Schnavel

My H1 is still going strong. If the release of the H4 results in a sale on the H3 trainers, I may use the opportunity to upgrade my old unit.

Maybe Lionel has taken over another account and is trying to get out of paying back the money?

It depends on how often you ride, as well as in what conditions. If you are riding in decent weather conditions (not heavy rain etc), I have found that changing the cable every 10000km works well.

Pay back the money @ysteryeti!

Unfortunately, at this stage, your word means nothing. Only action now will address the tarnishing of your reputation. Please confirm when you will be making payment, and then stick to your commitment!

He doesn't have the money. He has already spent it and now cannot afford to pay the OP back - probably trying to buy time until pay day

I sorted out a creak on my gravel bike last night. Rear thru axle was tightened to spec, but taking it out, re-greasing and re-torqueing it, the noise has now gone away. Also redid the hanger bolt torque. OP, if it occurs in only the top 3 large rings on the cassette, my money would be on one of 3 things: Cassette isn't properly torqued Freehub bearings are on their way out The cassette pinning could be creaking - if possible, can you swap out cassette and see if the noise continues

At least they are being sold as "mint condition" 🤣

Time for a new bike? Once you have the dreaded creak, it's time... Have you looked at your pedals?

I would agree with this route change - it is quite and a lot safer than going between areas 1 and 2.

Speak to @Ki11gar

I agree with this - our perception of what is considered to be a decent bicycle in South Africa, is somewhat skewed. Something I noted in most places in Europe is that very few people have the fancy top of the range bikes. I was very hard pressed to find any bikes with Dura-Ace or Red, or Sworks. The majority of bikes were kitted out with 105 mechanical or lower. For some reason, South Africa is somewhat of a niche market in that everyone only wants to have the best equipment possible (di2, AXS).

Very cool feature! Based on your riding, it would seem that you have the correct sized chainring.

I think as everyone has pointed out, it is person dependent and also based on the type of riding you are doing. I'm a lightweight, and I use a 34T with a 10/42 cassette and it's perfect for me. Only once or twice have I wished for an easier gear (riding up a 25% gradient last week at Imana was one of those times). If I were to move to Eagle (cost not being an issue), I would definitely put a 36T up front with the 10/50 cassette, or possibly even a 38T, as this gives an easier gear compared to the 34/42 (0.76 vs 0.81)

I think you are on the right track with your original thought - get a bike which is half decent and just let her ride it before doing any upgrades. I would rather spend a bit more money on a second hand bike and get a decent carbon frame and wheels. Even if it is a 2x drivetrain, that is also fine, in fact, it's probably better as it gives a much larger range of gears. If the bug bites, then you can consider either upgrading or getting a better bike. If not, you can sell the bike for a similar amount to which you paid for it. If it were my money, I would be looking for a well spec'ed second hand bike such as the following: Price drop silverback sesta carbon | Bike Hub

Just the minimum specs are rather crazy for the majority of people. I have a PC that I'm using to run Zwift in 4K Ultra and that PC doesn't even meet these minimum specifications!

It was amazing! Bike is already stripped down to the last bolt, rim tape removed etc. Was scared for my poor bike!

I was fortunate enough to race the Imana Wild Ride for the first time last week - what an experience, albeit a somewhat tough one! Never done anything quite like it before! It really is something special, riding in such remote, but beautiful parts of the EC.

This would certainly make for some very interesting racing!

As I installed my own system when I moved in, I just added additional panels to account for the geyser consumption. The extra 6x panels works out a lot less than a single solar geyser conversion and once the geysers have been heated, I can use the additional PV for other things

Oh, and another very important thing to consider, which is often not done, is to wrap your geyser with a proper blanket. The amount of thermal energy loss is more significant than you think, especially in winter with cold atmospheric temperatures

Yup, as mentioned by @Frosty, the main reason for downsizing your element is to avoid overloading of your system. Heating water takes the same amount of energy, regardless of what element size you use. The smaller the element, the longer it takes. This can be calculated using the following: Calculate the kilowatt-hours (kWh) required to heat the water using the following formula: Pt = (4.2 × L × T ) ÷ 3600. Pt is the power used to heat the water, in kWh. L is the number of liters of water that is being heated and T is the difference in temperature from what you started with, listed in degrees Celsius. As you can see, changing the power of the element, impacts the time taken to heat. In the real world, it would take slightly longer to heat with a smaller element as the standing heat loses are spread over a larger time frame, although, practically, this will likely only result in less than an additional 5 minutes of heating over a 3 hour period. I run 2 geysers during the day (both 150L). One has a 4kW element and the other a 2kW element. Our household consumption is usually much higher after midday, so I run the 4kW element before 12:00 and then the other element after 12:00. Both geysers are heated using my inverter and solar panels - I just added a few additional panels to account for the additional usage during the day. This was considerably cheaper than converting my existing electric geysers to either gas or solar geysers.

Thanks for sharing - I didn't realise you were in Cape Town. Amazing how much of a difference it can cause, but you must then have plenty of supply on those long, sunny Summer days. Maybe worth investing in a wind turbine for the rest of the year? A constant 1kW from the wind will go a long way to offsetting your usage, and there is definitely no shortfall in that resource in the cape 🙂

My setup out of interest: 7,2kW inverter, controlled by ICC 6kW panels 10,5kWh batteries I installed the system myself when I moved into my house a year ago, and together with changing from 3-phase postpaid, to single phase pre-paid, I have saved just over R24k in the last year. One of the best investments I have ever made - the only reason I know when there is load shedding is the neighbour's generator.

Our setups are very similar (6kW panels, 7,2kW inverter and 10,5kWh batteries), as well as our base loads (roughly 350W to 400W) and yet on average, I'm using less than R100 per month from Eskom. I run 2x geysers and a pool pump during the day and then run all night on batteries. This includes the usage of my oven for up to 1 hour at night and I still make it through the night. It may be worth your while to add some additional panels, as I see that is the biggest difference between our setups