Roders

I agree with JB here, in mud no lube works, stick to road riding,no chain suck problems or do like I do, and never ride in muddy conditions!!

As the great Carmichael once said "keep your race for race day", but yea more than one person is automatically a race, just human nature!!

someone in another thread has mentioned Spanjaard's Chain wax but I have not been able to find it yet. That was me, Try Spanjaard chain & linkage spray or Spanjaard liquid grease. For me it out performs anything else thats been mentioned, I've tried em all as when it comes to maintenance I'm lazy and always looking for something better. On a road bike you can do 300 + k's and the chain stay's clean.

I've ridden with a riser bar and bar ends for years, works for me, and who gives a monkeys a-s anyhow. Do what works for you. Peeps are more worried about what you think about them to pay toooo much attention to what you look like !!!!

Once you understand that the issue is not about a crash but about fatigue, I think he is honest. When materials are so thin as to be just-just strong enough to do the job, there is no margin for error. The slightest flaw in the tubing will lead to a disastrous failure. If the tube was thicker, that same flaw would have resulted in a gradual failure that would have give the rider more warning. Today's long unsupported seatposts (on sloped top-tube bikes) coupled with heavy riders are a recipe for danger. Manufacturers are constantly pressurized into making lighter & lighter equipment, and this has to come at a price, ie longevity. But I think they reason with todays culture of more frequent equipment upgrading and changing, "to keep up", their equipment does not have to last as long, so for a component to have lasted 3+ years, its already past is usable life.(Probably in the small print somewhere)

I would hazzard a guess and say the saddle clamping arrangement was welded to the tube. The welded area should go through an anealing process after welding to relieve any stresses. In any production process things can slip and this seat post probably slipped through without being annealed, can happen!!

[ Lets go over to Tech Q&A and fight about chain lubrication. I see there's a "What lube to use" thread going down. Great lets go, getting bored of this one now

Whats the cliche? There's always three sides to a story, your's, mine & the actual. Glad Magoo gave us his side as this was getting very one sided!!!

Check your saddle,I had a similar problem which i battled with for months 'till i discovered the shape of my saddle was wrong. It was catching my inner thigh and obviously cutting of blood supply or pinching a nerve. I now ride a very narrow saddle with a flat hard sit bone area!

Thanks Johan, makes sense.I have a pair of Cosmos training wheels,black, the rims cracked after a year, I put Open pro rims, black, also cracked after a year. Now I've got Silver DRC rims, Have lasted about three years already.

I think my VO max is 168 bpm (thats when the legs start to reject me) I can climb at a constant 165 bpm for an indefinate period, climbing is one of my strengths. Incidently my bud can outdrink anyone who will go one for one with him, don't know if this is significant

People, this isn't a foot race!! Therefore, equipment is involved. A large part of this race is about how one manages your equipment over the terrain...therefore if you make an error (by raming it into a tree...) you should suffer the consequences... At the end of the day - the winner should be determined by the person who managed his bike & the terrain the best...not just the one aspect of it. There should be no seconding! Maybe selected stations along the way that have repairs & spares...so if you decide to go too hard...then it is walking to the next pitstop for repairs and it might make one think twice before you throwing EVERYTHING into that next corner... I feel very sorry for Burry - but it could happen to any of the leaders.... Part of winning should also be about how well you managed your bike over this tough terrain... I Agree, Sometimes I think being an agressive, hard, fast rider is not always the winning recipe, as in any sport involving mechanical equipment, managing that equipment is also part of the racing. Just the time & energy wasted fixing punctures from riding over the limit and then having to get back up to the race must be hugely taxing on a rider.

I am/was a commisaire, and I can tell you those poor commisaires had one very tough job deciding what to do, I don't envy them. If they stuck to the rules to the letter you end up taking the main contenders out of the race who are basically making it exciting to follow. Believe me all the top riders know the big picture & if there is no interest in the racing from the public & sponsers they don't have jobs. I reckon before a decision was taken all the contenders were consulted and their buy-in was gotten.(thats what I would have done).

We have often wondered about the huge discrepency between our heart rates, If riding together, same workload, he's always a good 15 beats faster than me. As I said he does seem to have massive short burst acceleration but no real endurance. This guy is a multiple comrades runner as well, untill the high impact running got to his joints.

Try "sucking off into the funset", say it quickly and see how fast you get it wrong !!!!

JB has had some very disparaging things to say about anodizing. He says it increases the risk of failure. I don't have a view either way, just thought I'd share that. I anodized my XT cranks jonks ago & used the hardface on shock parts for the wear properties. To date no failures. I use the hard face on higly stressed machine parts with great success... Who Knows.... works for me!!

There's a company in brackpan, Controlled surface 0119141356, that does anodizing & hard face anodizing, This works well, lots of colour choices too!

I'm no boff on this either but my team mate and I, both in our early 50's, have been training and racing together for many years. My max HR is 178, he can still get close to 200. He seems to be able to out - accelerate / sprint me easily, but on a long haul or hillclimb I can ride him off at will. I don't know if this correlates to anything.

Wynn's charge also works well....... no joke

Lots of road works around, Why not bum some fresh tar, that should work a treat.

Like I said here we go again. Said what I've had to say, not in the mood for another slanging match !!!!

Here we go again

I am really looking forward to the hubbers putting on a race for a R50.00 entry fee. Make sure you either have personal surplass cash to spend or you find sponsers with good cash flow. If you need advice pm me, but I certainly wont do it again unless there is money to be made

We as a family (giving the game away now) were involved in organizing races for some 10 years. mabalingwe & walkerville classic being some of the bigger ones. Never mind the costs & time involved, abuse from riders is what finally killed it for us. I've said it before, every rider should have to have spent time organizing a couple of races before being allowed to enter one. These days I happily pay whatever the entry is to enter a race, ride my race & dissapear into the sunset, gratefull that someone else is now organizing it.