Minion

I'm afraid not. I don't ride much in the south.

The hub should be fine. The tyre might suffer a bit, though.

Here're some road directions from central Joburg to the SBR gate: http://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Bassonia,+Johannesburg+South,+South+Africa&daddr=Unknown+road&hl=en&ll=-26.423234,28.335114&spn=0.509146,0.837708&sll=-26.485324,28.23452&sspn=0.127218,0.209427&geocode=FWcab_4dNjOsASmFPzDLfw-VHjER4atYGySRqw%3BFZhybP4dCZmuAQ&vpsrc=6&mra=dme&mrsp=1&sz=13&t=m&z=11&source=gplus-ogsb

...and now I've reset the privacy setting so people can actually view it. Stupid Maymyride

Or at least keeping them a consistent scale. 5px per km horizontal, 5px per 10m vertical?

I posted a link a few posts up.

I suppose it depends on how you felt once you finished the 67km round the Cradle. If you were broken, the last 30km of a race will be pretty tough. If not, you could probably manage them quite easily in 2hrs.

2:30 for the first 67km, 30min to recover after hitting the wall, 2hrs for the remaining 28km?

The route's pretty easy. It consists of two one-way loops attached by a small bit of two-way road. You start at the northern car park at the bottom of a hill about 3/4 of the way around the small loop. From there, cross the cattle grate and immediately turn left and start climbing. At the top turn left (turn right to do just the small loop). Keep left for 50+km. When you reach a T-junction at the bottom of a hill turn right and ride 1km back to the start. Here's a map of the route: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/43505588 I did a warmup to the gate and back, so the actual route starts at about 7km. It ends at about 64km. I then did two more times around the small loop.

You can also do this on the Edge 500. There was a firmware update enabling it a few months after it was released. I don't think they ever updated the specs on their website, though. It's R2250 before VAT. No duties are charged on these. I forgot the shipping price, so it would actually be closer to R2700 total cost to get it here. For after sales service you could send it back, otherwise Garmin SA charges a fee (around R400, I think) to repair it for you.

Have a look at overseas online stores. Probikekit has the Edge 500 bundle for about R2600 inc VAT etc. They also have a once-off 15% discount code when you first register with them.

...when stopped at a traffic light, in front of a long queue of stopped cars, at least one of whose drivers will be insanely hot.

Compact cranks have a bolt circle diameter (BCD) of 110mm. You can get aftermarket 110BCD chainrings going up to 54T. They tend to be less stiff than their smaller counterparts, though. You would also need to get a bigger small chainring since most front derailleurs are only 16T capacity e.g. with a 54T outer ring, the inner can be no smaller than 38T. Edite: a link to some chainrings: http://harriscyclery.net/product-list/parts-1400/chainrings-1405/chainrings-110-mm-bcd-1279/

You can try loosening the cleat tension with the adjustment screw so it's easier to unclip. If you're using Shimano M505 pedals, get rid of them. I had nothing but trouble trying to unclip from mine.

Or he was employing good bunch riding principals. In fact, riding most of the race in Zone 3 is even a bit much. On the hardest stage of this years TDF (Stage 18), Juan Antonio Flecha spent 53% of his race in zone 2. http://tpks.ws/sJbXShQz On Stage 16 where he launched multiple attacks, he spent 35% in Z2 and 28% in Z3. http://tpks.ws/R2lyRJ8k On Stage 11 he took it easy and spent 82% of the time in Z2 or lower. http://tpks.ws/kJBu

That wasn't TNT1's point, though. Riding uphill at 90%HR, 100%FTP, 6 RPE etc is the same training effect, regardless of whether you do it on road or MTB. The only difference is that you generally go slower on the MTB while doing it.

The manufacturer's stated life would have to be a general figure that encompasses almost all uses, almost all of the time. It may be their testing shows, for example, that 99% of all tested helmets will reach the figure while 84% will exceed it by 1 year, 50% by 2 years, 16% by 3 years and so on. With careful care and inspection, I suspect most helmets will reach well over their stated lifespan. The manufacturer would open themselves up to all kind of litigious crap if they said this, though, since they have no real control over the care and inspection process.

You also use Zipp carbon-carbon pads. You save the hassle of swapping pads, though you should still check and clean them when going from alu to carbon. Here's what Zipp says: I will admit to not being all that diligent about checking my pads before swapping and I've been lucky so far.

It depends. Full carbon wheel: no. The carbon rim doesn't conduct the heat of braking away fast enough and normal brake pads melt. Some pads also contain ceramic compounds that can abrade the braking surface. Carbon wheels with aluminium braking surfaces: maybe. The aluminium conducts heat fast enough to stop most pads from melting (though not Campag, according to Zipp), but check what the manufacturer says. Zipp gives recommended pads for all their wheels here: http://www.zipp.com/...e/brakepads.php More info here: http://www.zipp.com/support/askjosh/carbonwheels.php

I would say there probably is a correlation between the group you ride and the value of your equipment (Note, correlation does not mean causation). I suspect you will find more expensive bikes in higher groups simply because these people generally take the sport more seriously and thus are more likely to feel that they can justify the higher cost of a more expensive bike.

It makes a big difference. It's your rate of work that counts All that matters is time at intensity. Distance is irrelevant when you have those two (but the initial post didn't mention them, so distance on surface becomes slightly relevant).

Listen to TNT1. If you're pressed for time, you need to make your training as efficient as possible. In your position, I'd seriously consider getting an indoor trainer and doing most of your weekday sessions on that. You can ride a solid 60min without being disrupted by traffic, pedestrians, obstacles etc. It also removes daylight constraints on your riding, so may introduce the possibility of doing longer rides or sessions in the evening. If you want to maximise the effectiveness of your training, you need some kind of structured training program and some way to measure training intensity (e.g. heart rate or power). Every minute you ride needs to have a specific purpose (e.g. build threshold to improve long climbs; build VO2max to improve short, sharp efforts; recover etc.). Consider getting a coach to make a specific program for you or read a book like 'The Cyclist's Training Bible' by Joe Friel to help you make your own program or allow you to critically evaluate the cut and paste programs you can find all over the 'net.

It's a little bit relevant since he mentioned distance, rather than time. 60min road ≈ 60min MTB. 23km road <> 23km MTB.

Provided the chain is sized correctly for the 11-28 cassette, chain length will not be an issue: both cassettes have an 11 which is where you'd start running into tension problems. You will have exactly the same problems if you swap the two cassettes on one wheel or if you swap two wheels with different cassettes. In fact, swapping wheels may result in more problems since some wheels have a slightly different offset from the edge of the hub to the first sprocket. I've encountered it a couple of times and it's usually very small, but enough to produce noisy shifting on at least one of the wheels.

How much money do you have? A cassette tool and chain whip should be less than R300 and it should take less than 10min to swap a cassette. Changing cassettes shouldn't affect your shifting much, if at all. I often swapped between 11-23 and 12-25 and never had to adjust the derailleur. For convenience, you just need some way to keep all the sprockets and spacing rings in order. Campag cassettes come on a plastic cassette holder that allows you to just slide the cassette off, otherwise you could use a cable tie or something like that. The image below seems to indicate that SRAM/Shimano cassettes also have these. http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/rimages4/vil_speedloader.jpg