MilkManMike

I think this is very much area specific. But At least in many parts of Cape Town/Stellenbosch/Somerset West/Gordon’s Bay/Strand etc, I don’t see safety being a major issue. Can’t really see how the motorbikes are any safer than a bicycle would be. Obviously bicycles would be limited to a smaller radius from the pick up point than a scooter or motorbike would be. So there is definately a case for using both methods. Bicycles restricted to deliveries within 5km radius of the pickup point, while scooters can deliver in the 5km Zone, and further also. Maybe have a particular cut off time for bicycle deliveries, so no bike deliveries after dark etc. I’m not thinking only for my own selfish reasons of wanting to be able to do this, but also the job creation side of it. A cheap bike is a much lower barrier to entry than a motorbike. Meaning more really desperate people could become directly involved in the delivery value chain, truly working for themselves, instead of being exploited by the cartels who now buy all the scooters, and pay desperate people peanuts to work as riders for them. in Dublin as an example, although obviously very different to South Africa, loads of people I met while doing bike deliveries, had lost pretty much everything during covid. They could put food on the table at least by doing bike deliveries. Some even used the city bikes that you rent per hour/day all over the city, while saving up to buy their own bikes, and it was still worth their while, because you could rent a city bike for a couple of euro a day, pick it up anywhere in town, drop it off again anywhere after your shift, and catch the bus back home. If they were only allowed to use motorbikes for delivery, this would never have worked.

Okay. I just assumed, because the guys are dressed in Mr D clothing, and the bikes are MrD branded that they provided them to contracted riders, unlike Uber/bolt which is more focused on individual contractors doing the deliveries.

Okay, good to know, but Mr D, unlike Uber/Door Dash/Bolt etc, I think supplies the bikes to their delivery riders, so it would be some sort of contracted in situation. At least it seems that way with the motor bikes. I haven’t personally seen the e-bikes. I specifically would want to use my own bike, and work only when I choose. will look into it though, thanks for letting me know.

Just a thought, why do the UBER eats/Mr D/Bolt Food etc crowd not have bicycle delivery people in South Africa. Especially with E-bikes becoming main stream now, this makes so much more sense than the scooters and cars for local deliveries, especially in daylight hours. All over the rest of the world, this is pretty normal. I work overseas on rotation, so often I’m home for a couple weeks at a time on leave. My fiancé works a normal day job, so during the week, I have a lot of free time. When we lived in Dublin, when I was on RnR I did bike deliveries for UBER eats and UBER connect, as well as DoorDash, basically just when I felt like it. Was often a cool way to find new routes around the city, or a motivation to ride when the weather was crap and so on, and the payment was pretty decent, which helped. This morning I tried signing up for Uber Eats and Bolt, but neither offer a bicycle option for Cape Town. Tried Door Dash, but the app doesn’t even show up in the play store, so I’m assuming it’s not available in South Africa, although Im sure I have seen door dash delivery guys in Cape Town before. Pretty disappointed… I’m on a three month RnR now, while waiting sorting out new work permits and so on… only two weeks in, and already pretty bored at home.

Uhm… it’s a classified advert on this same platform. There is no info on the screenshot that is not also available on the advert? What’s the issue?

Seen a lot of negativity on this forum and elsewhere about Garmins warranty policy not being what it once was, and people complaining about replacement/repair costs…. But then one sees an ad like this in classifieds and can’t help but wonder if that doesn’t have something to do with companies getting iffy about warranty perks… Buy this broken device, and you can give it in to Garmin for a good deal on a warranty replacement…. WTH…. https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/computers-and-gps/531248/garmin-to-cycle

Nothing stopping you from doing so: https://www.songo.info/donate-2/

Ended up spoiling myself and went for the new edge 840, very happy with it. But now considering getting a new Garmin watch to go with it. still very happy with my Suunto watch, but thinking now, if the Garmin body battery stats etc would carry over between the edge and a Garmin watch? Can anyone using both confirm whether workouts logged on the edge sync with the long term metrics on the watch, and count towards your body battery and recovery time stats?

Yes, would use a seperate HRM strap. the 51mm Fenix has a 1.4inch screen… so I thought it might be sufficient. Seems the edge is the way to go then…

I was considering getting myself a decent head unit again, after years of riding with only a watch. I currently have a suunto 9 Baro, and have no reason to replace it, im actually perfectly happy with it. I had an edge 510 that was on a bike that was stolen a few years back, and just never got around to replacing it, I started just using my watch to track my rides. But now I have an itch for something with proper mapping to use while riding, so a new edge was the natural choice, but while shopping, I came across the fenix 6X pro for about the same price as an edge 540….so now I’m thinking maybe to get the large watch instead of the edge, and retiring the suunto 9. anyone have experience using the large face fenix watches handlebar mounted in place of a head unit? Is the 1.4inch screen sufficient for keeping you on route using the maps? I don’t run, so I don’t mind the weight/size of the fenix, but the maps can again be handy when hiking/hunting etc as well, and it would be an upgrade over the suunto9 in this sense, while the Edge would only be for riding use. Is there any major benefit over using an edge instead of a watch for cycling, other than the larger screen?

Very well worth it in my opinion, and a great way to escape the *** midwinter weather in the cape. Last year this time we did an awesome road trip. Flew from Cape Town to JHB, got picked up at the airport and straight to Pretoria. That afternoon we spent hitting the trails at Wolwespruit, loads of fun, but limited - but its essentially a inner city trail park, with proper trails, so cool in that sense. Next morning we did a 2 hour ride at Rosemary Hill - very fun, but very pedally/flat, so not really suited to gravity types. Awesome brunch and atmoshphere after at the trail head. Very cool set up all around. Then we spent the afternoon driving down to the midlands, and spent a few nights at Notingham Road Hotel, enjoyed some craft beer from Notingham brewery, and spend the evenings tell war stories around the kagel. Using Notties as a base, we rode Cascades and Karkloof (morning session at cascades, afternoon at Karkloof and then the next day, a full day on the Karkloof trails). The next day, we did a morning shuttle assisted ride at Giba Gorge and then when on to Ballito. Next day we spent the whole day at Holla Trails, with local guys showing us around again, and then flew back to Cape Town the next morning from Durban. The road trip was epic, But next time, I would skip Giba Gorge, and rather do another half day riding at Karkloof. Planning to do this again in August.

Ja no, there's a reason GM is as good as he is. Cascades was were he learnt to ride, and like you say, proper arse puckering steepness, especially after a bit of rain - of which that part of the world has no shortage.

Living in the Western Cape, especially the winelands, can make one very biased. There is probably no where else in the country with the sheer volume and variety of trails on offer as this region, and especially if you consider how much of it is public access trails, or can be accessed on a single membership, and can be linked together into one ride, especially if long marathon type rides are your thing. But as someone who rides Stellenbosch/Jonkers/Banhoek/Idas valley etc at least twice a week, I fully agree with this article. Karkloof is absolutely the best trail park/network in the country, hands down. Very little local riding gets me as excited as planning a visit to Karkloof, and then throwing in some laps at Cascades for good measure. I still love Jonkers, and I think from a sense of place perspective, it, and the rest of the trials networks around it, are second to none, but pure riding bliss, Karkloof is the daddy. Northern Farsm as the best in Gauteng though, I really dont know how anyone who actually mountain bikes can come to that conclusion. Basically all the Pretoria east trail networks own it hands down, in terms of both riding, as well as trail head facilities and gees.

you mean like a slighty compressible polymer bushing… wouldnt that be revelutionary😁

Im with you on being pretty sure they will come up with a reason to ban it. I agree its a smart solution though until such point. I still think the riders should be allowed to choose between their bikes for the short course and the XCO, I dont buy the “it saves money” argument. No rider competing at world cup level only has one bike. I am pretty certain the sponsors supply them all with a number of bike, including a decent race hardtail. Letting the youth see their heros racing on HT bikes will help cycling a lot by showing people you dont need a top of the range full suss to be a good rider. The benefit of this solution by Cervelo is both in efficiency and in weight. Even the best lockout rear shock will have some give, and then the obvious weight saving, which matters a lot at that level of riding. The short course tracks may be rough, but a 120mm front travel, modern geo hardtail with high volume tires is more than capable of handling that terrain as well as most dual sus XC bikes…. its the riders body that takes more strain on the HT, and over the 20 or 30 minutes of a short course race, that isnt so much of an issue. I think if they werent forced to use the same bike for both races, pretty much everyone would ride the XCC on a hardtail.

Anyone willing to take bets on how long it's going to take for the UCI overlords to ban suspension changes during race weekends? https://escapecollective.cc/cervelo-turned-a-full-suspension-bike-into-a-no-suspension-bike/ Can't see why they don't allow them to swop bikes between the XCC and XCO races. In that spirit, they should force Grand Tour riders to use the same bike for the TT that they ride on the normal stages....

Wonder what this result is going to do for the reputation of the “RockRider” brand...really solid ride from Dabua there.

I have vpn sorted. Does GCN need a subscription? Is it available on smart tv via an App, or only on laptop/tablet? was very noted seeing only the ladies XCC is being shown on Supersport.

Such an awesome trail center. Huge variety of trials, you will not run out of options. Very well marked also. Pink trail is seriously world class.

Basically a rhetorical question, but how on earth does such a useless company remain in business for so long? Why does shimano allow it?

It’s a private event, but it’s to launch a product, so their will be lots of photos floating around on social media after the fact…. So “they” will definitely know, whoever they might be. But it will be timed, not professionally, but it will be timed. Thanks, yes, this is exactly the issue. They mentioned the UCI forbidden race rule. I did look it up, and it doesn’t seem like it applies to one off/special events. But I will need to have our legal guys make extra sure of that. My first thoughts when this came up was related to the songo.info event. I think the main issue is that none of the riding they do is timed. So maybe we just drop the timing. It does look like we should be okay in terms of the UCI rule that applies, but like I said, I will get a legal expert to confirm. The riders themselves are keen, but this issue did crop up from the management side, and I had to look into it. With regards to the other event rules and so forth, we are fortunately familiar with all the requirements there. Safety manuals, SOPs, medics, site assessments etc will all be in place.

Hi guys, hope someone here can point me in the right direction. Where can one find out what is required in order to either have an event sanctioned, or exempted from CSA sanctioning? The CSA website is not really proving helpful, and my emails have gone unanswered since last week. I know lots of events are run every weekend that are not sanctioned, but unfortunately, this is not an option for an event we are planning in November. I work in corporate advertising, and we are planning a three day event for one of our clients launching a new product. It’s an invitation only industry event, and not open to the public, but each day on the event kick off with a “fun” race. 10km trail run on day 1, XCO race on day 2 and a 70km XCM race on day three, all on private property and closed trails, no crossing of public roads or anything that requires special permissions. The brand in question (which I prefer not to name at this point) happens to sponsor a number of professional athletes, and some of them will also be participating in the events. But one of the riders agents let us know that they can only participate if its officially sanctioned, because they could lose their racing license if they participate in an unsanctioned event.

Good to know, but I’m buying this to ride it…. Not sell it.

Thank you all for the advice/input. Spez was unable to come to the party with an upgraded Allu Stumpjumper, So I have just sealed the deal on a Trek Fuel EX7. Hopefully picking up Wednesday. Will give it a bit of a thrashing over the weekend and then make a list of what needs to be upgraded.

It is the Fuel EX 7 (gen 6) I am looking at. Only realised now that Chad actually recommended the top fuel…. Top fuel is a bit too “down country”, and I already have a 120mm XC bike in the Spark… I’m waiting for Spez to get back to me on a possible upgrade option on a allu stumpie, but if they don’t let me know by close of business today, I am going to pull the trigger on the Trek. Not sure why, but when I put pyga into Google, I end up on their European site. But R100k give or take for the Pyga, I think the Trek with XT components is just much better value, even after factoring in a fork upgrade.