RichieT

Also www.outdoorphoto.co.za has a good classified section, I've bought some good stuff off here

Over mountain from Kloofsicht to Glenburn Lodge, Cradle area

Mercedes to test megaphone exhaust in Barcelona practice Read more http://grandprix247.com/2014/05/08/mercedes-to-test-megaphone-exhaust-in-barcelona-practice/

MM marching on to a second successive world championship... hope not!

Like the Cradle Mountain Challenge........ (which also had serious bottlenecks)...

And this http://www.chainreactionhub.com/mtb/1353-shimano-xtr-m9000-details-the-best-groupset-yet

Pricing on CRC http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/za/en/s?q=shimano+m9000+crank only available in August, whole set comes to R9000 if bought individually

http://www.cxmagazine.com/shimano-xtr-m9000-11-speeds-single-chainring-first-look

These guys are pulling the ring out of this fork and shock servicing thing. Reatail price for oil and seals is about R250-350, which itself is a bit of a rip off for a couple of o rings, fibre washers and a small quantity of hydraulic oil. If you are getting this stuff wholesale then it has to be less. So go figure. Rather learn to do it yourself... the worst part of the process is draining the oil and washing the parts..

This topic has been extensively covered in previous threads, including the one below.. in which I have made available on my Dropbox folder about 5 gigs of saved you tube movies and pdf tutorials on most aspects of bike maintenance, such as gears, fork/shock servicing, etc etc https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/133906-bike-mechanic-courses/page__st__16

Continued... And then we found this... a snake, rhinkals we think, dead, with it's head in a Castle Lite beer can, flattened.... any suggetions how it happened?

Today at Hakahana Trails, near Hartebeestpoort

Definitely not the Stans. I've used it on XTs and never had a problem. How's your second rim? If that's OK with the Stans then it's a different issue, look for other possible problems.. especially as it looks like just around the valve

Sooner or later

'Fraid your only quick before or after work ride is the Spruit... from where you are. Bite the bullet, load the bike and park at Fratellis or in one of the Emmerentia Dam car parks. You can easily knock off 20+kms right up to Alberts Farm or down as far as the light will allow. Just hold your nose where our brothers have removed the sewerage manhole covers to sell for scrap... Or, once you've had to load the bike, I guess Modderfontein is a possibility As for that 8kms... those roads are mayhem.. you wouldn't get me off the pavement... and that's not really practical to cover that distance. You could look at going around the Joburg Zoo and thru Zoo Lake... might be an option

And BTW I own 26" Anthem and 26" Trance and love them both for their particular merits.. and will think of a 650b when upgrading the Anthem, have yet to ride one though...

And another... http://forums.mtbr.com/general-discussion/merida-%3D-specialized-292022.html there's loads of info, just google "merida builds Specialized bikes" or similar. and see what pops up.

Here's one... sorry 49% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merida_Bikes

That's a surprise because as I understand it, Merida have been building them up to now, and Merida owns 50% of Specialised...

Problem is.. when time comes to use it, there's nothing left! So you have to buy 2 and use one for practising...

Like everybody said... it's one of those amazingly techno gadgets that we love, but even if you go to the ENORMOUS trouble of editing (another story and needing high spec computer and decent software...) nobody actually wants to watch you.. or your mates pedaling along a trail. ... however great it was at the time...

Funnily, the Russians are big into having permanently on video cameras on their dashboards to record details in the event of an accident (there are lots of cheapo ones on the market) and that's how several motorists captured video footage of that meteorite crashing to the ground.

Re day 2: I don't know how this can be called a mountain bike race when you have looong sections of paved roads?

I've read most of this post... and I'm astonished by the shop's complete nonchalance over their deed... you really need to take this further.. it's not like you bought this bike on a Fordsburg filling station forecourt. This looks like fraud to me (as others have expressed). However others, take heed, even cell phones are being cloned these days, that pristine iPhone5 or Galaxy S4 you bought on Gumtree could be fake :-( And I hope this LBS gets good and truely flamed..

I'm happy for you to add updates. Just need to check out how. Do you know?