stephenplumb

I have been there the last 2 weekends and have got quite lost as there are graders digging up the trails and then there is no signage indicting where you should go. I ended up riding the wrong way up a different trail, then had to jump across country onto a completely different trail. In general the trails are well marked, but they need to send a crew out on a Friday pm and look at all the trails and see if they have marked where they are digging properly. I also find the trails often in very poor condition and there is a lot of vegetation that needs trimming. The generally poor state would be acceptable in a free trail, but given that this is a pay to enter trail, they need to actually spend some cash paying crews for maintenance. My other usual haunt is wolverspruit and I would say the same applies. Giba in KZN deals with much more rapid vegetation growth and has permanent crews that clear and maintain the trails all the time and they have much more rain to deal with as well. I think the guys up here need to do a lot more maintenance in general on paid trails.

I would say try and use squirt and then you are supporting a local company. They have done a fair bit of R&D and their product compares favourably with the competition. We have looked into a dyno jig for them to test this analytically and the levels of friction are so low that even the best guys are battling to spec a system that will measure the friction losses/improvements reliably without averaging the heck out of the measurements. The signal is literally in the noise floor. So i am not too convinced that one product will be much better than another, but I do like to support a local company when possible. We have not actually done any business with them yet, just looked at the specs they will require, so its not like I have a financial interest in supporting them.

All I can say is that you need to enjoy it and savour the time. Also make sure he knows you can crush him while you still can. My son went through the plastic bike, 12inch, 20inch, 24 inch, 26inch and is now on a Pyga 29er. Starting varsity next year. Oh those heady days when I needed to push him up the hills, now he breezes past my leaden frame as I gasp for my next breath while climibing wolvespruit. Then proceeds to whizz around for another lap as I lie on the grass begging for deaths sweet embrace. My other son has no interest in cycling, which is wierd, so he does not come out with us anymore, but you will be amazed at how quickly the little tyke ends up whizzing past you, so savour the moments now, while you can push him up the odd hill etc.

As someone that was used as a hood ornament back in my first year of Uni, and dragged along the road for around 50m, I have very little time for Sorry. That does nothing to help anyone. I have moved on, but I will never ride on the road in this country ever again because you have these sort of idiots on the roads. It is a great pity, because cycle commuting is one of the best ways to stay fit and achieve it while getting somewhere, and with the current fuel prices it would be great to get around on pedal power. I would hope this toad rots in jail for the rest of his days, but based on the many cyclists that i knew personally, that have been killed, by stupid motorists, I would be very surprised if he even receives a custodial sentence.

I suspect that it depends on the bike park, but places like Wolvesrpuit have no excuse, as they have more than enough support to do maintain the trails properly. I was complaining that they never do maintenance on the trails and some riders were agreeing, and that very weekend I found that they had in fact done some maintenance on the berms on the way down. I have also got lost in Big Red Barn, but mostly I find their signage okay, but have been going there for a while. It is difficult to compare the KZN parks as their vegetation grows unlike anything in Gauteng, but Giba George seems to have team working all the time and even when they have storms, they are up and running again in a few days. Hard to compare with Cascades, where it is mostly volunteers that keep the trails running. In general my epxectation is that if I am paying decent money, to ride, then the trails should be maintained properly, but if it is free or volunteer maintained, then the standards can be a lot lower. I rode recently for the first time in Karkloof and that was great, but I believe we were there shortly after they had remarked the trails. Definitely going back there again. I think they are somewhere in between as they seem to ride out of the country club, but Sappi does most of the trail maintenance. If you get lost there, however, you may well be riding for hours, as it is a huge area. Like the OP, I have close to zero sense of direction, so I am pretty reliant on trail marking in general.

Many thanks for the replies - sadly tickets are booked and not keen on trekking through the gulf. I once did Sydney via Dubai. Never again! Let me see what the policies of the carrier are as I need to commit in the next day or three.

Are there any major caveats on taking an ebike to Europe? Will be travelling air france I think in a coupe of weeks and not sure if there are extra issues with ebikes? Most especially any special tricks with the battery?

I recall an interview many moons back on SABS am tv, where they were interviewing a scammer turned good guy that worked with the london Met on scams. The interviewer asked him if he had come across any scams that he thought were particularly cunning. He mentioned one for videos, should we say of an adult nature, that were advertised in the back of a magazine. (It was many years back.) People were to send in money/money order/cheque and he would send the videos. He then sent a letter with a cheque, stating that his offer was heavily oversubscribed, and he was not able to fullfill their order, so please find a cheque attached with a full refund. The problem was that the cheque had the company details of the xxx/adult/porn company, and as a result very few, if any, punters actually deposited the check. I cant recall if he had actually broken any laws at the end of the day. The ex-thief said it was a very clever scam.

To be honest, if the OPs have not laid fraud charges at this point, then what is the point of coming on here and ranting about it? You have been defrauded. You have recourse, however unlikely to result in prosecution, but you have a moral and legal duty to report the fraud. At that point your duty to society ceases. What the police/justice department do with the charge at that point is no longer your responsibility. You have met your obligations. Ranting on a social platform without being willing to act is as pointless as signing the many online petitions that circulate, achieve nothing and requite no effort or sacrifice.

Do the adult thing as suggested above and lay a fraud charge. This is the only way to stop this sort of behaviour.

I think when we did my sons bike, we did need to replace the back hub as the offsets change for the newer drivecahins.

Remember that the whole drive train is a system. The best thing you can do is replace the chain pretty often, but if you allow the chain to stretch, then it in turn wears out the gears it engages with. If that happens you have no choice but to replace all the gears and chainring. Getting half arsed at this point will just mean that whatever new parts you fit will get quickly wrecked by the old parts you left behind. Looking at the bike, and considering the lack of spares (at least when I was looking) for older bikes, you may well be better served by doing a 1x conversion to get it up to speed? WE did this on my sons bike, which grossly overcapitalised it, and then soon after he sold it to buy an enduro bike!!

Without having any specific knowledge i would comment as follows. If this 2m 150Kgs behemoth is not a lardass, he is going to be capable of significant power output/torque along with just significant mass. I know that in road riding terms, tandems were regarded as mobile destruction labs/equipment testing facilities. Track sprints also seemed to have muscle bound Adonis's in regular appearance and they too were known for breaking all sorts of gear, from cranks to chains and even handle bars. I recall reading of a german fellow that used solid steel handbags for that reason. So find someone that knows how to build wheels. For I would assume you would need more spokes/wheel that for a 45kgs king of the mountains contender. Then you need to find the longest cranks you can lay your mits on. I know i specced 175mm cranks for my road bike many moons back, but they could be had up to around 182.5mm. Find the longest cranks you can for this fellow. I seem to recall that MTBs had longer cranks that road bikes so not sure what what his options would be there? Custom? Suspension may be a difficult as shocks are generally made to operate within certain envelopes. He may well be outside that envelop and while you may be able to change the spring constant (more pressure) you will probably not be able to adjust the damping that much to suite. Also not sure if the pressure involved will be within the design specs of the equipment involved. My suspicion is your mate may well have to shop at the upper end of the catalog or speak to a designer like Pyga (i know them - not too sure about other local builders) to get some more engineering based input on what is feasible and what is not. He may well be within the envelope of the above considerations, but I would want that confirmation from someone that does this as their day job. This is a bit a of a reality for a super large fellow, and I suspect that buying a cheapie (that may well be fine for someone of more normal dimensions) may just lead to him getting irritated and getting out of the sport. I suspect he will probably also destroy drive trains in pretty short order if he is outputting meaningful torque befitting such a large fellow, so that may also need to be in the budget? My Pyga was a game changer, and while I am no great shakes as a rider, I cannot believe how much nicer it is to live with, than the many year old rally it replaced and, how it flatters me. Just this weekend I summoned the courage to attempt a smallish gap jump at wolverspruit, and as the kids say, "cased it." It was easily controlled and mildly irritating whereas with the rally I would have probably had a mouth full of gravel.

On the general subject of tools, I have often regretted buying cheap tools, although they are often good enough. Eg Ryobi Angle Grinder. I will however say that other than the purchase price, I have never regretted buying quality tools and things. Having owned a few Landies in My day, a good toolbox is essential, but mine was nationalised while I was staying at a farm one night in VAnReenens. One needs very few cycling specific tools on bicycles, and a good quality tool box will take you far. Also if you have a quality redneck workshop, you can probably make up things to extract and compress bearings. I was so around of minor the other day when he made a chain whip out of some old flat bar and an old chain. He has serviced his forks (once with expensive for me results) and more recently quite successfully. I am always happy to buy him bike specific tools if he wants more, because I have yet to meet a tool, that I don't want. I have also just brought a nice ultrasonic brass cleaner, that will definitely serve dual duty on the cleaning grotty rear mechs and such. I am told that it can even clean jewellery, so that will help convince the madam it was a good purchase. I would love one of the those park wheel building stands for truing wheels, but that seems like something that can be had from Gumtree. Other than that we are reasonably well equipped.

Really sorry to be loosing so many young families to SA, but sincerely wishing you guys the best for the venture you are embarking on and fully support the decision to move if you have the opportunity. I used to fly emirates around three times a month from OR thambo on Sunday Nights and it was sad seeing so many young families on one way trips. Hope you guys put your heads down and make the best of the transition. The first few months will not be easy, especially if you are leaving your family here for a few months. Good Luck.

My son decided to service his forks, which I like. I highly encourage him to service his bike, and many moons back I worked as a bike meccie in a cycle shop in Wembley so I am all about him learning to do things himself. The problem is that he broke some nut so I ended up having to send the fork to Robbies Cycle works in PE to complete the service and scavenge their parts bin to find the broken part. When I was a road cyclist, I used to strip and clean my bike at least once a month down to frame and regrease and re lube everything. FYI paraffin is the best thing for cleaning the chain and other shiny bits and does not leave it dry and prone to rust like using petrol or other strong solvent. If you have access to a compressor and one of those paraffin spray bottles even better.

I like the big red barn a lot, but not huge elevation changes as mentioned. I have not been to northern farms in a long time, but that business of having to go somewhere different for a ticket to enter did not really work for me. Not sure if they are still using that system. No one has mentioned groenkloof. I quite liked that area, but have not been since lockdown. There was quite a bit of elevation around there, so may be an option. Cradle moon was also a nice area, so that is also an option. Definitely stay away from Iron Throne if you don't like wolvespruit. There is also kloofzicht.

I see that no-one has yet mentioned paraffin wax, melted in your fav frying pan, and then the chain dipped into that? Was quote popular for roadies back in the day? Not sure if this is a a thing anymore and would not be popular on the domestic front. I would just use any commercial chain lube from a cycling shop but stay away from motor oils, and products not designed for this use case. As mentioned, Squirt is supporting local. I am not sure if there are other local competitors?

Good point. On the negative side, I see the ront is tanking again. On the positive side, I see that Walmart was announcing 90% drop in profits as they are having to dump inventory, so there is a chance that the natural oversupply will lead to a drop in pricing over time as that is just the way the economy works. IF the ront can just come back a bit, I would have that things improve in the next year or so?

Perhaps that was what was meant by Q20? I know my son put some q20 on his chain after he has left the bike outside overnight. The chain was truly a sight to behold after one ride offroad. We have been looking at doing some work with Squirt on friction measurements, and while I have no commercial interest in the company, I do like the idea of supporting a local outfit. Not sure if anyone has any strong opinions about them one way or the other.

Q20 is probably the worst thing you can put on your chain. It will suck and ingest grid at a rate that is very hard to fully convey. Just pop into a bike shop and get some proper chain lube. one thing to mention, is that replacing a full gear set is very expensive these days and regular chain replacement and maintenance will postpone that day significantly.

Returning briefly to bicycles. Fully imported bikes attract 15% advalorum. Add 14% vat to that and you are at 30%. Now factor in that demand has been outstripping supply and that means there has never been a better time for Oems to increase pricing. Added to that their raw material costs are increasing at a rapid pace, and then shipping containers are also much more dear. I have head up to 10X what they were prior to government lockdown stupidity. I know a local motorsport guy that was paying 7pounds/kg for some exotic axle metal and now is being quoted 18pounds/kg for the same item. Bear in mind bicycles are typically not made from pig iron, so these exotic metals may also be costing considerably more. One of my local customers is paying R15000 ronts for an FPGA that was costing them R500 a 18 months back! Then our trusty ront has gone from around 14-14.50 to 17-17.50 and add all that together and you are looking at very big increases. We import other equipment, unrelated to cycling, mostly from the US and we are facing USD increases at an unprecedented rate and the local pricing is easily double what it was 18 months back. None of this is nice, but it is reality.

You are probably right. I tend to view the world in black and white terms, so that is a challenge. just be glad you are not my wife! I still very much stick to my guns on riding in JHB roads being risky at best and pretty close to russian roulette. Cape Town is not Europe by a long shot, but they do tend to have a much higher degree of law and order around the city. In KZN I was able to ride around relatively freely by MTB and hit trails almost straight from home in Winston Park. When I moved to JHB, my neighbour told me that he was shot at Mountain Biking and the neighbour on the other side was raped while running alone. The decision was quickly made that bike parks are the only viable option for me. In short Gauteng is a long way from the WC but as you rightly said, the OP should make an informed judgement and see if risks can be mitigated.

Luckily we are all entitled to our own opinions. To advocate that more riders on the road will somehow make it safer is an intriguing leap of logic. Can you support it with some facts that demonstrate your proposition? I actually prefer road riding, and would happily ride all over most of europe because they actually know how to drive, have traffic rules for the most part, and have great infrastructure for cycling. SA has no road rules, highly inconsiderate drivers, no policing and in most cases don't even cater to pedestrians let alone cyclists. This before getting into the real threat of bikejacking! To propose that a young father should be on the roads to support an ideology is infantile. I would suggest that he educates himself on the risks and makes that decision for himself, but I would advocate that he faces reality and keeps himself alive for his family.