greatescape

Well-written review Buffet! Having now tested both a high-powered (heavy) e-bike and a "super-light" low-power e-bike for several hours each on our Cape trails, if I were to buy an e-bike, I'd get the most powerful one I could afford. The high-powered ones are where the fun is. An under-powered e-bike offers you the worst of both worlds. You get a bike that is still very heavy by real bicycle standards, but noisy, slow and doesn't offer much in the way of cheap thrills. If it's exercise you're after, you're not shopping for e-bikes anyway. For that kind of cash you're in 10kg XC bike territory and your S-works, Scalpel, Pyga Stage etc will bring you huge satisfaction, efficiency and riding pleasure without the whining noise, battery anxiety, complexity and weight. I mean, if you're going to exploit the loophole of being allowed to ride an electric motorcycle on dedicated mountain-bike trails, don't half-arse it. Having half a kilowatt or more on tap, without any effort of your own other than a token turning of the cranks, really is a lot of fun, there is no denying it. Even the most hardened anti e-biker will feel like a naughty schoolkid on the right e-bike. The one I rode for 30k in Jonkers, you could even spin the rear wheel on uphill switchbacks (not that I did this deliberately ) in the max setting - basically a motorbike disguised as a bicycle. If my knees conk out one day, then I'm going to get myself something badass. Not to replace my bicycle, but as an alternative to a petrol motorcycle, because you can commute at high speed without getting sweaty AND have a blast with it on our trail network (for now). Currently, for less money than Buffet's demo bike reviewed above, you could be riding something like this: https://stealthelectricbikes.com/stealth-b-52/ with 2kW of glee on tap, a top speed of 80kph (!!!) and 100km of range. Just look at it! The pedals are almost like optional accessories.

Thanks everybody, looks like Bike 24 it is then. Who'd have thought one would have to import.

Does anybody know where one can get decent 24 inch tyres? My daughter's bike has skinny Kenda Small Block 8's and I'd like to fit something wider and more aggressive with more traction so that she can gain more confidence. Tubeless would be a bonus. Any suggestions? Proper tyres in 24 inch seem to be as scarce as hen's teeth.

Thanks MtbGirl! There are shorter races if you'd like to give it a go - there's one coming up at the end of August by the same organiser: http://kinetic-events.co.za/Events/Full-Moon-Kouga And there's a new series of five 24 hr adventure races around the country called the A1 series - it has spread to South Africa from New Zealand and Australia: http://www.adventure1.com.au/races/south-africa/

Click the link to read the pdf race report for Team Parallel: https://www.placementpartner.co.za/web/race2018.pdf The race encompassed, among other things, around 390km of riding in the Cederberg and Namaqualand region, which was amazing. I just want to go back and ride there some more, under more leisurely conditions.

For those interested, read a not-so-short story of what Jewbacca and me and our little team got up to at the 2018 edition of Expedition Africa, held in Namaqualand this time: Link to the pdf: https://www.placementpartner.co.za/web/race2018.pdf

Are there any Pyga haters out there? I have yet to hear of one, which is always a good sign. Keen to swing a leg over one myself, hopefully someday soon...

How does one pronounce Pyga? Is it "Pie Gah" or "Pig Ah" or "Pigger"? Anyway it seems the obvious choice of bike if you like bacon, pies, or eating in general. Which Buffet obviously does.

Word on the trail is that Die MUISHOND did the Piketboberg 63km. He did a few laps before breakfast to set some KOM's and then a warm-down lap with the plebs for the race itself.

My figures are almost precisely the same: odo 62.8 and my barometric altimeter 1429m

Has anybody on this forum had success with repairing an exhaust-melted rim?

Not a bad idea, but the the thing is, you want to avoid affecting previously unaffected areas with new welding. I've done some reading up on the subject and the bottomline is this: The frame is most likely made of 6061-T6, where the T6 means the heat-treated condition. T6 is basically the hardest, strongest condition. the only way you can get it to that condition is to heat-soak the entire frame to 500 degrees, then quench it (cool it down quickly), then straighten it since it probably would have distorted during quenching, then heat it up again to around 180 degrees for 4 hours to allow the relevant microstructure to form. Then you have T6. What I've got now is still a mostly T6 frame but the piece just next to the weld called the heat affected zone is most probably annealed back to condition O (annealed state). Unfortunately condition O is much weaker than T6. Anyway, there is such a thing as "natural ageing" of 6000 series aluminium, so I'm hoping for some of that to occur - basically the microstructure improves slightly over the next 20 days or so. I'm planning to stress-test it with a rocky ride this weekend. Worst case for this weld is sitting on the saddle with a back-pack on, going over roots and rocks and stuff. Worse still if you have long legs and the saddle is high, like mine.

So I decided that since I have nothing in terms of warranty to lose, I shall get it welded. This is what it looks like now: If you don't hear from me again, then it hasn't broken and it was R150 well spent!

My Anthem cracked too, just before the Attakwas. The crack looked exactly like yours. It held for the race courtesy of a bit of strapping to keep it in compression. It's a 2010 model 26" size XL. I'm not the original owner so no warranty for me. I'm actually pretty surprised to see that 5 years on, Giant still hasn't fixed the problem. I love the bike but I'm now in two minds whether I'm going to get another Anthem. If anybody knows of somebody who has had their frame welded, please let me know. Also if anybody has a 26er XL carbon anthem frame for sale, I'd be interested. Thanks

Anybody know what pressures to inflate a Marzocchi Marathon XC 2006? I was recently fortunate enough to be donated an adaptor for the non-standard valves. I'll settle for guesses. I weigh 85kg.