Paul Ruinaard

What the man said - motorbikes are good for the soul.

Hmm, Again you are triggering memories. If i can think of some of the hardest moments in my life, the one was coming home to a half empty house after the ex had moved out and had taken her belongings. Up there with news of deaths in the family. For me it was when it all finally became real. I remember because we had gone down to do barberton in the rain and was dropped off by my mate who went home with his family in the car, and they left me there to walk into a half empty house. I walked around looking at things like a lost soul - it was not easy. The line from the REM song "Leaving New York" has always described it for me: It's easier to leave than be left behind. You will feel like you have been left behind (or i did) and that she has moved on. I suggest that when it happens and she leaves you finally and goes for the last time you get a bud or someone with you for the first time you go home. Its pretty stark as the reality bites at that point. I will tell you that eventually i called a friend and then my sister and spoke to them for four hours non stop until i was so tired and spent that i could sleep. BTW - don't discount getting meds to get your sleep if you are struggling. IMO: Its very important that you are very gentle on yourself for a couple of weeks/months. Dont make any big decisions because your judgement is screwed. I had a trusted mate i ran everything past and discussed. That event is seared in my psyche forever. Don't discount how difficult it will be. I didnt anticipate it.

Hmm, Just looked at the date. My ex wife decided to leave me on the 8th of January 2006 for another guy she had been having a fling with over Xmas. It was needless to say rather a large shock to my system and really threw me. Its like my stable little world turned to quicksand, so i know what it's like. I also stopped drinking at all and was training for Epic so was riding all over the place. Needless to say divorce was the best diet i ever went on - it was where i eventually reached 90 kgs - it wasn't like a diet that i intentionally went on - i had my riding partner who had also got divorced years before and we rode all over the place for hours doing base training and talked. I had therapy on the bike. It was very lonely returning home to an empty house which was previously filled with dreams and aspirations - each memory embedded in something around me. It's tough initially but your new world will replace your old one over time and you will build new memories. You need to let the pain and the loneliness in and feel it and acknowledge the feelings. Once you have done that you can move on. Its like any healing process, acceptance is a stage. If you are interested go and read about Elizabeth Kubler Ross on dying and the stages of acceptance. You are mourning the loss of your marriage and the process of getting over the loss is very similar. It was also a period of some of the greatest personal growth i have ever undergone which changed me as a person. I had to as a start acknowledge that what i had previously valued was of little value. We had been doing some things which were obviously wrong - we were horribly codependent and had also met at work so were competing with each other every day. We had all the things everyone could want but had zero communications between us. Three months later i met my current wife and we got married a year later - we have been married since March 2007. Sometimes the darkest hours are just before the morning. BTW - hang in there - there is no right way to do this and spilling the beans on an online forum is as good a therapy as i have ever heard of. THere are a lot of very clever people here who you may find care a lot more than what you think and can identify and empathize with you better than anyone else - even professionals. FWIW: My best advice i got was from Pizza night - a bunch of mates started it years ago when they were booted by their wives/girlfriends and didnt know what to do on a monday night so they went out for a pizza and chatted through their problems. Over the years many guys who were distraught over their maritals got invited - Its still going on - and they all had been there and they all gave you some really objective feedback. Best advice from them was to pay up and get on with your life. They were like a bunch of wise old men who had all been there and when you thought your case was unique they could tell you horror stories about theirs - like what their exes took from them. All survived and all got re-married and the like, but they all used to get together on a Monday and talk about motorbikes and bicycles and then work on the next "broken winged" male who was getting divorced. Its a new year and a new beginning mate - embrace the opportunity to start again and re-create and address the issues that lead you here. You will never get another opportunity like it.

Guys, Back to Banting in a big way - want to get at least 15 to 20 Kgs off starting today. I have some meal plans for LCHF but was just wondering if someone else had a link to a site that added some variety to my diet - theres the normal books etc but i just wanted to broaden the amount of recipes i had that i could use. Any suggestions?

Also just read it and wasn't sure what his angle was, the Cancellara attacks as well. Just a bit strange. However with the Froome bomb just going off, he may have a point. People like Paul Kimmage were a lone voice at a time when the Festina scandal seemed to indicate doping was all fixed. I think he is pretty funny and can write a good story, but as to the actual value of it all i dont know. Its a bit self serving - lots of his hard luck stories in there and his angst and conflicts etc. No great insights however. Just reporting.

Guys, I have had my short term insurance brokerage sell themselves to Hollard. As i am now on Discovery I have an option to use Discovery Insure. I personally prefer to have a broker involved to handle my claims but it looks like there may be some benefits. Premium is over r 6k per month for 2 x cars, motorbike and 2 x houses = 1 x contents. So its not a small policy. they are trying to offer me the executive options as well. Whats the experience on Discovery Insure been? I certainly dont enjoy fighting with insurance companies over esoteric clauses they try to screw you out of paying your claims on. Any experience of their payout record. It always seems like the reviews are either 1 star i.e. dont go near. or 5 stars and excellent. Nothing in-between. Any other recommendations. I dont mind paying for cover but i want good cover. It seems this was costing me R 5400 just a year ago for similar cover....

Hmm, To me you cant be too visible and draw too much attention to yourself. the more the better. I am now riding continually with a strobe on the front of my road bike (900 lumen) during daylight hours even around the cradle in the day. Plus a rear red flasher. I have noticed a number of times that people have hesitated to overtake when coming towards me, which is exactly what i wanted to achieve. Some things i have seen on bikes and motorbikes which i am now convinced work: 1.) Coloured lights are far more visible than white lights. On my motorbike i have 2 x orange light covers over the headlights, and the headlight is always on bright. People notice the coloured light more than white, or normal light , and react way sooner to it and at a distance. i also have noticed I do the same i.e. a coloured light (orange/red or bright colours) draws my eyes earlier than a normal headlight. i dont ride a lot at night on the bike so i dont really worry about the brightness of the light, but this works. 2.) Strobing draws the eyes in and make them aware of an object that is there way better than non-strobing. People are forced to assess the size and distance in relation to them and therefore are aware of you. My front and rear lights strobe, the rear in a random pattern, again for the same reason. Like i said IMO you can't appear too visible or too early.You may look like a Xmas tree but you will also likely avoid becoming a statistic.

Sportsmans Lager, Colt 45, All these were Intercontinental Breweries brands, my buds dad worked for them so we at 14 years old used to get free beers. He used to get like 4 cases a week. We stole about a case a week and used to act tough with all our buds that we smaaked it. Tasted terrible at that age but none of us would blink or admit we weren't hard .

No and I am still regretting it. one of my personal bugbears. I have been wanting to see him for years and have missed him every time. Now looking at going to New York - except the Broadway shows tickets are $1200 a throw. It was allegedly one of his best concerts.

Hi All, The company just switched medical to Discovery and that menas going from Momentum Multiply to Discovery Vitality. So i have to re-learn all the ways to get my status up. I have connected my monitors, doing the Virgin Active thing and now am looking for the cheat sheet i.e. quick accelerator method of adding up the points. My ride this morning logged and its all working great but being lazy and rather than wading through 47 pages of answers, whats the best method and who can add their experiences or recommendations as to what to do: Do i or should i do a fitness assessmentAll the other things like non smoker declaration - has that gone awayI have a Garmin Fenix 5 and shoes - any reason to use the IWatch offering or the shoe offering or are they more trouble than what they are worthIs there a benefit to adding the Discovery credit card to things - i use a woolworths credit card for the wife and we crank up a lot of loyalty rewards on that. Would i accelerate my Vitality or Discovery miles if i added in a Discovery Credit CardIs the cycling club worth joining? Any other things to do?

watching them back it in to those corners when it's squirming around like that is so amazing. It looks so easy and so simple until you get the on bike cameras.... What is the gap per lap between the Moto2 and Motogp bikes on a trip like Muguello?

That Moto2 race had me shouting at the TV. Havent seen passing like that in years, the guy just stuffed it up the inside repeatedly - it was awesome watching and was probably the best 4 laps of racing the whole year. The other two dudes were worried about championships and points so they had to be careful. This si why the smaller classes are so good.

I thought that it was pretty technical. I wasn't complaining - actually loved it.... I was riding my Stumpjumper and I am not exactly fit so was way back, but the bike came in to its own on the downhills. There were some very grumpy people out there walking some of these sections because they were a bit too much for them but i must have passed about a hundred of them going downhill. All in all an eye opener for me compared to 10 years ago when i first did this race - that was mainly forest tracks - now you have some serious single track.

Did this over the weekend as I was down there visiting my family. Man the level has gone up somewhat since i last did an MTB Race. 41 km and over 900m of climbing. Up and down.... Down was sublime and somewhat technical as well, which i enjoyed. But i am a tired boy today.....

Not good - any more details of area ?

Very nice but R 1200 and no chain breaker?

What this man said. i have typed this and deleted this many times.

I have tried a number of times to formulate a reply that can frame it all and have deleted it. Sad day when the hub turns inward and finds a selfish lout of a kid as its soul.

Thing is all batteries are bombs. You take an 10 to 15 000 M/AH battery pack we use to run all the electrics on your MTB. Or a bike light battery - it will also easily start a nice forest fire and also be very difficult to put out. So this isn't unique to ebikes. FWIW: Do they pat you down at the entrance to the trail to check you arent riding with a Note 7. Also the guys who are riding with cell phones running strava as their dashboard. Get that wet and short circuited. See the smoke and flames from that battery....

Hmm - this is becoming very judgmental. I pedal, so i am better than you because my activity is more pure than yours. You use a throttle so you are lesser than me. WTF Your activity threatens me as it changes the paradigm I originally engaged on when i started cycling. Pay your dues. Dont come here with innovation and change. . You larger less fit or different people arent allowed in to my places - they are mine and i worked hard to get here so you need to pay your dues and suffer to be able to access them. Go away lesser beings. I am not happy with you being equal to me - i need to introduce a hierarchy. What is all this crap?

Umm - it's more than visually disturbing - its likely pretty dangerous. Think of it like this: Would you drive your car at 120Km h on the highway with a bubble in the sidewall? If yes then leave it - otherwise you have destroyed the sidewall and its dangerous. You land on that hard and it will likely blow into bits. Rims need rubber for traction...

For me, whatever makes you happy is cool. Clearly they are addressing an area of the market that makes folks part with big cash to have one and seems to be a segmant we dont know about. Like having your wife enjoy a ride with the boys or having a clydesdale doing 130km at 30 kmh averages, which he could never do. Or an old bullet able to stay with the group and his mates when he isn't that strong or fit anymore. Or enjoy the trails he never could quite get up to the top on. Whats with all this judgemental stuff - Its got two wheels and pedals.... Its like the MTB and Road thing - you are all cyclists. FWIW, i am near Cedar Square Concept Store and they had three in the window so asked Sean if he is selling lots of them and he reckons they are in huge demand. Cant get enough. Who is willing to, at the outset of the ride, be the knob who tells the e-bike rider - "sorry you can't ride with us cause you on an e-bike"? Or "You're cheating"? Like in the days of the first MTB all the puritans who tried to get them banned. That worked really well, didnt it? Its making people happy and getting folks on to bikes and outside in to the outdoors and experiencing what we all love. Its also pretty much the future, the technology is going to get better and they will become part of the landscape of cycling. Dont be luddites

would be keen to know how those X Shifters do.

Just got my Fenix 3 HR - just in time to hear the fenix 5 announcement :-). I come from a Suunto world - where you have an option to set it for indoor training when you ared oing gym sessions rather than "indoor ride" indoor row" etc like on the garmin Any ideas what the equivalent is for the Garmin world which i can use for indoor training i.e. gym sessions.

Collected this today. Roubaix. Looking forward to many smooth miles Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk