Furbz

Some pics to build some Gees for the lads

I feel like a kid before Christmas..

Thanks for the extra info. some good knowledge you have there! 100% agree! i'll say right now, if a medium Titan Empire Carbon pops up on the classifieds i will have serious trouble not buying it.

Does anyone have a GPS route to program into my GPS for the 3 stages?

I see i am out of date when it comes to the latest bikes. at the time i rode the bike everything was moving away from the Horst Link setup. to see other bikes coming back to it is interesting to hear. clearing the "newer" (read DIFFERENT) suspension setups are maybe not better. Happy to revise my thoughts. if designers are moving back to Horst then its clearing for a good reason. For anyone who is interested i wrote down my thoughts on the Titan Cyper Empire here is the form of a review. i ended up buying a Scott RC 900 SL and i love it. funny its angles might be a little dated but it feels fantastic to me. i increased the front from 110mm to 120mm to gain some more comfort and slightly slacken the head angle.

I think if that pivot is removed I'd seriously look at buying a Titan as my next bike. It's a fairly big detractor buying a brand new bike with an outdated suspension setup

I rode the empire version of this bike - the 120mm suspension version. I found it to be a fantastic ride. Really was impressed with it The value is insane with the titan The only issue I had was it felt a bit heavy to pedal on a XC course at race pace. So I opted for a XC bike to rather suite the riding I do. If I had more money and space I'd happily buy the empire as my go to trail riding bike.

Thanks for the effort on getting my deal together. really appreciate it. already loving the new bibs

i'm 171cm tall and the latest Assos bibs i find slightly long.... you must be super skinny with a short torso and long legs

yep. Assos. there really is nothing better

I bought a hammerhead karoo 2. it has a warranty twice as long as any other unit available in RSA (2 years). yes its an import, but if anything does go wrong they pay for the shipping to collect and return the unit. Cost me +-R7600 all in. https://www.hammerhead.io/ i have only had it for 2 months and i am impressed. yes it is different to garmin. so there is a learning curve. that said, its basically an android phone powered head unit - and i love gimmicks. i have side loaded. Zwift Companion, Spotify, Apple Music, Srams App and a few others i'd say the only downsides to it is that it does not connect to Discovery Vitality - not that that is worth very much these days. and they have no form of data breakdown or app like Garmin does. as i use golden cheetah and Wko5 this does not worry me at all. strava syncs up perfectly. my 5G is so much better since the Vaccine. Oddly drones appears to deviate towards me since i had the vaccine

have had this issue with my 520 and 530. its a long standing bug. i have also constantly fought with sensor drop outs. everything disconnects then reconnects. sometime incorrectly(the radar stops working) Its part of the reason i moved away from Garmin. the other part being they seem to fail entirely just months out of warranty. with those 2 units i have had 3x warranty replacements in warranty. and 2x purchasing at a reduced rated due to a failure outside of warranty. very much over Garmin

i once rode with a Garmin 520, Polar GPS and my phone using Strava. to make it as fair a comparison as i could i turned off auto pause. at the end of a 100km ride they all had different elevations and distances. the distance difference between the polar and garmin was just over 1km.

This thread is useless without pictures

really. a label and a plastic bag is their reason. thats such rubbish. tell them to keep the bag from the replacement bibs and ship the bibs ex the bag to you. - i am willing to bet the barcode and labelling on the packet is not individual for each and every bib manufactured but rather just for sizing issues. They have no reason to make each label individual. this is a really easy issue to fix on an expensive product that should have quality controls in place to ensure a large is always the same size. as an alternative option why not get hold of Castelli international and see what their thoughts are on the matter. that would be my next step.

Bicycle Service Centre is good. they are TREK dealers otherwise Mellovelo is also a good option - they have a lot of variety

The 50km route takes just shy of 3 hours going at a reasonable pace for a fit rider (A group). stopping every now and then to look at the statues and of course a sneak peak at the lake. 40-60% of it is on golf cart tracks. the remaining is zigzag type route to make up the distance. i rode it and do not see any reason to go ride it again bar the fact its safe. it is a very forgettable boring route.

was offered between 10 and 15% off on my order. but only on sizes currently in stock. makes my basket not worth anything as its all to large then. pity

I rode the wet 2019 version of this race (chardonnay) it was awesome! the rain made for extra gees! i am now again doing the Chardonnay - two reasons. i don't want to get sucked into racing the event. i rather want to ride it fairly hard and just enjoy the surrounds!

Got to ride the MTB route in Steyn City yesterday. I am so glad i did not enter the MTB race! i'd be really upset paying close on R500 only to find 40-60% of the route is on concrete golf cart tracks - really not joking about this seriously for the first 25km you might as well have slicks and a close range cassette. the last 25km is mostly offroad. even that was not great. i'd say there was only 1 section of around 1.5km that was fun. the rest felt like it was just zigzagging on boring paths that are not maintained to make up the distance.

will be interesting to hear rider feedback. all the feedback i have ever heard regarding the brain is - its brilliant for racing XC but otherwise too harsh for everyday use. will be keen to hear if this is that same with this new system. it might be faster, but its still reacting after the fact.

Using a decent pair of bibs? I have found any on the Ciovita shorts are great for around 6 months, makes no difference between the high end or low end ones, the chamois all last around 6 months. after that i start getting sore sit bones. i have 3 sets in rotation doing +- 8-10hours a week. love Ciovita tops. but the bibs are a no go. I since switched to Assos. a year down the line again with 3 bibs in rotation and my ass is still very comfortable. Saddle is also a big part, i used to like the Spez Romin saddle, but after riding a Bontager Aeolus Saddle i swapped everything to Aeolus. absolutely love that saddle.

Richard Baxter is phenomenal. Does bike fits at Mellovelo so close enough for you. I've been riding competitively for 15 years plus and thought I knew my stuff setting up all my own bikes. I eventually started getting neck and shoulder pain. Went for a fit and basically all but the saddle height contact points shifted plenty. At first I felt to compact compared to my self setup. Took a few km to get used to it. I then found I could put more power down and it felt less strained. Funny I chose to go against advice and kept the bars high as it was my demo bike and needed to be able to offer customers options. I still had some neck and shoulder issues. My new bike arrived(same frame, custom paint job) and I followed Richard's advice and actually slammed the stem. Guess what, no more neck and shoulder pain! Get a professional bike fit it's the best money you can spend. Period. There is no need for pain on bikes under any circumstances.

i get you. but hard to sniff salts mid race. you need to be able to get into that space on your own to perform in the field

Hoping to hear some good feedback on OrangeSeal for road use. the Regular Sealant is touted as one of the best internationally for road use. https://lanoysports.co.za/collections/orange-seal On the tubeless tire side of things. My Parlees come with Vittoria Corsa 2.0 28mm tubeless tires - they are stunning to ride. the most comfortable tire i have ever used. but at R1800 a tire - yes per tire. i will not be replacing like for like. i also needed tire levers and a compressor to seat these tires. I tried Pirelli Z Zero tires - came with a set of zipps i bought. ran them with tubes. in 10 rides i had 10 punctures in the cradle. roughly 1000km. popped them straight into the bin. i have since been demoing the Goodyear Eagle F1 tires and am sold on them. not quite as comfy as the Vittoria to begin with, but they seem to loosen up and feel really good after a few 100km. in my case they went on easy without the need of tire levers, and mounted with a standard floor pump to the Zipps. they held pressure perfectly through the night without sealant. so very impressed. so far i have 1200 odd km on them without fault. and at R730 a tire they are much cheaper to run. as a side, a mate also tried these and broke levers trying to mount them to his older Bontrager wheels. so it appears the newer tires tend to play well with newer rims, but can give issue when used on older rims? https://lanoysports.co.za/collections/goodyear/products/goodyear-eagle-f1-tubeless-complete