Paul Ruinaard

My little experiment with wider tires on my road bike made all the difference to the ride quality, It turned a harsh carbon frame in to a really comfortable ride. My thoughts were straight away - why not make wider MTB rims? Simple innovations are often so obvious.

Brilliant post that sums up what i was thinking this morning. They are sitting in their shop looking at what could have been. Sad guys, really sad. Greed overcame ethics. The rest is a slippery slope. All of us can point at situations where we did similar, possibly not with as large consequences.

I'm not reading the zillion page thread to see if what I say below has already been posited, but I struggle to think this is an isolated incident and that Cycle Science are the only shop that have worked out the profit involved in this sort of endeavor. It is incredibly difficult to spot a fake, and as you say, like all of us, you just wanted your dream bike. You also deserve great commendation for the way you conducted yourself even when the hub's troll tribe was casting aspersions about your character.

It's available digitally.

I alos heard a tip to get shoes dry is a kids disposable nappy. Putting on soaking wet shoes is a pain.

If your brakes didnt wear out then you had metal pads. Believe me from bitter experience when i did everything in mud - epic, sani, barberton etc, you can wear a set of resin pads in 30 minutes.

Make sure you are running sintered metal brake pads, cause if it rains and you get in to mud with Resin pads you will have no brakes in half an hour. I would make sure my brake pads are new metal and carry a spare set with me as well as having a third set in my bags. You can never have enough. Carry a chain lube in your backpack. I always had some lube, a small bottle, 2 x powerlinks, a chain breaker and a set of brake pads, gear cables plus a space blanket.All in a waterproof pouch with your phone in it. Secondly take a set of ear plugs, and i took some mild sleeping tabs and a sleeping mask from a plane. Tose tent walls are thin. And some two ply loo roll. And a good head lamp. Plus some serious chamois cream and some massage oil.

Good shorts to start with, with real high density padding. I wore a hole in my arse with cheap shorts on a 40 km outing once. Never worn anything but the bets since. And use bibs, as they keep more out of your crack and stay in place better. Then anything with lanolin and zinc in it pre an post ride as a cream. Plus some of that nice tingly minty stuff that numbs the area... And yes check your setup and saddle height.

I was one of those guys arriving in the dark. Was gutted. Missed it by minutes - had huge technical issues and had a bad lead in to the race in the final weeks of training i.e. sickness, falls etc.in the last three weeks of training,

Was that not 2006? I rode in 2006 when the start was from Knysna in heavy rain which didn't stop until 3 pm. We missed the cutoff owing to technical issues on brakes and mechanicals caused by mud. Saw my epic evaporate in an 11 hour day that day. Hardest and longest day on a bike i have ever done. Calories were over the 5000 for the ride. I saw yesterday and heard the reports and was thinking about 2006. It was a horrendous year for rain. Barberton race was washed out in January and shortened to 40kms owing to rain and mud. Sani 2 C was solid mud and rain for the first day and then Epic was rain and mud on a very tough day 1. I hate mud and will not ride in rain or mud ever since.

Wow , great thing that 3 years ago I would dream about having. Keep it, it will be worth a fortune. Irrespective of what he did it is a signed yellow jersey from TdF. Worth putting in your bar and letting your cycling mates ogle it.

That's why I hate mud and rain

I was on a car hire site , I think it was linked to mango airlines, and they had a bike rack option. Sorry can't remember who it was. If you fly with a window rack then it is seen as checked luggage, so be careful as you may need to buy another bag.

Speak to the guys that do the Dad's Charity Challenge - a guy called Rob Jackson - his company is the leverage Corporation. They do this every year for fund raising. Google leverage corporation - you will find his details there

However how do you "back" a bike in to a corner (aka superbikes), unless you lock the rear up and get it to slide? FWIW: Tires can brake or turn - but try and get them to brake and turn at the same time and you will end up having a face plant. Unless you are very experienced. FWIW 2: I am a fat boy and have gone to 180mm ice rotors front and back with Shimano XT brakes. I have so much modulation and control it is like i have depth in the brakes. Never had this before. I think the fitting of larger rotors is the greatest brakes upgrade available, plus one of the best and cheapest hacks. No one tells you to fit bigger rotors - there are however tons of strings on brakes and Hope vs Shimano etc. You always have more power up front and are more likely to lock up the back owing to weight shifting so a 180/160mm front/.rear combo works very well for the average weight guys. 203mm tended to throw me over the bars as it was just too much.

front chainrings - i had a similar problem. How old are they?

If you value your brains and have a bit of extra money these are the new MIPS helmets which protect the squishy stuff inside your skull much better. They were at the Argus Expo. http://www.pocsports.com/en/product/1391/trabec-race-mips Also look the bomb

OT: but where do you buy a set of 35 mm commuter 29er tires? I need for my build project?

Did it with my wife - her third and my 14th. She hadnt ridden for 10 years so we started at 9h22 in the wind, which was miserabe. Did a 5h46. However the major observation was how chilled it is back there compared to the racing groups. Everyone walks up behind the rope on the line and it is a gentle pedal off the line. No bunches for sure so it was a bit of a time trial and i had to slow down for her a number of times. Sorry to hear about the accidents, but it is a bit of a zoo in the top groups. The Argus is the gold standard of races in amateur cycling so everyone trains and does their best. the fast groups are mental, but its the same in any big races.

Spinman was a bit mental - the BS that was spoken there was enough to get your inbox full over a weekend. But some good advice as well. I learned lost from that forum.

WRT Resin: If you are doing multi day rides and there is any chance of rain then rather put in metal, as resin will disappear in a couple of km's of mud. Then you have no brakes and your ride is effectively a mess. Also if you do have this problem and you expect wet weather always carry a spare set of metal pads in your pack. Anyone who has done muddy multi day races will be familiar with this. Resin is a no no. So because of this i run metal in almost all my bikes

Hmm - 8 speed is really old and that frame uses external Shimano BB cups so its unlikely you will find an 8 speed crank that will fit this BB. your 8 speed is from a generation prior to this. youy can maybe get a 9 speed crank with external cups that will work - a normal 105 crank may work. i know 9 speed and 10 speed chainrings are compatible, but 8 was a lot wide so to get 8 speed to work with 9, i am not sure. Other people here who know more about it will know.

until you know what type of thread your bottom bracket is you are just guessing. It could work but there are thousands of better local options. Your thread will either be English or Italian - likely English if its an old frame. Then you buy based on that. There are lots of old cranks on the hub.

Have a look at the Axis site for the type of thread that the bottom bracket of the frame takes. http://www.axis-bikes.com/bikes/mountain-series/a20 from the site: CRANKSET SHIMANO - FCM552 - 42/32/24T BB SHIMANO Once you have that you can decide which BB to use. 110 mm BCD sounds pretty standard. You can use any external cup Shimano crank. This frame - on their website it is an MTB which uses triple cranks. Why are you looking at doubles. If you are a fat boy use a triple if its an MTB. If its road go a compact crank with an external BB cup Shimano crank - lots on the classifieds.