sadamhussein

"In short, the greater offset reduces trail which helps offset the increase in trail due to the slacker head angle" the offset in trail is offset by increasing the decrease in offset which offsets reducing the increase in offset. simple really.

what beer should i get?

Thanks to those working so hard at securing proper long term access. I do appreciate what goes into that as I have been involved in similar fruitless attempts to secure similar access to the Drakensberg for another adrenaline sport. By doing this I properly put the sport in question on the parksboards' radar and made it even harder if not impossible to do it there without attracting some very negative attention. thus my conclusion - it's often easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission, because permission is not forthcoming. I do not condone trespassing on privately owned land, but I do have a serious problem with large wilderness expanses like the drakensberg or table mountain being declared a no-go area until further notice by government, leaving you with no similar alternative. Kind of like what's happening with e-tolls. You have no alternative but to submit to the system until it changes, which is not likely.

the earth is 4,500,000,000 years old. will all of this even matter another 4.5billion years from now? NO. Land ownership is a myth. it belongs to no one, time has proven that. my point, ride where you want.

too many people use the excuse that you are holding up the negotiation for permission process to chastise those who have balls to say - screw the system, I'm not waiting for something that's never going to happen, I'll ride there anyways. there's always someone who's allegedly negotiating permission on behalf of others, but it's always someone I know who knows someone who's cousin is working on it. Parks can't generalise - what logic is there by banning law abiding riders on account of the actions of other illegal riders? does the government ban all motorbikes from the N2 because some other bikes were speeding there? No. TMNP needs to get their heads out of their asses and realise that sports like base jumping, mountainbiking, paragliding, etc. are no more intrusive and damaging to the environment than horses that defecate all over the place and cause serious soil erosion with their hooves, or hikers that fall of cliffs and cost the tax payers millions in search and rescue efforts. these laws/rules were drawn up long before these sports even existed and now, some 20 years later they still haven't caught a wake up and allowed these harmless sports to have their fair share of participation. With the current state of our Zumocracy, I'm not holding my breath for change either.

simple. go back with your bakkie (number plates rmoved), and drive THROUGH the boom. done. freedom of movement is a RIGHT, not a privelage. if you dont want to do it yourself, tell me where it is, I'll go do it for you.

where do you buy that?

A lot of people getting VERY defensive here, I guess I must have hit on a grain of truth. I'm not criticising the concept of wide bars (yes, I too have wide-ish bars), I'm criticising the concept of going so wide that it looks stupid, without knowing why you're doing it, simply because everyone else is doing it - kinda like the leg shaving thing, people do it without questioning why, to fit in with the crowd, then find a justification for it afterwards.

before you guys cry yourselves to sleep because your beloved hero's happen to be following the wide bar fad that has now been brought into question, just remember that greg and co have been winning races LONG before the wide-bar-fad. and just because a extra wide bar works for a dowhhill bike which has geometry that's super different to 99% of bikes being sold out there, doesn't mean it's a good idea to put it on a 29 inch xc bike that will never attain the same speeds and require that amount of control. it's a fad. mark my words.

wider doesn't mean more control. wider bars have a longer arm, requiring a bigger moment to achieve the same effect as shorter bars. in other words, you look like a monkey trying to initiate the smallest of direction changes. conversely, bars that are too narrow can be too sensitive to control inputs. so i guess wider bars would work better for novices who don't know how to modulate (prevent over controlling) the steering on their bikes. as far as i can tell, wide bars also force novices to get their centre of gravity further forward which helps for more balanced and positive turning, fooling them into thinking the better handling is due to the width of the bars. what is the right width? if your fore arms are parallel, slightly tapering outwards, in a seated position, then it's just right. fore arms tapering inwards, too narrow, and fore arms splayed outwards, too wide. yes i have ridden with super wide bars, and i found the dulled-down response to my input quite annoying.

seriously, wtf is with this new trend for handle-bars to be so wide, you look like you're crouching almost all the way forwards just in order to be able to hang on. yes, i know, in the nineties there was a narrow-bar trend, which bordered on ridiculous in some cases (i'm talking 40cm or less here), but it seems the trend has now gone full-bore in the opposite direction. really, i've seen handlebars on xc mountainbikes that are easily 20cm wider than the bars on my 1200cc motorbike.

what insurance? people are always so concerned about whether it's legal or not - well, I personally don't really care, but if you must know, it is within the law, which states that you may transport things on your motorbike as long as it doesn't stick out 1.5m behind, and 400mm to the sides. obviously I won't want to argue the legalities with some moronic JMPD officer at a road block, who in his ignorant personal capacity has come to the conclusion that it isn't legal, but yeah, it's legal.

get a bike, it beats traffic! yeah sure, you should see the strange looks, and even ridicule sometimes, but they all stop laughing when they come to a grinding halt in a 2km queue, and I keep going all the way to the front

bump

I found a toolkit on the spruit on friday on the lower section ---- if you are the owner, contact me off-list; describe what it looks like and tell me what's in it.