madmarc

I've always ridden MAXXIS since the 26er days - and always with Crossmark on the back. I used to swear by them however since their new Crossmark II came out i'm not a fan anymore I've had to change 2 due to leaking issues on the sidewalls and the last one developed a serious wobble after about 14 months of riding - Warranty ? lets not even go there. I dug out my old Ardent that i used to use on the front and put it on the rear, actually works lekka but ill be in 2 minds when i next change tyres if I go MAXXIS route again.

Some years back I cam across a NOS TREK 9.8 hard Tail fulll carbon 26er frame going for a bargain, had it hanging up until I decided to build it - Took me a few months to find the correct BB which i eventually imported from USA and then of course the headset was another issue, the moola i spent on just those items made my eyes water. The reason then became clear why the LBS i got the frame from never bothered building it and selling as a complete bike - At the time they had 4 frames in their stock I used all my old 26er parts and built up what i call "The Junk yard Dog" Every time i upgrade my 29er the parts go onto the Junk Yard Dog - recently full XO Gruppo and brake set - Now I have a 1 X 12 GX Eagle laying around after my 29er AXS upgrade, so now i'm thinking if it will work on the 26er without the RD dragging on the ground. I hardly ride it, but its a lot of fun to work on

We each throw in 30 ronds for a 25 ronds coffee 5 ronds for the tip - for each additional coffee its 25 ronds added - If you eat you pay in that on top plus 10% for the tip jar. When i still rode with a club there was no food on the joint bill if you ordered food or dop you had to get a separate bill.

Please point me in the direction to where i can get 15K or 10% int per month on 1.0m investment that is not a bitcoin ponzi scheme 🤑 - But i'm sure you meant per year

Clearly the importer and the LBS - As an example the spare battery worked out at approx. 830 ronds - cheapest i found online locally was 1 850 ronds. Maybe freight is a bit cheaper USA to Germany than USA to ZA The price included Germany VAT at 19% - so its not that. Maybe the online store in Germany gets a lower landed cost due to volume, but i doubt its as much as 40 or 50%. I work for a German OEM and our Master price is the same all over the world, but different countries importers have different discount structures based on various factors like competition prices / like for like specifications and options and volumes. So a customer can look up a product price in UK and see its cheaper than here in ZA - But the spec is different and of course freight is far less, but the UK volume is far higher and competitve prices force us to discount more in UK than in ZA. I think the volume discount is the issue here (All the components are the same spec the world over) local importers are probably bringing in smaller consignments due to cash flow and lower demand. Bring in 100 units as apposed to 20 units will halve the freight costs and attract a bigger trade discount, but increase the stock holding and the interest. One huge problem we find with our dealers is they use the importer as a stockist, and still expect to make 35% margin. This is clearly a problem with LBS in the industry - We all heard the "Oh we dont have stock now but we can have it here by tomorrow morning" the dealer network was actually destroying our brand in the past. We put a stop to this by publishing our retail prices and dealers are not allowed to sell above this price - they have 3 different discount structures, the lowest being ordering for next day delivery - middle being a monthly stock replenishment order and the highest being a consolidated order with the importer. On the the lowest they can make 10 - 12% in the middle 20 - 22.5 and highest they make 35%.

i am still of the opinion that a specialized business model will work. Although it will only get to a certain growth point and have a limited scalability. Take RBC in PE for example - they specialize in suspension and they very good at it. Professional setup and everyone i know who have used them rate them 10/10. They have made sure their customers have access to them with their courier service country wide. They have the skills, products and tools on suspension that no LBS will ever have and is probably the reason for their success - A few other guys here on the hub that do the same thing successfully. I follow a guy on FB in the UK who has a similar business, its crazy when you see the amount of work he gets from all over the UK. Wheels is another specialty one could look at - also a few guys her on the hub that do this successfully. But i doubt they big enough to chuck their day job. But here again you need access components at wholesale from the importers - this is where i kind of started - I have all the professional tools already, probably 50% of the skills needed was pursuing the other 50% - then i started speaking to importers, rims, spokes, hubs & spares, tires etc etc. this is where i shelved the idea. Take IDT's service and repairs ? - pfffft don't even go down that rabbit hole. Investigated becoming an Authorised Campy service ctr, was prepared to go to Italy for training at my expense - Unless you know someone who has a mate who is related to your brother whose mother is your sister, you won't even get an out of office response from them.

Haha this was part of my idea as well - To have a drop box delivery system for customers like you - Order it online arrive after hours with a pin sent via sms that opens a dropbox door and collect your goodies. Very much like some courier companies do at petrol stations

I've commented lots on this subject on other threads - As i did a full business case study for exactly the same idea. I wanted to start something that i could have up and running for retirement. - So in summary. Having only a bike maintenance workshop won't generate enough income on its own as a business. it will be a hobby business at best. You will need wholesale prices on components and spares from the big brand importers - they won't even talk to you unless you have a proper bike shop and initially it will all be COD if you convince them to supply you To generate any meaningful turn over you will need 2 or 3 qualified mechanics and you will need to be billing at least 140 hrs a month for each Mechanic - That there in + profit on components is the secret to a profitable workshop. Go onto the Torque Zone academy and check what it will cost to qualify and certify a mechanic, it will make your eyes water. also build in the risk that they can leave afterwards and go work for your competition for a few 100 ronds extra a month. You will struggle to get walk in business without a retail section, which is a whole new ballgame, here again getting importers to put their products in your retail section is a challenge and big investment. On top you will need to develop an online presence - even more investment. Go trade Bitcoin its a far easier and exciting way to lose money - In fact I did that and actually made money 😁

We rode there on Sat - Started at Flamingo Shopping ctr and went through the bottom or old gate, sneaked onto the hikers trails just after the gate to get to the MTB trail which is not open, so we expected it to be a bit rough - Once we were on the Dark Green route the trails were good and well maintained. The current maintained trails are a lot shorter than the old trails but you can see a lot of work being done on those that are open - Nice berms and jumps been built on the DH single track through the tree line. the rest of the trails were clean and grass cut back, the only real black jacks we encountered were off the maintained trail. The river and urban section is also good to go. We did 30km and if you need extra distance then I suppose a double loop is the answer for now. I'm actually excited to see what next will be opened There is lots of potential, but will take time as lots of work still needs to be done. A small irritation was the amount of litter i saw, I cannot believe in this day and age some people still don't give a toss - At the top gate, one area looked like it was a water point for a trail run event with plastic water sachets lying all over the place, obv. they didn't clean it up and just left after the event. Maybe i'm to blame as well for not taking a few minutes to pick it up - Maybe an idea that we all ride trails with a checkers packet and take a few minutes to pick up litter when we see it and bin it at the trial head. I see in June they hosting another 24hr event which i certainly intend to support.

I brought in complete upgrade kits from my last rip to Germany including a spare battery (just to make sure i don't turn into a single speeder on the trails) almost 50% cheaper than local including 19% German VAT - Awesome upgrade very happy with it - changes like butter

Love this thread - DT SWISS importer really stepping up to service their end user market - Well done Other big brands should take note

I'm fortunate to have Torque wrenches from my trade days - But for bike maintenance they are the most important tools to have in your tool arsenal. As others have posted a 2 - 12 Nm is required and then one that can do 30 - 100 Nm for the BB/Cranks & rear cassette which is normally 40 - 45 Nm. the problem is these bigger ones can cost anything from 2.5 - 6K Many will say the cheaper the Torque Wrench the less accurate it is and i'm not sure how in-accurate these cheapies are. I've used a Beam Type Torque Wrench before and found it to be pretty accurate for torque at 30Nm and above and they are cheap when compared to others.

Pity that Marc Pritzen team mate had to pull out at the last minute due to COVID - Would have been an interesting race otherwise

Taken off and re-installed these many times - its like a 2 hr gym session. Now I use a home compressor with one of the those trigger air nozzles. If you dont have a compressor then take the bike and grips down to the local garage and use their tyre pump. It now takes 2 min

I agree with your off topic comment, we enter these events to enjoy the day and then the horns come out and we end up at the finish bleeding through the eyes and not remembering much of the course. We chase the best finish time which is just a number on some arbitrary spreadsheet which only we will refer to in the future. I uploaded the route on my Garmin mainly to see how the navigation function worked, as i never used it before I also set my ave speed target and used mainly the "ahead" or "behind" screen - At WP1 i was 6:30 ahead, after i left i was 0:35 behind and ended at WP2 0:45 ahead. My partner who is much stronger than me did a similar target for the 2nd part of the relay and ended 2:45 behind at the end we were going for sub 7 hrs and ended on 7hrs 02min. I think if we did the full distance we would have set a target time of 9 hrs and focused more on enjoying the day. For me, the future discussions will always be about the lekka day out instead of the color of the medal you received.

So i did this event for the first time - first time doing an event in over 2 years - My partner & I decided to relay it as we didn't know what to expect and my fitness was questionable - I did the first half and was sorry we didn't just enter the full distance, was certainly good for the 2nd half. I think the graphic of the route is very misleading, the hills in the 2nd half look like monsters but, as my partner experienced they were not that hectic and was sure i could have handled them - We ride a lot together, so he knows my capacity or lack thereof when it comes to climbing. as I kind of suck at climbing. Very well organized - water points & catering was the best i've experienced at an event - Well done King Price, we'll be back next year Ye its a bit pricey and i've been known to whinge about event prices - But but I suppose its what you have to pay now days for these types of events.

I've had a KS LEV for over 7 years, run it at 200 psi - the range is 100 - 250 psi depending on the return speed you want - I've only topped it up 3 or 4 times since i installed it. Recently it developed about 15mm of sag I stripped it, did an internal clean and recharged the oil can after a quick course at university of YouTube. Works like a Swiss Watch again. the only play is a slight, and i mean a very slight, rotate (probably like 0,5 deg) left to right on the saddle which you cannot feel when riding and normal according to KS LEV. (My boet has a Lyne where the rotate movement is more) - If you start to feel it then the 3 thin brass rods at the bottom of the stanchion need to be replaced.

In the last pic - Is the code not part of the white lettering closest to the vice Just an observation - that vice should have soft jaws when handling parts of this nature

C68 is here - Pure Bike Porn

Annette does sterling work 👌

I looked into ultrasonic cleaners some years back - and they certainly not the silver bullet to clean drive trains. Many YouTube videos on the subject. I use pure water based engine cleaner - soak for 10 - 15 minutes and then rinse it off with a water jet - I then soak in engine cleaner again and again until no dirt is visible in the liquid with a final rinse with water jet. I also use a hard brush to get al lthe external dirt and grime off. I have a home compressor and an air gun - blow out every link with air to make sure you get rid of all the moisture in the links. Then i lube every roller with a drop with my lube mixture of standard engine and chainsaw oil. The trick is not to over lube, when this happens your chain and sprockets get caked in dirt and grime and it makes it harder to clean. I don't use synthetic or wax lubes because, from where i come from, wax is for candles and oil is for lubricating metal parts.

Thanx for all the responses - will let you know how it went 🤙

I go this one off Takealot and it works perfect with Kickr i would assume it will work with Tacx as long as it has Ant+ FE-C but most dongles handle both Ant+ & Ant+ FE-C signals - But maybe some Tacx owners can comment https://www.takealot.com/saris-ant-usb-stick/PLID60539737 Also check out this interesting video from GP Lama

I'm going to White river for Easter and want to ride a few local trails - I see MTO white river trails but not much info on the web. Anyone can give some more info Where do i buy a day permit Where do they start Etc Etc Any info will be greatly appreciated.

I'm on a Kickr - Lenova idea pad. Just go ANT+ and be done with it. I've had so many problems with BT on multiple laptops i given up trying. A lot of the trouble is because the BT switches off on the Laptop and then you need to constantly go into device manager and switch them back on - and if you have other BT devices in range it gets all confused with connections fighting each other and drops one connection to connect to another. Ant+ just works and connects perfectly the only time i get drops is when there is an obstruction between the trainer and the laptop - currently the laptop is approx 4m from the trainer and it connects both the trainer and HR monitor no problems. If you have this situation then a USB extension to have the dongle closer to the trainer also works. I currently run both TR and ZWIFT as well as a HR strap together at the same time with 2 ANT+ dongles with no issues.