ASTANA

best climbs road must be Lesotho. Near Katse dam. Amazing climbs, and this is at altitude too!! Road is good and there are plenty of climbing to be done. Have a look on Google earth. Was there a few years back, but still remember those passes! Friend of mine grew up there and cycled it with his dad more than a few times Good place for SA pros to train, as long as you have a backup vehicle. Those kids there don't see white ppl on bikes too often and might try and bring you down with rocks - just maybe

this debate is the same as: .... BMW vs Merc Coke vs Pepsi Race radios vs radio silence Anc vs DA Afrikaner vs English Brit coffee vs tee toyota vs isussu Nazi vs jew Riser bar vs staight bar shimano vs campy USA vs terror Lance doped VS Lance is clean and the all time favorite on the hub MTB vs ROAD ...........and will never be solved or convinced otherwise! Good luck ppl

I'm not a shop so will tell you - If one was using WE you will prob go to CWC now that WE closed down. Mean its in the same area about 300m away so that quite obvious. CLab is expensive and too far away for normal stuff. Would have popped into CLab more often if there were a shop closer to Stellnbosch / Durbanville. In Stellenbosch we have Flandria and Masons - both good shops for all normal stuff. nice to go to bigger shops and see more stuff one the floor, even if you just want to look. Great shop closer to home home is Manic Cycles in Worcester (WW - Francois), will do most if not all my orders through him. So I guess it all depends on where you are and where you live. I'm not going to drive all the way to Clab in CT from Stellenbosch to service my bike or to buy smallish parts, but will go to have a look at new bikes or wheels - and combinging the trip with something else to do.

Never really understood the concept of having 2 great stores in a small area like that. There mush have been hell off a competition between the guys. Weird that the closed down - and will "reopen" in the same shop but smaller. If its financial issues, one would guess they would close down completely and if they should open again they would open in a cheaper shop Times are tough now, not sure how long this was dragging on, but good luck to the guys looking for new work. "Een se dood is die ander se brood" - In this case its sad but true Either way, non of our concerns, and nothing we can do about it. Sad to see a shop go though.

YES lots of it. I'm originally from the Hex River valley / De Doorns. The mountain there - Matroosberg (the highest mountain in the WC) so yeah its covered in snow. Ceres the town is just a bit higher than our town so that why its snows on the ground there and at us it only knows about halfway down the mountain. But it being a valley all the cold is trapped inside and its f'en cold. Living in Stellenbosch now so its much nicer - weather wise

Going to PE from this weekend to the end of next weekend. Your name really comes to life now - the harbor is closed down due to the strong winds so none of our fruit can be loaded onto the ship. Can't even take the containers off the trucks!! Hope this calms down closer to Sunday. We've got 3000 pllts of citrus to load onto a conventional ship and another on Monday Tuesday!! Its cold down here in cape town, so the cold is fine, but I hate wind

Slip of the hand if you ask me

I would say - its part of our soccer culture - so keep it there! Its amazing that this made such headlines in the media. I mean most of us (white south Africans), never cared or even watched SA soccer games!! Now we are the ones who complain. If you watch football - it different to our soccer and African soccer for sure, but this does not mean that they (football side) can decide to change the culture and atmosphere in African soccer. Ban it from rugby games and everything else though - it will not fit there. We shout and sing in rugby like European Football What amazes me is that they sound of the vuvuzela never dies - it only changes volume during a game - 90min!!! Would be cool if the crowd can piss of Brazil with the "noise" and let our boys give them a go, like the Spain game.

yeah, I even do it with my car. If there is no traffic near the robot and it changes to red for some bullsh*t reason - timed traffic lights or something. And sometimes its just too dodge to stop at a redlight - even with a car at night or early morning. Obviously you have to stop if there is traffic. I slow down look check it out and the make the decision. I try never to drive over a red light or even orange light - I live near a crossing in Stellenbosch where I've seen to many accidents because of this - jumping lights. Cars, bikes, scooters etc . So I try to be very careful regarding this. ASTANA2009-06-25 01:30:33

who took the shot - from what ? Very cool and aero

This is how Dr. Funtes also started first they take a bit of blood then bags full and then become a sport doping doctor Just joking - sounds cool, but I'm out, down in Cape town The weather is killing me again!! Work and no daylight hours Cheers

......I've picked my team Contador for overall but would like to see lance up there - maby even a stage win or more. o ja - don't like cadel evens - so everyone should beat him and ride him off. and of course the schleck brothers !!! ASTANA2009-06-23 06:21:28

you buggers in PE got all the support for JZ party Anyhow that's done. Don't think ppl doing stunts like this is of any concern for any of us. I mean taxi's and car drivers do what they want on the road and you never hear a newspaper complain about that. Everything and anything one does you do on your own risk and no one has to tell you what to do. So if ppl wanna jump relights, not wear helmets or drive without safety belts its their own problem. What should concern us all is :- Illegal drivers, "kakmaakers"/skollies (stolen cars) and drunk driving - these are the f**kers that kill us on the road!

this is f**ked up I tell you! First the R44 going out of sbos to paarl, then the Klipheuwel road also going out of sbos (both past "infromal settlements" or colored areas as one of my colored friends call it), NOW on bottelary road! Soon we will only be able to ride to sommerset on the R44, past sommerset its also gets a bit tight going past strand to Gordonsbay. Dammm rubbers We should start shooting ppl, steal cheat "them", this is too much a one way thing going on here. Sorry about the anger but a friend was caught up in some of this "skollie" politic

Cape strom matrix - or No sweat Like/liked the First Accent - but they didn't last that long - so don't know if I had a bad pair or if this is true about all of their stock. ASSOS nice - but bit expensive for something that is bound to wear out and need to be replaced. Bikes and shoes last a lot longer for the amount I'm willing to spend.

I for one would be more amped to race my MTB in the winter time, as up till now I only raced once in a while, other than that I trained on the MTB during winter time, summer is race time on the road, and for something different - MTBing midway through the summer races. If MTB created that seeding immage, more ppl would race, and thus up the racing standart in SA / Western cape. Then we can have XC races with laps and only let rider A - D race in one go and the other groups can be split up as well - like the road crit races. Elites, A-D, E - H etc This way we can make everyone happy and inprove the standart of racing

race time - like in road. Do the same - winners time and the index thingy like PPA calculates your seeding. That not good enough ? Then let pll start in different groups, not just Seeded and unseeded. Its usually the not-so-fast guys who push in to start off the front with the winners. This then creates a ball's up on the first hill of single track part...

Francois sterkte met die recovery man. Ten minste is jy aan die herstel, ons almal is bly jy voel beter. Raak gou gesond. Wil by jou kom inloer, maar jy klink baie gewild so sal maar later as jy beter is en meer slaap in het. Good luck. Ek self nog op recovery. Hoop om steeds besigheid te doen later ASTANA2009-06-19 08:27:01

what about MTBers ?

I really like Boonen but the Belgians REALLY LOVE Boonen and will do anything to make this go away!! LOL - got to love the Belgians Hope Boonen can race the tour and all this nonsense stop. Catch the real dopers. Ones that arrange secret meetings and pan doping at the tour a year in advance etc. Got to love the french and anit-doping. They are really targeting LA and leipheimer. Leipheimer said on twitter that he had WADA and USADA doing test on him on the same day!! bit hectic if you ask me. anyhow - at least they are doing these and looks like its working.