Captain Fastbastard Mayhem

Because I'm assuming no difference in strategy whatsoever. Exchange rate was different at time of purchase. Simple. The numbers support that, based on historical volatility. What they don't support is that all of a sardine Giant decided to change the way they do business and increase their bike cost 10 - 15% above all others. If that were so, the USD price would reflect so as well. As would the AUD price, EUR price and so on.

36 points of engagement, according to this pic: Don't know what they mean by "reduced 1.5deg engagement angle"

If you've got an HPPP, it's a premium waiver for your med aid. You get paybacks either every year or 5 years, depending on your claims & vitality status, and whether you have a discovery credit card or not. This would definitely be tied to Vitality. If you have an income replacement benefit, they are tied to a policy that has an element of Life Cover, and you MAY have the Payback benefit activated. You also might not. It all depends on how the policy is structured and whether it was requested or not, or put in place by your broker...

Yeah, I get commission from them. Not much, cos I personally don't have many clients with them, but the practice as a whole does. But from what I experienced last week on my training course (something I have to go through cos UNISA, the fucktards, won't release a credit certificate so I have to start from the beginning again) this industry needs FAR better trainers. FFS. When I'm correcting the "lecturer" and expanding on concepts because she just says "it's like that because that's the way it is" and these are NEW entrants to the brokerage force... Jinne. it's no wonder the quality of "advice" is lacking.

Old (best) structure is unaffected. Just don't lose it! If you go even 35 times in a rolling year, it's gone. Forever.

See, the thing is, Nico, it doesn't. It's highly dependent on WHEN the purchase or transfer is made. To prove this, here is a snapshot of the 2y chart for the ZAR/USD As you can see, it makes rapid gains and losses on an almost permanent basis. Digging down to the 1 year chart, you can see it even more closely. This is particularly applicable as the bunch that had an RRP of R 49,995 was brought in at the end of 2014. Now, this bunch was brought in about 2 or 3 months ago. See the difference there? Now - have a look at the 1 year chart. Can you see the volatility there? In the place of just a month, you've got a differential of up to 12% in currency fluctuations alone, between August and September. Now, I don't know when Specialized / Trek / Giant bought their currency, but if you actually dig down into it, this volatility explains it all for you, and shows how on some were less affected by the currency creepage than others were.

No, I'm doing something wrong. I used 15,500 instead of 17,500. My apologies (goes off to edit post)

Same. Immensely overpriced, but it is what we, and the producers, have made it out to be. Bicycles have ALWAYS been expensive, though. Even in the 90's, the top bikes were in the high thousand dollar range. But yeah. They're bloody expensive compared to other toys and vehicles. Never said they weren't. However, in this particular case, Nico's ignorance of the effect of ZAR / USD movements and the effects they have on the price needed to be attended to. "35% WTF LOL they're smoking" needed to be put into context.

Hey 'Kaze I'll try to answer as best I can, but I'm rather pressed for time today so it may be a bit short. Firstly - Vitality's most attractive benefit has been and always will be there if you have a Life policy with Discovery. Through this, you can get up to 60% of your life premiums back every 5 years. This is what Multiply modeled their Multiply benefit on, but flipped it - if you're a private club member, you get an up front discount of 60% to your qualifying premiums. Secondly - the ancillary benefits. These are things like the Gym benefit, which is changing next year to be a scaled discount based on how many of your "weekly Active Rewards" goals you achieve in a given month, as long as you go more than 36 times in a rolling 12 month period. If you go less than 36 times, your discount is reset to 50% until such time as your rolling visits hit 36 again. If you meet 1 goal per month, you get 75% discount. 2 goals, 80%; 3 goals 90%; 4 goals 100%. This is related to a single gym membership - I still need to confirm how the revised premier membership will work. Then there's the Health Food benefit, which allows you to get up to 25% off your Healthy Food purchases from PnP or WW, up to a max of R 500 p/m discount for a single member and R 1,000 p/m discount as a family, subject to doing the online assessments and a "health check" - HIV / Cholestorol / glucose / BP readings - at the beginning of each year. There's also the Healthy Gear benefit, which gets you up to 25% off pretty much all gear at Sportsmans Warehouse OR Totalsports, provided you do a fitness assessment at the beginning of the year. If you don't, you get 10% until you do. Then there's the flight savings - up to 35% off all Kulula / BA / Emirates / Qantas flights, upfront, depending on your Vitality Status. You can increase the Kulula local flight discount to 100% depending on how many "Vitality Active Rewards" you hit between the booking date and the time of departure. 5% additional discount for each weekly goal you hit, subject to a minimum of 4 weekly goals (ie you only earn additional discount if you've achieved at least 4 goals between booking and departure) This discount does not apply to airport taxes, unfortunately. Then there's the Carhire savings (Europcar or Tempest) again up to 35% upfront based on Vitality Status There's also up to 35% off hotel bookings (upfront) based on Vitality Status, over 500 hotels through Tsogo Sun, Sun International, Protea Hotels and others. Increased up to 50% off if you book using a Disco credit card. Then there's the other, lesser benefits such as the Ster Kinekor discounts, discounts on magazine subscriptions, and the Vitality Active Rewards system itself, which is only really coming into its own next year. That's it in a nutshell. Maybe not as nic eas the 50% discount on Mango that you get though Momentum, or the up to 40% savings on some very overpriced equipment through the Momentum Shopping portal (yes, their prices are highly inflated) but as a whole, it blows everything else out the water.

Given the choice, I'd far rather have the KX though. Or the equivalent roadgoing version.

This, most likely.

That was the 2015 version. 2016 has full XT m8000

Nico, the USD price increase was just 7.36% (4850 to 5200)Remove that from the equation and the increase attributable to the USD/ZAR exchange remains 27.5%. And here's the thing - IT COULD BE WORSE. If Giant SA hadn't bought this lot at that old rate, the increase would have been 50% (taking current exchange rates into account)If the exchange rate hadn't changed, RRP would be just be 7.36% more. Stop complaining about stuff which you clearly do not take the time to understand.

Kaze, I'll post more info when I'm at the office

Nothing. They're effectively a large scale brokerage that offers pension and med aid management options for big corporates.

Read the thread, kaze. All your questions are answered. You could also of course ask your company's broker to explain it all to you. He's supposed to, after all

Brilliant news, finally being able to share it.

10/10 would bang.

GS Should do it, though I don't know how long the actual screw is. IIRC you'll need to change it if you go for a 42t. Maybe. I think that was the limit with the standard b-screw.

SGS RD definitely clears the 40t with the standard screw. May need to get a longer screw for the 42t though.

there was a $350 increase on the US price due to the Full XT m8000 treatment (and downgrade of shock to RT, as well as an increase in the ZAR/USD exchange JUST as the new stock was priced. Those 2 factors played havoc with the pricing. I did the calcs when the new price was released, and confirmed that it's solely down to that. EDIT: It's actually priced BETTER than in the states atm, due to the forward pricing that this batch has. USD price is $5,200 which at the current rate comes out at R74,700 So at R 67,500 you're actually getting it at below $ retail on the PREVIOUS version... $4,698 instead of $5,200 (2016) vs $4,750 (2015)

That would be Brawler's reign you're talking about. Yeah. Trying to get it close to that. Granted, when you rode this one it was set up kaaaaak. Way too much pressure in the front, and I was playing with the rear and it had too much pressure int eh back. Got it FAR more to my liking now. With the tape mod it ramps up so damn nicely...

Even more apparent in an original mini. Those things were born to have their necks wrung. SUCH fun cars to drive.