Falco

FYI: "An hour’s drive from Johannesburg, near the town of Heidelberg, the 11 595ha Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve is one of the best places in Gauteng for cycling, hiking or picnicking among magnificent fauna and flora. The reserve takes its name from the Transvaal suikerbos or sugarbush (Protea caffra) that outnumbers all plants and vegetation in the reserve. The Suikerbosrand mountain range varies in height from 1 545m to1,917m and forms the backbone of the reserve" We refer to it as a "hill", but it is in fact a mountain.

We will be going Saturday, spend most Saturdays there. For your first time out, take it easy on the bends, the strong winds and odd gravel patches on the road can make things quite hazardous until you are used to the place and know what to expect. Out of the parking, left straight up the hill (2km's) then left at the T junction and follow the road for the next 50k's. The big hill at about 45k's is the worst, unless you are quite fit you will probably need at least a 25 to get up there. Watch out for staff cars going in the wrong direction, you don't see them often but they are there.

I use 23:11 for flattish routes, 25:11 for rolling hills, and 27:12 if major hills are expected or if my legs are stuffed. All with the same chain, same settings, and on two different sets of wheels. You are stressing about nothing, buy the chain whip and cassette tool, and just do it.

I use 3 different cassettes and swop them all the time, depending on where I will be riding. No problems whatsoever, just make sure that the back spacer (if fitted) is always in place. Once you've done it a couple of times, it is literally a 3 minute job, and there should be no need to adjust anything after the swop.

Why ride without it? These things provide so much more info than just speed, to not use one for monitoring progress (averages, cadence, climb, heart rate etc) is not wise imo. If used properly, they provide valuable info.

It was some toss who phoned in to the Redi Direko show on 702.

Oh jeez, not another one. This is getting ridiculous. And to add to this, I heard some bonehead on the radio this morning saying that the way to stop jogger & cyclist accidents is to keep them off the road. With that kind of attitude, we will remain cannon fodder for motorists.

It was an enjoyable race, a bit tougher than I thought it would be but still a good day in the saddle. Pity about the start being very disorganised, heavy traffic from time to time (especially at the finish), and just like Sun City not enough toilets near the start. The finish on the hill was hectic, but I made up a few places there so I'm not complaining. I'll do it again next year.

Screw the traditionalists. It's your cash, so it's your choice.

Anyone who walks into a Cajees store and isn't prepared to talk price, had better arrive there with a big tub of Vaseline. I have never found a list item there at a lower price than can be obtained somewhere else.

I buy a lot of stuff from Cajees Centurion. It's quite simple ~ know the going price, disregard the marked Cajees price and ask them what the actual price is. If the number is right, buy it, if not, walk. 9 times out of 10 I get the deal I want from them. They know me, they know I won't take their crap, and they like my credit card. No problems. The OP was very kind to them, under the same circumstances I wouldn't have been quite so accomodating.

IMO this is a very poor response from a PR point of view. What you are effectively saying is that any person who books a tour is taking a gamble ie. it should be OK, but if it's not then tough luck, blame it on the public transport system. That's not good enough.

If CWC is stuffing the OP around simply because of the way he spoke to them or tweeted about them, then the staff members responsible need to do some serious growing up. In business nowadays, clients often lose their cool and say / do things they shouldn't. A good manager or employee should be sufficiently skilled to ignore the outburst and focus on dealing with the problem. The problem here is firstly the shop was negligent in not applying the discount, and secondly once made aware of the problem, they didn't fix it asap. The story that they must have the card is a load of crap, they can just as easily do an EFT, especially for an out of town client. In this particular case, CWC is wrong, and that's that.

Clean or replace the RD cable, probably some gunge in there.

Incorrectly applied tape is not going to help, in fact it might make the problem worse. Get a professional assessment, and have the first tape application done by a physio. If necessary, you can duplicate the position and tension of the tape when reapplying it yourself at a later stage. It's definitely not just a case of taping any which way. Correctly applied, however, it works well for certain injuries, hamstring being one of them.

Once again the actions of one ******** is going to impact negatively on all the rest of us. Instead of being able to go into a shop like CL and test bikes at your leisure, it will now be necessary to go though all sorts of security checks before being able to test properly and make an informed decision. It irritates me beyond belief, if they catch him they should stick his nuts in the chain.

I'm in a good mood today, so I'm not going to give ASG a hard time for a change, but, just as a matter of interest, what is the RRP going to be?

Do you still have your trip stats for the 2 laps? I haven't managed two full non stop laps yet, but soon, very soon...

I'd need more than coffee ~ I'd need life support.

3??? Easy to say, not easy to do. Very few riders are capable of 3 non stop laps of S/Bos.

Does anyone have experience with the effect of swimming after hard cycling? I don't mean swimming training, I mean casual swimming in an unheated outdoor pool to relieve pain and tension in the legs/body. Does it help with recovery?

I have my doubts about the wisdom of including gravel sections in road races. It does provide a bit of variety, but if the damage it causes is taken into account, I reckon it's not a good idea. A lot of people lost time and money on that short section.

Great race. Well organised, S-bos was a killer as usual, I cramped like crazy at the top for some reason and limped back for the last 30k's, but still had a good race. Will be back for more next year.

I measure 4.21km with 58m of climbing per lap

That makes two of us. Very happy with my B spot, should be lots of drafting opportunities available if the speedsters from the lower groups catch up.