marxie

I find it easier and quicker to shove the rubbish under my bib leg elastic than trying to find a pocket in a twitchy bunch. Then, when you get home and take your kit off, it falls on the floor in your own house, where even the most litterate of litterers won't leave it lying.

Commenting on the internet hardly ever has any real consequences, but in real life you have to be mindful of the fist possibly heading your way.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Agreed, the M5 should be avoided. What worries me is nowadays I'm riding around with this nagging thought in the back of my head of "when is it my turn"... and the list of danger areas seem to be growing at a decent pace.

Got this report from our neighbourhood watch re. attempted bikejacking in Rondebosch, early Sunday morning: Date: 01 Feb 2015 04:00 Location: OUT OF PATROL AREA (SECTION Z - OUT OF AREA) This happened to my brother-in-law outside of our area, in the Rondebosch area, but is still worth mentioning as we have had similar incidents in our own area and the description of the suspects vehicle may be usefull. He was cycling along the M5 towards Muizenberg at around 4am on Sunday morning (I know!) when he noticed a vehicle driving very slowly behind him. He took the Klipfontein Rd turn off into Rondebosch & cycled along next to the Rondebosch Common & the vehicle continued on behind him. The vehicle then pulled up alongside him. It was a brand spanking new Jeep Cherokee, white in colour with dark, tinted windows. the windows rolled down & he saw at least 3 x young, charlie males, well dressed, inside the vehicle. At first they cheered him on with thumbs up & said "howzit bru" etc. & so he thought it was just a bunch of "guys" playing the fool on the way home from a night out. But then they told him to drop his bike & run. He ignored them, they swerved towards him & as they did so he slammed his brakes, spun his bike around & bolted straight over the centre island & headed towards Rondebosch Main Rd. They eventually caught up to him again & continued to try and get him to surrender but thankfully he is quite a talented mountain biker / bmx trickster / adrenalin junkie (he does the "Red Bull" downhill extreme) so he somehow managed to duck & dive & eventually give them the slip. What is this world coming to when a man who doesn't own a car almost has his only means of transport swiped by a bunch of youngsters in a R500-600K Jeep Cherokee. Probably stolen anyway! Regards, Plumstead Neighbourhood Watch

These DO look like well scrubbed Ralphs... which is handy as it's the hoop covers I currently have on.

not mine! my 2 bikes disappeared OUT of plumstead in a hurry early one morning, about 2 months ago.

thanks, i'll start heading down that rabbit hole. i'd be more keen to let the world know a bike's been spotted, rather than worry about who's on it, but i don't think the law would make much of a distinction between the two. i could maybe blur out the face and not at all keep the original pic ...kidding. blurring the face won't help much in getting your bike back though. kinda pointless going to the cops saying you have proof that a guy with a face like an amoeba stole your bike.

mmm, this give me an idea for a phone app. snap a pic, hit upload. the upload can contain location data, date & time, and if the spotter is so inclined, a description. i'll see if there's something like it already and post the info here. i might have time to do a basic app in the next month or so if there aren't any existing ones. anyone know of any legalities around taking pics of random strangers?

I've completely forgotten about pwei for many years! Thanks for the reminder... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50fTi4iodgw

The lead singer is at a good race weight... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eti21PVHXrg

Anyone else involuntarily reach for their hand with the other one when you see the pic?

I had an RC6000 for you in my garage until this morning On a more serious note, I'm giving it a day or 2 before I go have a look at the various "outlets" for my bikes. I'll keep an eye out for yours.

Spent the day slapping burglar bars on the 2 garage windows, and I took off the lever that detaches the garage door motor from the chain. The windows are tiny, but a squirt can fit through it. I'm thinking they used a hook on the end of a pole to pull the rope hanging off the lever. Agreed, riding a bike doesn't look out of place, but carrying a wheel bag might raise some eyebrows.

Just want to let you guys know about some more developments in case you ever come across a similar situation... My wife just told me there was a young, white, had-a-hard-life (read bergie) looking fellow standing opposite our driveway when she got home yesterday afternoon and he was writing something in a notepad. He apparently kept looking into the garage as she parked the car. When she asked him what he wanted, he walked off. Maybe taking stock? I don't want to read too much into this sort of thing because sometimes karma just bites you in the ass and has your bikes stolen, but it can't hurt to warn everyone else. Another weird thing that happened 3 times last week, was that armed response called us and said they're picking up an alarm power failure, are we home, is the alarm ok, and so on, and everytime they asked our password and we gave it to them. This morning when armed response got to our house, we asked them about it. They have no record of calling us in the last week. Only today we realised that the calls were all from a private number, and not our armed response, so we had to change our password.