sluiper

Or... you could just buy a base bar? They're pretty cheap: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/za/en/handlebars/road-aero-bars?f=2261&sort=pricelow Will probably be cheaper if you can find a second hand one somewhere.

Ha, yes, I know, but that guy is a freak. He's a Olympic walker, so he doesn't count

Don't know if someone's posted this yet, but here's a pretty cool diagram of the evolution of the bicycle over the last 233 years: http://popchartlab.com/collections/prints/products/the-evolution-of-bicycles

Last year only riders in B and higher managed to break sub 3. In my opinion you have to be in A to stand a decent chance or in B and stay at the front of the pack. Anything lower and you'll be time trialling it by yourself. In terms of training it would differ from person to person, but I can't imagine doing less than 12-15 hours a week and still being able to go sub 3 (but that's just me, I'm sure most people could do it on much less). If the wind is up on the day though, all bets are off.

I'd also recommend a spinning bike above an IDT. I've got both a and very rarely use the IDT, just because it's so much easier to use the spinning bike. The IDT route also means more wear on your bike, tyres and components, whereas the spinning bike is meant to be ridden for hours at a time. My setup is close to my road bike, but not precisely. I have multiple bikes and trying to set something up to perfectly match the feel of a specific bike is almost impossible. You can buy a spinning bike second hand on Gumtree for less than R2000. I paid R1000 for mine with a 20kg flyweight and it works perfectly. Newer models can run anything up to R10 000 second hand.

Well, someone's screwing us then. Robben Island Triathlon, Grabouw Xterra and Slanghoek Triathlon are all charging R100 temp license fees and are all shorter than a standard triathlon. 11Global and the 5150 series (standard distance) are also charging R100 per race. I've never paid less than R100, regardless of race distance.

Well, if they're not fat cats, they should get someone to look at their finances. They're getting R100 per athlete per event. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but they're getting at least R500 000 just from the 70.3 and Ironman events. I don't know how many other events there are that all have to cough up the TSA fees, but at a conservative estimate I'd say they're raking in at least another R2 500 000 from temp license fees alone. Add to that some membership fees, lotto funding (apparently), broadcast rights and event fees and I'm guessing you're looking at a minimum of R5 000 000 a year, Again: for what? To make sure I can enjoy the race? I'll leave that to the race organisers, thanks. The only reason TSA pushes their snout into every event on the pretext of making it more enjoyable for the athlete, is to get some more cash out of the athletes and organisers. So R5 000 000 a year to have one representative go to a race now and then and to sit in a chair at a meeting every now and then?

Well, I guess I'm a cheapskate. Here are my costs for Slanghoek Triathlon: Entry x 2 (myself and the wife): R800 TSA mandatory temp license x 2: R200 Petrol there and back: R200 Gu/Energade/Powerbars: R100 Buying 2 meals at the food stalls: R100 Babysitter for 6 hours: R200 Total cost for a small, regional triathlon: R1600 That's excluding the costs of all the equipment and training needed before you can even consider entering. It's a very small percentage of people who are willing to shell out that amount of money on a weekly or even monthly basis.

I guess you're right. Which is what I'll do, using my sister's address in Gauteng. But I won't do that immediately, otherwise the TSA stooges will know it's me that registered and ban me from ever competing again. Because they love the sport

No, I'm not wrong. Because I live in Cape Town, I have to join a club to join TSA. On TSA's website it states: "KZN and WP athletes must belong to a provincial club or risk having TSA membership cancelled." In addition that means I have to compete in my club's strip (another stupid TSA rule). That means another R1000 (at least) for my club strip. So, in addition to TSA's membership fee I must now pay club fees as well. So a cool R1650 to be a TSA member and avoid the mandatory R100 per event they charge. Seems legit. Multiply the above by 2 by adding my wife and joining TSA becomes a joke. I realise triathlon isn't a sport for poor people, but shelling out over R3000 a year for very little benefit is a bit steep for me.

Oh, no, wait, they do sometimes do something: Like last year when they made the idiotic proposal of imposing qualification events for Ironman distance events. Even after they were made aware of the fact that their proposal would probably cause more deaths than it would save. The only thing TSA cares about is gouging athletes and organisers as much as they can. And now they've managed to kill a complete series, it seems. Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

I don't know, haven't see them do anything positive thus far. They also make it as difficult as possible to avoid the R100 charge per event by not handling any memberships themselves (you _have_ to join a club and the club handles the TSA membership). They literally do nothing and rake in money at every event someone tries to organise.

On the topic, I'm surprised there are so few hybrids on the road for commuting. At moonlight mass (which is supposed to be about city biking but is actually more of a fixie/hipster/wtf scene), I must have been the only one on a hybrid. If anyone else is thinking about getting a bike specifically for commuting, I can definitely recommend a hybrid. In general, they're a bit lighter than MTBs and also quite a bit faster. I run 700-28 tyres on mine, which work fine on the occasional bit of gravel, but are still proper road tires. On the downside: it's a pretty purpose built machine with little use besides the odd bit of light touring and commuting.

I use a hybrid for commuting: allows me to be reasonably fast on the road, but also allows me to go an a bit of gravel/sidewalk when I need to. That being said, I don't own a mountain bike and have 5 road bikes, so I might be a bit biased I picked up my Specialized Sirrus 2011 model (http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bikes/multi-use/sirrus) on Gumtree for under R3000.

I have a few friends who have them at home, and they all swear by Spinnaker, though they don't come up as often as the other brands.

Yes, you could definitely slap a v-brake wheel on. I have a fluid trainer and use it about once a week (whenever the weather doesn't permit cycling outside), so I kind of know what it's like owning/using one. I would, however, recommend you get a trainer off Gumtree/TheHub classifieds rather than buy a new one. It takes a special kind of person to sit on a bike hour after hour while watching TV, and most people aren't that special kind of person. Which means there are a lot of trainers that go on Gumtree for less than half the price you're looking to spend. Also, for the amount you're looking at spending, you could probably buy a second hand spinning bike. I know it doesn't seem like a lot of effort now, but changing your wheel, getting the bike set up and getting everything just right before you get on the trainer starts to get irritating after a while. Setting up a dedicated spinning bike means it's very quick to get going and you're not "using up" your bike on training. Just my 2c.

Damn. Wanted to enter today and it's sold out Anyone wanting to pull out, please msg me.

Bad luck. Sucks when that happens, I know. I know it doesn't make it better, but it's important to remember it's just a race and there are plenty more this season. Rest up well.

Sure, some in the Western Cape aren't PPA, but about 90% are and even the ones that aren't would use your PPA seeding to decide where you start. I'd recommend getting your PPA membership, your RaceTec chip and taking it from there.

It's a long, dark, sorry story. Suffice to say the following: I'm in Cape Town and only deem it necessary to be a PPA member. Being a PPA member gives me timed races (both road and MTB) as well as a seeding that gets used to decide where I start in a race. If you are not a PPA member and ride in a PPA race, you'll start at the back with all the ou tannies and ooms with a boep (no offence). Your races also won't be timed and you won't get an official result. You'll also need to pay a few rand extra for each PPA race you enter. If the above points don't matter to you, you don't really need to be a PPA member.

My sets are pretty boring. I only swim them when I miss my normal group session, so they're mostly just to maintain rather than to build. I can definitely recommend swimming with a group and having a coach to do the thinking about sets for you My lazy set is as follows: 1 x 500m warm up 10 x 100m leaving at 1:45 1 x 250m technique (pull buoy) 1 x 250m cool down My moderate set as follows: 1 x 500m warm up 3 x 1000m (2 min rest in between) 1 x 250m technique (pull buoy) 1 x 250m cool down If you're looking for inspiration, go here: http://ruthkazez.com/swimming/50swimworkouts.html. Some great sets available.

And how, he said quite innocently, would one go about finding out when these police auctions take place?

Yes, I use it, but I've been very lazy the past 2 months, so not much going on there My username is "sluiper"

You can have mine, tried them for 4 laps, started gasping for air. Never realised how much I was actually breathing through my nose Never wore them again. Sportsman's Warehouse has lots of them.

In my opinion, if you're using the bike as you described, I'd go for Tiagra. If you've mainly got the bike on the trainer, you're not going to wear the components much and you're also not going to care about the weight or how smooth the shift is. I've got Dura Ace, Ultegra, 105 and Tiagra groupsets on my various bikes. If you've set the gears properly and service the components regularly they all work perfectly well. A badly tuned Dura Ace groupset feels inferior to Tiagra that's set up perfectly. All of the above said, a 7 year old Ultegra groupset shouldn't be giving too much hassles if it was looked after properly. If it was my bike, I'd take the shifters to my LBS to see if they're salvageable. If they're not, you could replace them at a fraction of the cost of a complete groupset. I'd also get a new chain, cassette and chainrings (all either Tiagra or 105).