over rated.

I sincerely doubt he still builds bikes. I've asked him to take on a couple of jobs for me on two occasions and he was all promises but never got around to it. I think he has hung up his torches.

I assumed the frame was steel. If alu, it is extra impossible here.

It is hardly a very basic skill. It requires extensive training and experience. There is a risk of failure since the tubing wasn't butted for welding in that area. It requires special equipment. And, it is in very, very low demand, which makes it a white-elephant herding skill. There is a good reason framebuilders went extict - the market doesn't require them. If you want to jack this up, commission a couple of frames a month, that way you'll keep the trade going.

Chris King seems to get the regular thumbs-up here but what most people don't know is that up to very recently Chris Kind didn't pay the Aheadset royalty and thus couldn't use the constricting conical ring system. They concocted their own standard and it was an inferiour one that often ate away at steerer tubes, leaving you with play in the system. Now that the patent has gone public domain, they may have changed their tune, but I'll make sure before buying a CK headset. Ceramic cartridge bearings (as used in this industry) are rubbish. They are expensive and don't last. I cannot think of a single benefit.

Your're wasting your breath. No-one can help you. And even if you can find someone who can do this type of brazing (it can't be welded), then they have to understand the various angles and clearances required to make ISO spec brakes sit at the correct place. Your best bet is to install a good quality V-brake on there with Koolstop Salmon pads. Then your brakes will be better than disc in anyway.

The Gore-TEx coating doesn't crumble like that on Jagwire, but it comes off in one piece. Often when you pull the cable out, a long stream of clear plastic that looks a bit like slime, comes out with it. The lengthwise tear seems to emanate at the turns in the cable where friction is higher. It chafes through and separates, jamming the casing. In my experience, a standard stainless steel cable in a standard housing of good quality - Shimano, Giant, Unex, Campag etc, is the most durable. Whilst fluoride coatings like teflon undoubtedly are slick, the application is wrong. It works on pans, not in cables and car engines.

Yes china, it is a fact which I never denied. My experience showed me that teflon isn't very durable and on cables it quickly peels off and jams the passage. Fact.

No?

Cables don't become longer. They may stretch elastically and if yoiu're on a long cable, like a tandem's rear brake, you can actually feel it. However, like an elastic band, they return to their original length as soon as you let go of the brake/gear lever. However, it is not the inner cable's length that is important, but it's length in relation to the length of its housing. The housing turns around corners and the inner works a shortcut on the corner insides. The housing has a plastic liner that eventually erodes, making the inner cable appear longer that it is supposed to be - to the "system" that is. In other words, your brakes require more travel to take or, your gears don't work as supposed to. Further, dirt and eroded plastic makes the inner move with more friction, causing difficult gear shifts and on long rides, even tendonitis, if you are prone. The practice of changing cables nilly-willy is one fuelled by greed. However, you should change them if they don't move freely anymore. Only an experienced hand will know whether or not this is necessary. I say you should learn to assess your cable health for yourself. Also, it makes sense to replace cables as a preventative measure. They do start to break inside the shifters due to sharp bends. If they break off, say in a Campy shifter, it is major surgery to remove it. If it breaks off in some STI shifters, it could mean a new shifter, as labour would cost a lot. Healthy cables make your riding experience so much nicer. Cables do not stretch or even settle in its windings. This is easy to prove since there is no lever on your bike or body long enough to take them into permanent stretch (yield). The science of winding cables has been perfected over the last 100 years and the windings are perfect, with no room for tightening. Cables to avoid: Gore Ride On, Alligator and Jagwire coated cable and all other plastic coated cables. They're all rubbish and based on frying pan science.

If your headset is worn and notchy, it presents as a rear wheel that fishtails. Life the bike by its neck (stem) and turn it from side to side. There should be no binding or notchiness. Road bikes are particularly prone to headset indentation.