Paul Ruinaard

I was looking at some of the prices on the bike sites for components the other day and it was like someones had suspended reality. Evobikes: R 86k for a Shimano Dura Ace Di2 groupset ?????????? As if that wasn't enough now you can buy the new rainbow coloured cassette for R 9495 which has the blurb "Eagle Colorsystem lets the cassette and chain express the look of the bike. Available in Gold, Rainbow and all-new Copper". Jeez i can do the same with a couple of rattle cans and newspaper for R 50 and then have a graffiti expression session on the wall behind me and still have some leftover.... Truly pulling the piss with these prices. Never waste a good crisis.

Apple airtag = there is even a bike mount for hiding it under the fork in the headset tube. Problem solved.

Use Zwift Companion but start it on the phone first before turning ANYTHING else on. If that doesn't work take as many BT connections that could be near the laptop that pair with it out of range or delete them from the list of known devices as the more BT connections you have (Speakers, Keyboard, mice etc) the less bandwidth you have. BT is super sensitive and some thinks like headphones (aftershokz) will crash all your BT on a mac. But yes ANT+works better and it is standard so you can use any Ant +dongle. I recommend getting a USB cable to allow the actual dongle to hang closer to the floor and therefore closer to the cadence sensor and the back of the trainer which creates a stronger signal path. Hope that makes sense. Do some googling as well. Check firmware on everything and do some spindowns. Zwift is super flaky and sometimes randomly implodes. Especially after they release an update.

HI All, i am hearing reports that Wahoo Kickr's (gen 3 and Gen4) are no longer being serviced and supported? There are known issues with the belts and some of them develop wear and tear and noise etc,. when people have phoned up local disty Ikhambi (wahoo.co.za) the reply is the Gen 3 and Gen 4 are no longer supported or serviced. Anyone know anything about this and if anyone locally is servicing and supporting the older models. R 25k for. anew one is a bit of a bitter pill.

Hmm that's interesting. I used to live in Lonehill East and rode there as it was literally just outside my back garden - mates and i used it lots for. along time. Has it opened up again? the old 94.7 MTB race used to go through the bottom section near the river and there was some nice single track in the forest near the max security section many years ago. They actually used to have a couple of races in there. Nearly hit a fallow deer one Xmas eve in the forest section when i was testing out my new fork that i had given myself as a Xmas present. Fun times indeed. You could easily get 30 km in

Demand and supply. I was at a large local bike shop who were telling everyone in ear shot that Cannondale and Scott have no stock in country. The likelihood of people wanting to drop money on a bike that is used starts to increase and if you as a person in the know can flip them then you are in a good place. they could alos get caught holding the stock if they screw it up and buy too high. When the ZAR was stronger against US $ it was possible to buy great second hand deals off ebay and bring them in, ride them for a couple of months and flip them and make a profit. However it seems like global vendors have standardized the prices all a lot higher so that gap closed as well.

about 1100m

My sense of humour - coming through Smits and a gust hit me in the face with horizontal rain and i couldn't see squat cause i had lost my glasses somewhere on route 🙂

everyone i see including me - all the altitude numbers are wrong...?

Yep my dad did that. He was Dutch and could curse in fluent dutch when under pressure. I always remember the oil slick on the driveway that had to be avoided on the bicycle for months afterwards and i learned not to mention the subject for a bit. But the abiding memory of him with his feet covered in oil and him realizing what had happened and then lapsing into good high dutch with many got verdingers and other choice language.

Come On? Yep it is part of social media Its also free isnt it? How do you think they make money off this site and the reason they commercialized it? Dont think its the subscriptions now that make it work ? I would strongly suggest you look at your views about "free" and "privacy" and then realize that if its free you are the product and that google and facebook have monetized your data in to a multi billion dollar industry which has long term and far reaching consequences for everything in society. you are the product mate. Never mind the attention deficit disorder and the fact that digital interface design is using the same pleasure sensors in your brain as crack cocaine does. You are part of a mass unregulated social experiment, but now i am starting to sound a bit crazy so will leave you to do your own thinking. Go and google top most invasive sites in terms of data harvested and shared and you will see Strava in there. They have your private health data, just to start with. And they have a lot of it.

I have spent a long time reading about how the social media becomes an attention sponge and how it robs you of time and enjoyment. I know its OT but Strava is like the facebook or Instagram of cycling. the hit of a PB is so addictive when we are out riding we even load Strava live segments and start racing people. All the enjoyment is gone. you are either going faster than your PB (big dopamine hit) or slower (bummed) in mid ride now. I live and work in the big/data/analytics space where AI's know more about you than you do yourself and machine learning will predict things you cant dream of. I also run Strava live segments - initially it was fun, but now i am turning it all off. I love logging the data and seeing where everyone rode over the weekend plus comparing my segments and seieng what i did and working out who is improving. BTW IN case you dont know it Strava is amongst the top 50 most invasive apps for data harvesting and sharing, it has a LOT of data about you specifically about your health etc. AI and ML can turn that in to scary predictions. Sorry long post but you are right. Time to take all the connected features off and just ride. You can log the ride afterwards and keep a record . its always fun. But in the moment - go ride the bike in the sun, up a steep hill, listen to your heart and breathing and get in touch with yourself and kill the attention monster that has robbed you of the visceral experience of a ride when you clear a line or ace a drop off or hang with a faster bunch for the first time. All of this is actually why you do it. Strava is a lot nastier and a lot worse than what anyone thinks TBH. Rant off.

Strava is an unregulated space where you can even software dope. Do some googling. Stop worrying about Strave records and the like. I have seen sites where guys win KOMs by throwing their computers over the line.So dont believe anything in Strava. Go pedal a bike in the sun and on a nice trail. Remember why you started in the first place and when you didn't have power and strava and just some little display of time and speed and distance. Worry about the things in life you can control....

FWIW: Having both an ebike and a normal MTB and having ridden the ebike with my fast mates an elite MTBer will crucify you even if you are on an ebike. the amount of extra weight versus the amount of power required to power that big bike at high speeds menas the battery will always drain first. So unless you are willing to tow a raft of batteries behind you the elite level guys will kill you. I have mates who even when i am flat out at 70% can go up short climbs faster than me. And we aren't going slowly.

god forbid - batteries in shifters...... Need to create a new category for these cyclists and have a purist category for all the normal cyclists. I have no idea how they let STI based bike complete with non STI never mind the motorised shifting ones all in the same class. How is this fair. I mean cna you imagine after. along ride how sore the wrist of a non motorised shifter is in comparison and how many more calories he has burned to lift that derailleur up every time he needs to...

got my 3rd jab Monday and certainly had some reaction, i was man down yesterday. Feeling a lot better today. Where's your data on the 3 weeks?

Watch this - any battery or EV vehicle is way harsher than what anyone thinks and anticipates . Same as nuclear energy - much cleaner than anything else.

Ja its pussies like you that have destroyed the purity of shifting and the poetry of a firm click in an STI never mind on a downtube shifter. Where will cycling end and how will it land with this pollution of our values?

The thing is you had nothing against his leg - in fact it was a fine example of a leg. The problem was neither did he (to quote derek and Clive) 🙂

Nice video was in that bunch but behind you. Vukani were chaotic to say the least but thats racing. How do you get the overlay on there of your numbers ? Is that a Garmin VIRB?

Fun ride -????? Who won what or lost what because some guy decided to switch bikes and cheat? prize money, status, team contracts? ebikes are bikes and people who ride them cheat like people who dope and people who shortcut.

Allegedly a big crash in BL or CL about 30 to 40 kms in. . I was ahead of it so heard the ambulances come past going back to the scene. Anyone see what happened and is everyone okay?

HI all, anyone got any news or update on the one big crash at RFS? Looked like there were some ugly injuries and ambulances galore. Otherwise a great day out and great to do an event like that again. Really enjoyed. It was fast as per usual.

Sorry i think it is an individual thing and agree if you feel the need then go for it. But i am not sure if anyone has thought about what the result would have been if that Porsche driver who on Saturday was by all accounts all over the place and probably drunk had ploughed into a pack of cyclists who were part of a race rather than the two that he did? I was FYI also planning to be on that exact road at that time but i didn't go out, so i was pretty shocked and scared when i saw what happened as i also felt that as it was 3 bike widths wide it was safe. Turns out i was wrong and that i dodged a bullet and that my perception of what is safe is actually wrong. No bunch would have protected you in the incident that happened, save to ensure that there are more people between you and the ones that are ploughed down, being brutally honest,. Do you still feel that it's really a safe route with these sort of people potentially sharing the road with you? FWIW: My issue is with the organisers and the desire to attract cyclists to Montecasino which is situated in the middle of Fourways and close to some very busy roads and Saturday Shopping malls with a lot of traffic. Just looking at the route it's pretty much straight out crazy - the section past Cosmo and that area is very dangerous in terms of surfaces alone and then the typical township taxis who will not give a continental about some marshalls telling them not to use the yellow lines if it suits them Never mind the fact that the people they are ferrying to work are actually needing to get there. You could choose many other routes and avoid the potential of mixing tired cyclists with Saturday morning traffic around some of the biggest shopping hubs in Jhb. I live on the routes and ride them every weekend. I avoid these places intentionally even though i can choose to ride there. Now you take a pack of cyclists and mix them with Sat morning traffic. And it's not the fast guys that matter - its the tired stragglers who are training for CTCT etc that are doing their first 100 km or first 100 km for the year. How are you going to ensure they don't get taken out on those roads. There are far safer routes out there.

Exactly why i haven't entered the race - those were the exact roads where the triathlete was killed on saturday by an allegedly drunk driver. How will this now work with bunches of cyclists. IMO there are two viable scenarios for races: 1.) Full Road Closure - difficult, complex, disruptive and costly 2.) Partial road closure but on remote roads (like for example Ride for Sight) where safety is therefore a bit more improved. Bringing bicycle races in to urban centres with traffic mixed in is complete madness. I think this is irresponsible and there will be incidents.