Martin Albrecht

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Seems the longer one stays a cyclist, the truer this gets. For me personally, I have never gotten the gravel bike bug, it never made sense, and if I got one, it would purely be as a commuter bike that is a bit more versatile than a pure road bike. Even for true “gravel” riding or touring, I don’t really see the point of drop bars and all the awkwardness they bring to braking and shifting on rougher terrain, especially at speed. I have done many 100+ KM days touring the backroads on bikes, and never seen the need for drop bars. Maybe if doing multiple back to back days over 160km the additional hand positions might come in handy, but I have never found myself looking for more positions than my flat bars with stubby barends could provide.

I’m not sure how old your children are now, but regardless, this could be a golden opportunity to teach them about how fascinating fynbos is, the value of preserving natural habitats for various species and so on. There is a lot of good lessons to learn here. It is also a great way to teach them about change, how change is the only constant, and that not all change is bad. At least this urban green space is still being preserved, it will just look a bit different. When we were kids, during a time of rapid development, many open areas we used to use for all the things your kids did in Deer Park, would often disappear suddenly as it was built over. That’s a lot worse, and made us mad as kids, but we survived.

Two things from my side. First and foremost, plantations are not forests. Forests have high biodiversity, pine plantations are monoculture. 2. Oaks not so much (and that is why they have been “naturalised” in places like Stellenbosch for their heritage value. But Pine is most certainly an invasive species and highly problematic if not actively managed. It also kills everything around it wherever it grows. It’s particularly problematic when it grows along watercourses. It is also a serious fire risk.

There are lots (and there should have been more) of lovely natural forests in TMNP. I realise this deer park “deforestation” will be an inconvenience for some people, but once the fynbos have been re-established, it will all be forgotten, and in the long term, this is the best best course of action. if you want forests, then go to the real forests, that have more than one species of plant growing in them, or to the actively managed MTO plantations all over the country if you like pine trees.

But, the whole point of using Bikehub pay, is that the money doesn’t clear into the sellers account until the buyer confirms receipt of the item. You pay to Bikehub pay, they hold the money in “escrow” until you confirm receipt and then transfer it to the seller. Which is why this new scam is so concerning. But one should quickly pick up the @gmail.com email account and red flag should go off immediately.

This just irritates the living daylights out of me. What sort of gutter trash type of person will actually buy that bike, which is so obviously stolen. I guess the alternative is it’s just stolen pictures and once you pay the money they block your number. But in that case, if you are willing to attempt to buy this bike, you deserve to be scammed.

Im guessing this is a roadie thing? Or I have been living under a rock my entire cycling life? I have never heard of this idea, nor have I ever given a moments thought about how the logos on my tires are aligned. back onto the topic of this thread, if one has to make use of a shop for work on your bike, my advice is to avoid any shop that is strongly affiliated to any specific brand etc, specifically the “concept store” type shops that are dedicated to selling specific bike brands. As a rule, they will always have pretty terrible workshop service. In all the years, the only shop I have found that is an exception to this is Hellsend in Stellenbosch, and Greg Minnaar in KZN. Even though they are a trek and SC dealers, their workshop is top notch and staffed by real bike people that know what they doing. best bet if you have to use a shop, is find a workshop, not a bike seller that also has a workshop attached. There is a huge difference between a service centre, and a bike shop that has a workshop attached. Generally, the bike dealer workshops are only good enough to assemble bikes out of the box, and even then, they normally don’t do it very well.

As someone who has actually lived through a liquidation of a business I spent years of my life building, I honestly hope none of you that have such a hard stance on this ever need to go through the same thing. You lost a few grand (at most) on some event entries. He has lost everything. And I don’t get the impression from any of this story that this is one of those cases where he hid a bunch of assets and is actually living it large on all the money he hid away from the liquidators. I get people have a right to be annoyed, but to try make out as if he is some kind of monster is a stretch.

To all of us who had entries to events that got cancelled, it obviously sucks, but I find the idea that many seem to have laughable that they think he actually went out to screw you over pretty laughable. I am certain he is a hell of a lot worse or financially for all of this than you and I who each maybe lost a few R1k in entry fees or concert tickets.

The only work I outsource on my bikes is wheel builds. I simply don’t have the patience. But I am yet to find a bike shop in South Africa where the mechanics are actually propertly trained, have all the right tools, and get paid a decent enough wage to actually care about their jobs. Over the years I have spent a small fortune building up a proper pro level bike workshop with all my own tools. I love that more bike brands are going straight to consumer. Because you mostly need to strip and re-assemble any big brand bike built by a bike shop any way. same goes for the sales staff in the stores, who mostly know or understand very little about what their customers actually want. More than happy to buy everything online, and do all the work myself in my spare time.

cool that this conversion has breathed new life into your bike man. It just checking, where this 2016-2019 Spez Enduros all in the 26Fat setup, so they were designed to be run either 27,5, 29er or 27.5 plus? in which chase would upgrading the rear to 29 as well not make it even more capable/ridable? And maybe sort out some of the geo intricacies of the mullet set up, especially with climbing?

Sorry, was just poking a bit of fun. But, for the record, I will give you the carbon frame and 29er wheels, but for the rest, this isn’t actually that far off a 90s, or even 2000s MTB with drop bars: In 2007, my MTB was a Giant of some kind, can’t recall the model now, it had a RockShox fork with I think 80mm of travel, hydrolic disk brakes, 1.9 inch (48mm) tires, geometry not too far off a modern gravel bikes, a 44 tooth chainring (with a bonus 32 and 22 thrown in for fun), and I think an 11/36 rear cassette - which one could argue gave even more range than is available on a modern gravel bike🤣 There might actually even have been a carbon version of this frame available also… I can’t remember, and if there was, it was way out of my price range back then.

So, a 90s hardtail MTB with drop bars?

I am battling to make sense of this? How bad must the damage on route have been to create a safety concern? Tents blowing over at the start and finish area suck, but it’s a problem you can work around. Participants will understand. On epic in 2023 the wind blew the roof of the main race village marque in Hermanus, and the structure was deemed unsafe, but the event could carry on, backup plans were made and everyone accepted the big of inconvenience. That in a “live in” race village. There isn’t a breath of wind this morning in Town. I think the organisers made this call prematurely, of over cautiously. If I was an entrant, and had traveled for this event, I would be livid.

Sorry, I looked at the UCI broadcast intent sheet and it only showed a delayed broadcast for SS. And when I looked earlier on the program guide I couldn’t find it either. But I see it is on 210 now. Luckily getting to watch the last ladies and then the men.

Any update on this? Seems super sort has the rights to the DHI finals, but won’t be showing them live (delayed broadcast scheduled for tomorrow morning at 1am or something stupid). So that means the YouTube live feed is geoblocked. But I have tried a number of countries for VPN, and the live feed link still doesn’t show up on YouTube. Do you guys think TIZ will show the DH if I don’t come right with YouTube and VPN? why on earth would supersort pay for the rights and then not show it live?