stratus5

And who would you put in Cat2? The sub vets were nearly 15 min behind the elites. Only one or two will scrape in with a C seeding for the Cobra. No subvets got a C for the Burger either (I think) ... first six elites only just scraped a B

Interesting point of view. Children must pay for the sins of their parents? Whilst you cant un-rape the women, perhaps she does not want to be married to her rapist, but her life is destroyed unless she marries as nobody else will have her now. I would like the victim to be given the choice as to whether the rapist is punished or not. If a married women is not heard (she did scream her head off before being beaten into submission and raped) to cry out (may be no witnesses), then she is still stoned to death. This is pretty cruel and unjust ... The oxen stumble, he tries to steady the ark and boom ....! 2 Samuel 6:6, 7 - And when they came to Nachon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God.

Did God/Jesus promise you personally that there would be no suffering on earth? No, but my brother died before he was three days old, and my cousin died very slowly (with more than enough suffering to keep God happy) of leukemia before he reached 5. If God knows your life, i.e when you are born and when you die, then you have no free will. If God knows you are going to die as an aborted baby, then this was His plan and there is nothing you can do about it. I.e. He supports abortion. If you are going to die up Maritime hill on Sunday of a heart attack, then you cannot choose not to do the Cape Cobra, because that is the PLAN! You may make no decision that God has not already decided upon. I.e no free will. Sad.

Killing 42 "youths" for laughing at a bald "prophet" is OK? Shapiro is in the dwang. "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. (From the NIV Bible, Deuteronomy 22:28)"... Its different if she was married to somebody else. Then it all depends on whether a witness heard her cry out or not. If she was not heard to cry out then it was deemed consensual and they were both stoned to death. An unmarried girl has no op out clauses. This is a great way to meet girls. Psalm 137 ... which starts with "By the rivers of Babylon ..etc has a last verse which goes something like this depending on the exact translation ... "O Babylon, you devastator, Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall be they who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" For Jehovah's witnesses ... The exactly 144,000, who will rule with Jesus as kings and priests over earth are male, Jewish, already dead and must be virgins. No women! The rest hope to live forever in an earthly paradise (male and female) after the millennium judgment. Heaven is correct for the 144 000, earthly paradise for the rest is not far off. Muslims ... There is a funny story, that the 72 virgins was mistranslated, its supposed to be "sweet white grapes" My facts are pretty straight ... I see thing as they are written. Hardly a spout?

God has been shown to provide divine cures for cancer etc. Sadly Satan has also cured an equivalent amount of atheists. The really sad thing is the way the two of them discriminate of course ... Not one amputee or Down's child has been cured. If you can cure a cancerous lump on the brain, why not fix Downs syndrome whilst you are about it? How hard can it be to regrow a finger? If you believe, the bible says nothing is impossible. Except irrefutable evidence of course

And its a silly theory There are creationist museums in the USA that have children sitting on dinosaurs, since they had to exist during Adam and Noah's time. There was no sin/death in Eden, so T Rex had to be vegetarian (Creationist belief). The panda bear has sharp teeth, so T-Rex's sharp teeth can also be explained. This is how far aberrant religious beliefs will go to return civilization back to the dark ages. There are millions of reasons why there can be no biblical flood. The most obvious ones are the lack of complete destruction of the icecaps (which have layers hundreds of thousands of years old) etc, to the complete lack of any evidence of koala bears or lemurs etc in the middle east. Every fish would have died (fresh water fish do not like salt water etc). There would have been no food for years until the flooded areas regrew (look at empty dams, BUT add salt!). Lack of bees/insects would mean nothing pollinated, so all plants died out around the world (except in middle east of course, which had two). You of course need more than two bees, to build the infrastructure bees require to live etc.

I appreciate your input and kind words earlier. You have Faith, which allows you to overlook the many inconsistencies in religion, but I truly believe that you are sincere in the good of your beliefs, but many professed religious people are not and many of these are church leaders etc. Thomas Calvin was notorious for burning non-believers upwind of the fire, so they died more slowly. The inquisitors used fake knives with retracting blades so they could select witches ... The crusaders burnt synagogues full of women and children in the name of Christ .. The Catholic church was complicit with Hitler (who was religious) in the persecution of Jews ... the list is endless. They truly believed. If you dont have Faith, its not something you can just switch on or off. You cant be "forced" believe. Either you do, or you dont. BUT, dont make the mistake of thinking we are not well read. Most atheists know the bible better than Christians, because we read it all in the hope that we can understand your beliefs. A God that murders 42 children with wild bears because they called a prophet "baldy" Psalms about basing babies heads against the rocks. A woman is not raped if you marry her afterward ... woman must always defer to a man, that includes not being allowed to speak in church (my wifes church locally at one point) its all pretty sad. Feel sorry for the Jehovas witness who are not going to heaven unless they are male, dead, Jewish and virgins on top of that.

And since evolution cant be true, the Pygmies must be asking themselves some awkward questions after the flood. Icecaps float, so maybe when the icecaps broke loose from under thousands of meters of water from the north and south poles, the Aboriginals, Pygmies etc manged to climb on board. Would have really buggered the climate though.

If my dad was God, I would not consider myself a normal human. That trinity thing also becomes a bit confusing then ... "God the Father, the source of Monotheism, but also God the Son, the source of priestly authority, and also God the Holy Spirit, the source of lineal continuity". What Catholics (who are Christians) believe Jesus Christ is truly God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, the Eternal Word, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit always was, is, and always will be. If God is not supernatural then what is he? Certainly not human. If Jesus rose from the dead, then he is not dead (This happens in ICU occasionally), maybe not on earth, but not dead, then he did not die for your sins. How old is the earth?

My Garmin gives me 8 or 9% for the first bit just after the river up to the first bend, and then it flattens out to 4 or 5%. A good SE wind can add another 10% though

I noticed that the Proteas cricket team have suddenly ditched their power balance bands. Sure they were wearing them in the tests, but could not see a single one last night? Does this mean the sponsorship has ended? If you are an influential person, like a sports star, should you be allowed to sell snake oil (bands etc) to the public or is there not some moral code that should apply? What does it say about you if you wear a fake band purely for the money, knowing thousands of people may be fleeced based on your endorcement?

Sorry, I really tried ... must resist ... cant .. dammit A very religious friend of my wife collapsed and miscarried a child last night after years of trying to conceive. She is going to survive, but after months of God being credited with the original conception (The couple of R100 000 at doctors and clinics trying to undo a flaw in Gods design was not credited), her friends all waded in with "Praise God, because only he understands what you are going through". ???? God is NOT good, he is NOT bad ... he just isn't. There is not one single scientific, or more importantly actuarial calculation that takes a God factor into account. If a god played any factor in your lives, the insurance companies would have worked it out by now ... especially since they are all run by Satan. Special rates for Christians? I think not. They die from serious diseases (cancer etc) at higher or equal rates than atheists. FACT ... not a myth. Why would a supernatural being (son of god) be even the slightest bit worried about being crucified? How could his suffering be real if he were not an ordinary human. Silly Jewish and Roman historians of the time forgot to take note of his existence as well, except for one well known fraud committed by the Catholic church. Always a bugger when somebody finds an earlier/original document LOL. Reason and not superstition is the only way to solve the crisis facing our earth.

Raised a smile.

I will be a father soon, and would love to take my son with me with me on the bicycle. I know the Asians take the whole family on their bikes from an early age, but I am worried about accidental falls etc. Anybody know a source for bicycle baby seats and which ones are recommended? When is a child old enough to be on the bike safely? I have a tandem as well, would be great if there was some way all three of us (Mom,dad,baby) could get out together.

Everybody is affected. Those people you beat will get seedings lower than I. The PPA base event was the Argus 2010. The wind made it very hard, so almost every other event is going to be seen as easier and penalized when they compare the spread of riders with a seeding index of less than 30. Its tough for people who dont have older seedings (prior to the beta being introduced) to keep them in higher groups ... but if the 2011 Argus is very windy, then if the Burger winner cant make A, we may have very few riders left in A soon. Thos qualifying for A would all be in the elites. I guess at the moment its almost impossible for anybody to improve their seeding, but it is possible to hang onto your current seeding.

PPA first corrects time to what it considers a top class GIRO field would do I.e. from 2:30 to 2:18 for the Burger. It then calculates a difficulty rating for the event (beta) based on how the field did in the Argus 2010. The Burger 2010 gets a beta of 0.934 if I use my seeding result So the Burgers winners PPA rating is (your time / adjusted winner's time - 1) / beta value and then expressed as a percentage, which is: ((150/138 -1) / 0.934) * 100 = 9.3 -> PPA B rating Because the 2010 Argus was so windy the time gaps between the field were larger. I.e the slower riders are effected more than the faster riders. If the Argus had no wind, then the riders with a PPA seeding of 30 or less would all be closer together in time. Currently the beta calculation sees all the riders as going too fast in PPA events compared to our Argus times, hence we are penalized with beta's of less than 1 too slow us down.

Especially the ones that come from Durban The photo in the original add does look very new. And I see the words "Brand new" in the add. You got shafted. Without doubt a scammer ... Original for sale photo attached below so others can see how you were tricked...

My knees are different distances from the top tube when I cycle. Right is about 5cm from tube, but left is closer to 10. I dont feel uncomfortable, but its starting to bug me now. I must be slightly twisted on the bike, or left foot cants outward. Anybody have something similar?

I have a recently purchased Edge 500 and am trying to understand the laps/courses thing ... I completed an activity ... my daily commutes ... and have downloaded this as a course back to the Garmin. I did not put in any lap markers whilst doing the original activity. When doing the course, I would now like to get splits for certain sections (a hill climb for example), so would like to add in some lap markers. Is there anyway I can do this manually (Garmin Connect etc), or do I have to redo the activity pushing the lap marker as required? On that topic ... which is the best tool for analyzing your activities? Thanks!

CRC have sent me a parcel, but ParcelForce couriers have dropped the ball ... or our local customs have nicked it According to the tracking detail it has been sitting in Cape Town Customs for 12 days!!! I think it went into customs and was affirmed out the back door. Anybody experienced a similar wait? Trying to deal with ParcelForce is a real head bang, and their local 'agents' wont answer their phone.

I have gone from a 9kg+ Raleigh RC6000A to a ~7kg Cervelo Soloist. Same wheelset (dura-ace C50) used on both bikes. The difference is HUGE. I thought after all similar threads that I would not notice much difference, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. Not much difference downhill... lighter may be slower On the flats ... smooth road constant speed, no difference, but the moment the road gets bumpy or in the peleton where the speed fluctuates with small accelerations required, different ballgame. Much easier on the lighter carbon bike. The biggest difference is uphill. Its not all in the head because I normally get destroyed uphill and know who gives me the most pain in the PPA races from a few years of intermittent racing. Suddenly I am able to stay in contact with people who normally disappear up the steeper inclines. The improvement is way out of proportion to the 2 kg weight difference. I know from having weighed 2 kg less that I did not seem much better up the hills, but 2 kg off the bike makes a big difference. The first thing you notice is that you get used to the speed at which your bike rocks from side to side as you climb. A heavier bike has definite momentum as you rock it, the lighter bike seems at first not to want to rock, or rather rock very fast .... which requires a higher cadence from the rider. The bike does seem to want to shoot out from under you at first, got to be careful not to fall off the back of the saddle One of the Tour de France winners of old used to take his bottles out of their cages on his bike uphill. He felt the bike was just faster that way, even though he understood that he still had to haul the same weight uphill. I agree is not logical looking at the bicycle/rider system as a whole, but ride a 10 kg bike and then swap to 7kg and the difference will blow you away.

There are a few possibilities that I know of between St Francis and Oyster Bay, but its a bit off the beaten track if you are interested? There are plenty of sand roads in the area, but the traffic is hectic and the cars are traveling fast .. Not much fun .. Not recommended

Been off to doctor. Got some fancy new stuff to try for the lungs and some treatment for the allergies. I think most of my problems are side effects of sinuses running on full tap. Will see how it goes .. I have a follow up in one week.

Thanks for all the replies. I have been cycling for a while and done aerobic activity most of my adult life. Its only cycling that brings out the cough and the asthma like symptoms afterwards. I need to have been at 85+% heart rate for about an hour before the first tickle starts. If I actually cough, then its all down hill from there. Most of the symptoms seem to match exercise induced asthma, which a surprising amount of people seem to suffer from.