madmarc

That bird needs to aim better

I had this problem the other day - For some reason my trainer (Kickr Core) lights were off both the ANT+ and BT lights, but it was all plugged in. I unplugged it completely and then plugged it all in again - been working perfect since then. I leave my trainer plugged in 24/7 so maybe it was because of loadshedding i also hear its not a good idea to leave the trainer plugged in all the time.

Try phoning the importer Cape Cycle Systems to see if they can help.

Never seen MTB shoes specifically designed for indoor use - Maybe they are for IDT and gym spinning sessions so to answer your question i would say no, they don't look very robust - rather look around for something more suitable that suits your budget - I'm not a Shitmano fan but they normally have well priced MTB shoes and they, like their pedals, are bulletproof

Have you ever played with the resistance settings in the app - Not sure if /sufferfest has this function - But in TR on /resistance mode i can set the trainer difficulty I think in SWift there is a similar option. So when turning the cranks is too easy and you run out of gears you increase the difficulty which slows your spin out or forces you to change up to an easier gear - almost like a virtual gear ratio changer

I would agree with that on a 2 X 8 min or 1 x 20 min FTP test, as you are supposed to push as hard as you can for the test duration in any gear at any cadence, the result is the ave of 2 x 8 min or 20 min ave power output. A ramp test is different, where the final result is based on the best 1 minute power x 0.75. So in Erg mode you get a much more accurate result than slope mode where you changing gears and cadence to reach the target power. In erg mode the trainer ramps each minute by 20 w (I think) you dont need to change gears as it has no effect, only changing cadence will have an effect - the faster you pedal the easier it is to pedal and the slower you pedal the harder it is to pedal. Thats no to say slope mode is incorrect - I suppose you can use it but most training platforms recommend ERG mode for a ramp test on a smart trainer. All depends what floats your boat when testing. On the other hand if you have a dumb trainer on virtual power you will need to do the same as if your were in slope mode

They should make the top gate (Old entrance) the MTB entrance maybe for Multicard access only. Then we could park at 33 high street or the new shopping center and ride in like the old days This would reduce congestion at the entrance and they would sell lots more multi entry cards = cash in the bank for trail maintenance.

Went on Sat entered at 8:45 entrance was not bad at all, only about 6 cars in the line - maybe i was lucky, the guy i went with was 10 min behind me me in a line of about 20 cars. Did the red route, but cut out the river section, didn't wanna disturb the bird (Or maybe i was hammered I dunno) Trails are lekka clean for the most part - Good that they burnt the reeds as they were very overgrown - Now they'll grow back in the summer again. Lots of trail walkers on the MTB trails - which i'm cool with - share the trails, be nice, don't be a box. But my only concern were the walkers on the downhill single track from the top gate back to the start - This should be verboden for walkers there gonna be a serious accident if they don't enforce this on this section. 4 guys only just managed to jump out the way when i was bombing down, I also only realized they were in the trail when i was nearly on top of them, head was down on the trail trying to keep my navigation on point. there is a specific walkers trail next to the tar road they supposed to be using. I would hazard a guess that most of the trail walkers are using this place for the first time and don't realize there are dedicated and marked walkers trails. In the past, walkers were not allowed on the MTB trails and MTBers were not allowed on the walkers trails - Its only a matter of time before there gonna be an incident if the Taroko don't get this under control.

I have been on TR for over 3 years and only used the Ramp test in ERG mode - Some time back i tested your analogy over a 7 day period - High gear / Low gear / high cadence / low cadence - every test i did ended with the same result within 1 or 2 watts of each other. Any change in, as you put it mech resistance, is compensated by the trainer resetting the brake. So if you change gears the trainer will auto adjust to compensate, if you speed up or slow down your cadence the trainer auto adjusts in the same way. My conclusion was - your ftp is your ftp no matter what gear or cadence you do it at. To answer the OP question about power loss - Maybe do a test by using a HT on the same route and compare the difference - maybe the power loss is a perceived power loss due to the squish factor and not real power loss

that looks really cool. Have you ever considered making the rear plate out of Aluminium - Been watching some Youtube vids of a guy in the states who make kits from Aluminium - They maintain that wood designs tend to walk around the room while rocking and the wooden curves tend to wear unevenly after a few months. Not sure if that's a fact or if they just pushing their AL design. My take on the Linear motion would obv be to mount the 2nd board on top with as small as possible gap between them. Also to keep the overall height as low as possible - So the Linear plate could be cut from Aluminium 3 - 4 mm thick. In my 1st post there are linear bearings parts that come in different dia's these start at 8mm up to 20mm - Maybe 12mm setups on each side would work - One would have to get the dim drawings of the bearings to check what the gap would be. With this design you could mount compression springs over the round bar between the bearings to preload the board. - Probably the best, simplist & neatest option. A 2nd option would be to use 2 rails of friction linear runners. this would keep the gap really small, but you would need to preload the board with tension springs - probably on each side edge of the setup. One would also need to check the max vertical load these friction runners could handle they say 3920 N which is approx 400kg. they not cheap though ! Locally you can source these from DIY Electronics https://www.diyelectronics.co.za/store/ or speak to bearing man - they might also have solutions. A 3rd option would be to find industrial drawer runners mounted on the sides - So the linear plate would slide in like a drawer. Here again one would need heavy duty drawer runners to handle at least 100kg + vertical weight. Preload with tension springs as well. A 4th option would be to design 2 tracks on each edge of your current board with shafts and small roller bearings mounted on the edges of the top board also preloaded with tension springs

Thanks frosty - So as i understand its whatever discount you qualify off the 4K (I'm family) and not off the purchase price - correct ?

Can some one explain the fitness device discount - I'm looking at buying a Garmin watch from Sportsmans I'm on Diamond with 25% discount (Sportsmans) have a disco cc and the healthy gear card for sportsmans So if the item costs say 5K how do i calculate what discount i will get back Thanx in advance

I havn't ridden there for ages, but i sometimes wonder who looks after the wild animals in the reserve - wonder how long t will be before they get poached for bush meat - My last ride early one morning we came across a herd of about 12 Sable antelope all standing in the road - was fantastic to just stand there and watch them - Never even seen such big herd of Sable in the Kruger.

Only bird i can think of that would act like that is a crow - very territorial and aggressive if they have babies the feel are being threatened.

50" HDTV mounted in front of trainer - laptop approx 8m on my desk across the room with ANT+ & BT dongle - Wireless mirror cast to TV - Iphone 6 + connected to music center that i use the Zwift Companion app as well while on the bike

yep still working for them - I went from the chemicals used to provide your food to the machines that plant and harvest your food. Havnt been to the Vaderland since end of Feb - As soon as Oom Cyril says its okay i be on the 1st flight to my other office - Not on SAA though

The 7km radius is mainly for chemical fallout - I wasn't aware they still manufactured chemicals as most plants were shutdown. When i worked there the main most dangerous were Ammonia Sulfuric Acid Nitric Acid From there the clever scientists developed all kinds of products like fertilizer - pool acid - chlorine etc etc In the process their largest production was Ammonium Nitrate (Ammonia + Nitric acid) which when mixed with Lime becomes LAN that you buy for your grass. It's not volatile but can be used for homemade bombs when you add an accelerant and an ignition source - If you wanna know how ask Timothy McViegh, he blew up some building in Oklahoma using the stuff. But when mixed with diesel becomes the white granular explosive used in open cast mining. Think it was sold under the name Energex at the time. This is where the mixing stations were used, the recipe had to be exact or it would explode and the reason why the stations were unmanned during mixing and where most of the Modders explosions happened. Once its mixed its fairly safe to handle and needs a detonator to set it off. Other explosives were cable type called cordite mainly used in underground mining - this type never exploded per se but rather burnt very quickly (40 000 ft/sec) so when wound into a coil and inserted into a hole in the rockface it had the same explosice effect. Another was PE4 which is a putty based explosive like you see in the movies - This is mainly used in demolition with shaped charges for directional demolition. Also mainly used by military - lots of bridges and buildings in Mozambique & Angola no longer exist thanks to this stuff. The other main fertilizer manufactured was Urea (Ammonia + Liquid Carbon Dioxide) used to boost crops for agriculture, it ends up containing over 50% nitrogen - So if you don't have an icebox to keep your beers cold - throw 1/5 a kilo Urea into a bucket of water and chuck your beers in - within a few minutes the water temp reduces down to about 3 deg C just make sure you rinse the bottle before you open the beer or your hair will grow 1 inch per day. Other chemicals were Copper Sulphate - Water treatment Aluminium Sulphate - Host of uses Lead Sulphate - Not sure Copper OxiChloride - Wood treatment - Thats the green colour on wooden poles Arsenic Acid - The sh%t your wife will use to kill you one day. CO2 - Dry ice. Here they produced CO2 for 29c / ton and sold it for 290 ronds / ton Okay history lesson over

Wow! Is this still current ? - I wonder how many residents are aware or even seen this

Coming off a TACX trainer i went with the Kickr Core, don't know why other than everyone was going the Kickr route - Aside from their tech issues the local support is 10/10 which for me is key when deciding on a product - TACX works great but their support is somewhat lacking. If you going the Laptop Win10 route - Just get an ANT+ dongle and connect everything with ANT+ WIN10 & BT will give you lots of gray hair - For some reason every time Win 10 does a security upgrade it changes the settings in the built in BT and switches off the BT radio - you need to then go into regedit and change the settings to get it working again. If you use TR on WIN 10 then download the Beta version it seems to have less bugs than the normal version - it has a lot more functionality than the phone or tablet app. I have 2 laptops - on 1 it picks up both BT & ANT+ on the other it only sees ANT+ - both are configured exactly the same. On ZWIFT & WIN 10 it seems okay, but is confusing as it indicates no signal detected but when you select pair in connect devise both BT & ANT will run - But if you have any other device like a phone or tablet in the vicinity with BT on that is trying to connect to your device at the same time then it becomes a problem - so you need to make sure these have BT switched off.

Called the ROSE Alarm used to evacuate the factory - Gets tested every Friday at noon. I'm surprised they still test it - Not much happening there now that would result in an emergency evacuation. I was present when some terrible accidents happened In the apprentice training bay practicing for trade tests when a mixing station blew up which was about 1.5km away - Bricks and debris came through the roof luckily no one got hurt. The percussion blew out most of the windows working in the compressor room on the Urea plant - a pump exploded in the power station approx 900m away - what was left of the pump impeller cam through the roof and killed one of the Engineers. In the detonator manufacturing plants all machinery and tools were made of wood to ensure there were no sparks generated. On the Nitric acid plant there was a round flat filter approx 5m in diameter that had to be changed once a year. The filter mesh was 100% palladium - there were 2 armed guards inside the room and 3 outside. When the fitters went in they had to strip down kaalgat and wear a white paper like overall. When you finished you removed the overall and got dressed in your normal overall in a separate room - the paper overalls had to be incinerated. When the filter was transported to the plant for installation it was escorted by same armed guards - the fitters doing the installation were changed every 30 min. Clearly they never trusted us

Yes if you are just using it on its own I agree - However linking a dumb trainer to TR or Zwift on virtual power makes it a lot more fun if you on a budget. I ran an old TACX Flow on TR for over 2 years before i became a Wahooligan. Just before lockdown i set it up on Zwift for someone who didnt have a trainer, linked to his ipad with BT speed / cad sensors and it works perfect. Hes getting proper workout training does a lot of group rides and other events. He gets to enjoy Zwift just as much as we do without the 20K odd investment.

I did my trade at the old AECI - Strange to ride through all those old buildings and remember doing maintenance repairs in them. back in those days they were in pristine condition - the mixing stations were like operating theaters they were so clean.

That area is fenced off - They are the current bunkers used to store explosives by AEC In the area we ride their are buildings built behind large embankments - these are the old bunkers currently being used as stores by some companies - One is being used by Sea Scouts I think. There is also a section near the river run with the old dynamite mixing stations where the old management built a trail through the old buildings - cool to ride through - Looks like old WW2 bomb shelters - Hopefully new guys will keep this section as well

I suppose it all depends on how much the shifter moves the cable when compared to the tacx lever, if its the same it should work

You can use most wheel on dumb trainers - Heres a summary of what you need. Phone / Tablet / PC - Phone or tablet probably the easiest. Check which connection protocol it has - Bluetooth or Ant+ - Apple will be Bluetooth - Android is Bluetooth with some having Ant+ as well. Get a speed /cad sensor with the same connection protocol - You can get speed / cad sensors that have both. - Same thing with the HR monitor. Setup the trainer with the resistance on level 0 or 1 Set app to "Virtual power" In the app they list trainers to select which one you have. Check if your is listed. If it ins't then select a similar model. Fire up the app and make sure your speed / cad & HRM is connected to the app. Off you go...... start training