GBguy

For MTB I'd go for two of the cheaper ones - one on your handlebar and the other on your helmet, with separate battery packs. You'll need to order a helmet mount and an extension lead for another 100 bucks or so. Lots of advantages to this setup. For road, I think the Pyro 2000 is awesome - I've been testing these lights for a review, which is nearly ready for posting.

Both is better. If you are forced to have only one, mount it on your helmet for MTB - on handlebar the beam waves around like crazy. Not so much a problem on road.

Interesting read from Mercola: http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/06/01/long-cardio-workout-dangers.aspx?e_cid=20120601_DNL_art_1 Here's the core of it: One of the best examples of the risks of over-exercising can be gleaned from marathon runners. Running a marathon is often seen as the epitome of fitness and the ultimate show of endurance. But it puts an extraordinary stress on your heart. According to a study presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2010 in Montreal, regular exercise reduces cardiovascular risk by a factor of two or three. But the extended vigorous exercise performed during a marathon raises cardiac risk by seven-fold! Long-distance running also leads to high levels of inflammation that may trigger cardiac events and damage your heart long after the marathon is over. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers recruited a group of extremely fit older men. All of them were members of the 100 Marathon club, meaning athletes who had completed a minimum of 100 marathons. If running marathons provided cardiovascular benefit this would certainly be the group you would want to seriously examine. So what did they find? Half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring as a result, and they were specifically the men who had trained the longest and hardest. Research has also revealed heart scarring after elite cardio training. Published in the journal Circulation, an animal study was designed to mimic the strenuous daily exercise load of serious marathoners over the course of 10 years. All the rats had normal, healthy hearts at the outset of the study, but by the end most of them had developed "diffuse scarring and some structural changes, similar to the changes seen in the human endurance athletes." Yet another study showed that long-term endurance athletes suffer from diminished function of the right ventricle of the heart after endurance racing. They also had increased blood levels of cardiac enzymes, which are markers for heart injury, and 12 percent of the athletes had detectable scar tissue on their heart muscle one week post-race. So it is more than likely that if you over-exercise you will do your body great harm. Ideally, to get the most benefits you need to push your body hard enough for a challenge while allowing adequate time for recovery and repair to take place. It turns out that one of the best ways to do this is to follow a fitness regimen that mimics the movements of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, which included short bursts of high-intensity activities -- but not long-distance running such as is required to complete a marathon or even an hour on the treadmill.

I haven't seen the 838, but according to the MagicShine website (http://magicshine.com/product_view.asp?id=80) it's only 200 lumens, and the 838B is 400 lumens, compared to the 808E which is 1,000. I suspect that, in use, the 838 units - which use conventional "orange peel" reflectors - will not be as bright as the 170 lumen LED Lenser H7 which uses a very efficient optical zoom lens to focus the beam, but I can't be sure without trying them out. The good news about the 838 and 838B is that they use a two-cell rechargeable battery pack, which is probably light enough to tape to your helmet, whereas the 4-cell pack used by the 808E makes a helmet very heavy and unbalanced (I tried it!). Still, if you're being offered the 838B at a good price, I doubt that you will be disappointed.

Hi Caerus You definitely don't want to connect your helmet to your bike with a cable, in case you come unstuck (again!) - it could end up contributing to a neck injury. So using the same battery for helmet and handlebar isn't really a good idea. Also, having separate batteries means that, if one light dies on you, you still have the other. And it's good to be able to move around with a headlight independently of the bike, for example when you're fixing a puncture. I've been working on a review of several lights which I plan to post here soon. What I've found is that, no matter how powerful the light on your handlebar is, it's always better to have a light on your helmet as well - both on and off road. I prefer a spot-light on my helmet, so I can direct it wherever I want, and a flood-light on my handlebars. As I said earlier, I use a LED Lenser H7 on my helmet (held in place with duct tape), which can be adjusted to give a very narrow beam. I also experimented with a Pyrolight 1000 (a "warmer" version of the MagicShine 808E), which has a much more powerful beam, but is more expensive. With the Pyrolight/MagicShine you also need the optional helmet mount and extension cable, so you can keep the battery in your jersey pocket, unlike the lightweight battery pack for the H7 which can be taped to your helmet. You can get the Pyrolight 1000/MagicShine 808E for about R1,000 (e.g. from Hannes Zietsman, who is a member here, or from many cycling stores) and the LED Lenser H7 for about R500 from Cape Union Mart, Due South and others. There's also the more powerful (and somewhat heavier) H14, that costs around R700. Cheers Mark

As a matter of interest, cigarette smoke has far more carbon monoxide than the exhaust from most cars. See: http://faculty.washington.edu/djaffe/ce3.pdf.

This reminds me of an old maths teaser: if you could fold a sheet of paper an infinite number of times, how many folds would it take before the pile of paper would be high enough to reach the moon? I don't remember the exact answer, but it's a lot less than one thinks and, of course, the last fold takes you halfway there.

Please tell us more. Is that the same as Damascus steel? Is that effect achieved by folding and beating? Who made it?

+1 - nothing like spending money to get you inspired again

I have a Record triple. And I'm a woesie.

Speaking of coffee rides - dunno if there's been a post on this before at the hub, but there's research to suggest that a cup or two of coffee, on an empty stomach, before a morning workout (or ride!) has some pretty amazing benefits. The coffee should not contain sugar, and you should not eat anything (particularly carbs) before or during your ride - just drink plain water. The idea is that the coffee "turns off" the metabolic process that leads to glycogen depletion (hitting the wall, aka "the bonk"), so that your body starts to burn fat from the start. I've been for quite long rides (3 hrs +) without any difficulties, but then I have plenty of fat to burn The researchers stress that the quality of the coffee is critical... Have a look for yourself - there's a lengthy video interview with the oke behind the research, Ori Hofmekler, and a summary by Dr Mercola, here: http://articles.merc...-on-coffee.aspx and another article here: http://thefitnesschr...workout-drinks/ Cheers!

I've been selling quite a bit of stuff online recently - mostly through Gumtree. High-priced and easily-sold items always get one or two people SMSing to say they want it, sight unseen, will send proof of payment, please send by courier immediately... you can be pretty sure they are all scams. It doesn't matter what the proof of payment looks like - don't send anything until the payment shows up in your account. I read somewhere that certain kinds of transfer can be reversed or dishonoured, so even a genuine "proof of payment" does not guarantee that you'll actually get the cash! If they genuinely are in a hurry, they can deposit cash at any branch of your bank (I also bank at Nedbank) and it shows up in your account immediately. You have to pay a cash deposit fee, but that's a small price to pay for certainty. I tell buyers not to bother sending me a "proof of payment" - just let me know when they've made the deposit or transfer, and I'll tell them when it clears. So far so good.

Vegetarians eat eggs and dairy, vegans don't. A lot of people are becoming vegetarian, or just eating less meat, because it's better for their health - not for any ethical, environmental or religious reasons. Many people - my wife and me included - avoid meat but eat fish (so we're not vegetarian) because they contain nutrients difficult to get any other way, and it makes life so much easier when going out or travelling. I eat chicken occasionally (maybe once a month) and wouldn't turn up my nose at meat if someone put it in front of me. Life is too short. We've lived this way for 30 years - I'll be 60 next birthday. All three of my siblings have a LOT of serious health issues, and spend a good chunk of their incomes on medical bills. I spend a good chunk of my income on supplements (and would do, even if I ate meat), haven't needed to consult a GP or take a prescription drug in more than a decade, and have no health issues. Bottom line - think about cutting down/out meat without applying a label to yourself, just because you'll feel better. A lot of the "scientific facts" and ethical issues are debatable. Think about spending your money on supplements rather than doctors (google "food state supplements"). BTW, just to rattle a few cages, there's a very strong body of evidence that many of us are intolerant to dairy, wheat/gluten, or both, without knowing it. And that sucrose should be treated as a habit-forming drug. Also, some body types clearly do better with red meat than others. One size does not fit all.

Enjoy it! A lot of people end up using differently to the instructions. Put the plunger into the housing just a little, then stand it on the end of the plunger so the open end of the housing is facing upwards like a cup. Make your coffee in that "cup", stir, attach the filter thingy with a fresh filter paper, invert over your mug, and push.

Three useful links for espresso machine reviews (and much more): www.home-barista.com coffeegeek.com www.wholelattelove.com I really urge you to taste the coffee before you buy a machine. Home machines seldom come close to what you get in a good coffee shop. If that's okay for you, cool, but otherwise try some of the other strategies suggested earlier.

That's the same branch my wife and I visited with my mother and father, both passed away since then. Must be 20 years ago. A memorable day. Went to the Jorvik centre afterwards.

Here's the thing - even if you open the container for one second, the air inside is replaced with new, moist air. What you could do is get some small zip-lock bags (your bank may give you a roll of them for free!) and put just enough coffee grounds in each for... well, however many people put their hands up whenever you take out your espresso maker. Push as much air out of each before sealing, and let them warm up before opening. Coffee doesn't become stale suddenly, like milk going off, it seems to be a more or less linear process. Air and moisture are two contributors, but roasted coffee gets stale even in a vacuum, or when stored with inert gas like nitrogen (although both help). Oddly enough, coffee can be "too fresh" - for the first day or two after roasting, it produces too much crema - just a lot of froth, really, while its de-gassing. It can still be used for Greek/Turkish/Ethiopian coffee, which is cooked in a little pot, but it's really no good for an espresso machine. If you put freshly roasted beans in a sealed container, it will inflate with the gasses which are escape from the beans - that's why there's a one-way valve in coffee bags. After a couple of days the beans hit their peak, and produce the right amount and colour of crema - the colour of dark chocolate, or striped like Tigers Eye gemstones. As the beans get older, the crema gets more pale and less in volume, no matter how carefully you make your espresso. This doesn't show up as much with other methods - espresso is brutal! I find by freezing freshly-roasted beans (within a day or two roasting), each newly-defrosted batch behaves like freshly roasted, even months later. However, they do seem to deteriorate quicker than never-frozen beans, so I keep only three or four days worth of beans in each bag. Once a bean is ground, it deteriorates in minutes, which is why serious baristas only grind for the coffee they are making at that moment. Pre-ground coffee is never okay in a real espresso machine, in part because very subtle variations in grind can make a huge difference to the quality of the shot. You can still get a reasonable cup from pre-ground coffee with an AeroPress, moka, plunger pot or drip filter. In fact, coffee shops that do tastings of coffees from around the world - like the Betty's chain in England - don't use espresso machines, they use plunger pots, and put a (lighter) cinnamon roast on their beans, so you can really taste the subtleties of the climates and farming methods used (the beans themselves are all Arabica...) Sorry, I do get caught up in this stuff...

I know those guys - and they certainly know their stuff. Wayne Oberholzer used to work there until he moved to Origin Coffee in the Cape. He won the national barista championships a couple of months ago. And it's true that coffee absorbs moisture easily - particularly if it's ground, which vastly increases the surface area on which condensation can form. But if you keep whole beans in the freezer, in zip-lock bags, and defrost slowly (wrap the bag in a tea-towel and leave for half a day before opening) the beans stay dry. There is at least one blind-tasting of frozen vs fresh beans on the net that showed there's no difference in taste - and I've been doing it for years with good results.

Freelance journalism, PR, editing. Coffee has been a passion since I tasted my first cappuccino more than 40 years ago. If I win the lottery, I'll open a coffee shop/roaster/training school... Anybody out there want to invest?

Thanks, DaLoCo. I routinely freeze the whole beans. They seem to keep indefinitely, and have that just-roasted quality when they are thawed and ground. I haven't had much joy with the fridge, though - are you talking about whole beans or ground? I do agree about the process being (nearly) as important as the coffee, but I think you and I may be in the minority

Splat and Wayne - I haven't frothed milk on the stove for a few years, since I got a machine with a proper steam wand. I do remember that full-cream was better than low-fat with the stove-top-and-beater approach, but I don't think I ever used long-life/UHT that way. With a steam wand it's different. UHT seems to work okay (at least it did, the one time I tried it) but, with fresh milk, the fresher the better. Colder is better, too - gives you more time to "stretch" the milk into micro-foam. It may be useful to differentiate between the micro-foam that we aim for with a steam wand, and what you will get from other methods. Micro-foam has bubbles that are too small to be seen with the naked eye, so the milk develops a satin-like sheen. Also, the old days of producing a cap of stiff foam floating on a sea of milk are long gone - we now aim for all of the milk to have a light, creamy consistency, that you can part with a spoon but which immediately "heals". To get this consistency, you'll often see a barista whacking his milk-jug on the counter top (settle down, boys!) to break up any remaining large bubbles - and then swirling the jug and/or pouring the milk from one jug to another to integrate the foam and milk. If you want to do latte art, you absolutely have to get your milk to the right consistency. The other advantage of a steam wand is that you can control the temperature of the milk, which you do by touching the side of the steaming jug - when it's too hot to touch, it's ready. Too-hot milk is can have a burned flavour, and is considered a fault - even though quite a lot of people complain if their cappuccino isn't scalding hot. But it's a bliksem to get micro-foam without a proper steam wand. In my experience, the best you can hope for is a fairly silky cap of foam on top of hot milk, but I must admit I haven't tried all the gadgets that are available...

Thanks for your kind words, WW - and to all the other guys who "liked" my post. Wow. The trick with moka pots/Bialetti is to always fill the basket to the brim, but don't tamp. Fill the lower tank (I prefer cold water, but some like it hot) up to the bottom of the little safety valve in the side. Put it on high heat - electric or gas - but take it off when it starts "singing", before the coffee starts dribbling out the top. If you've timed it perfectly, and your coffee is freshly roasted, you'll get a nice bit of crema at the end, with a gentle gurgle - not the roaring sound of riding through a hail storm. If you get the hail storm, your coffee will be burned. Which some people like. What comes out should be black and strong - too strong for most people, just like all good espresso - so add boiling water from your kettle to get the consistency you want. On no account put less coffee in the basket. That will give you over-extracted coffee, which is where too much water goes through the coffee, pulling out sour flavours you really don't want in the cup. Horse-p#ss, IOW. Remember, ALL espresso drinks start with a great shot of espresso, even if you drink cappuccino, lattes, americanos or whatever. If your moka is making too much espresso, get a smaller one. Most people buy the bigger models, and never get a good shot because they never use it as designed. Mokas are rated for 15ml single shots - so a four-cup model should produce 60ml of espresso, or two doubles (singles are for woozies). It's the most useful size, IMHO. Resist the temptation to get the cheaper aluminum models, unless you're looking forward to forgetting your own name, let alone how to spell "Alzheimers". As for coffee grind - espresso-grind is too fine for mokas - they build up too much pressure, which equals too much heat, which means bitter coffee. Grind as you would for a drip-filter. Grinding beans yourself is great, but I'd rather buy small quantities of pre-ground coffee (just enough for three or four days - anything more will go stale) than put beans through one of those mini-liquidizers. A last thought on milk - low-fat steams just as well as full-cream if you have a decent steam wand, and low-fat doesn't mask the coffee flavour like full-cream does. However, if you don't have a machine with a proper steam wand, try beating the milk with an electric beater or stick blender in a pot of near-boiling milk, and keep going for a while until the foam is really fine. For this, full-cream works better. If you are using full-cream, try using a fairly acid bean like Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, and darker roasts on your beans, both of which cut through the creaminess of the milk, even though people who drink their coffee black may find the espresso too "winey". Cheers!

Just found this thread... I've been a technical judge in the national barista competition for the past four years, have a ridiculously expensive espresso machine and commercial grinder at home, have visited coffee estates and roasters around the world, yadda yadda. If I had to choose between coffee and cycling, well, TG I don't have to. First thing to know is there's a fundamental difference between espresso-based drinks (cappuccino, americano etc) and other methods that expose the coffee to boiling water or steam (plunger pot, moka pot, drip filter, Greek/Turkish...). The whole point of espresso is that hot, but not boiling, water is forced through coffee grounds. This produces a measurably different flavour profile. Don't buy an espresso machine if you prefer the taste of the other methods. Whatever method you use, the biggest influence on taste is the freshness and roast of the bean. When the bean was roasted is much more important than where it came from (Ethiopia, Guatemala, Illy, House of Coffees...). Also, the quality of your grinder is absolutely critical - my "pro-sumer" machine was a huge disappointment until I bought a commercial grinder, but since then it's been equal to the best coffee-shop espresso. I know people who have, and love, super-automatic espresso machines (which is what the Juras, Saecos and Nespressos are) and that's cool. But if you're thinking of dropping your hard-earned cash on one, insist on a demo, taste the coffee/s, and then take yourself off to a good coffee shop (Woolies are a good reference point for reasons I'm happy to explain) and compare. If you're not happy with the demo, you should experiment with the AeroPress - already mentioned on the first page of this thread - and pre-ground, but freshly roasted coffee (a local roaster is best, failing which Woolies coffee shops will grind you some). It'll only cost you R350-ish, and you won't regret buying one - even if you get an espresso machine later - because you can chuck it in your suitcase when you travel. Google "AeroPress" and go through a few pages - it's really a minor revolution. It's also the cheapest way to force sub-boiling water through coffee grounds. The other thing you should do before you decide to sell a kidney to feed your espresso habit is buy a moka pot (e.g. Bialetti). Technically it isn't espresso, but who cares - it can taste great, if you get the grind right, always fill the basket (but don't tamp) and take it off the stove before it starts sputtering. This is how countless families in France and Italy get their morning and evening fix. But if you REALLY need espresso in your life, brace yourself for some serious spending, training and a lot of cleaning up. Or keep going to your favourite coffee shop. If there was a better way, believe me, we'd all be doing it.

I've just upgraded my light kit - bought a MagicShine MJ-872, which is (nominally) 1600 lumens for R1,400 with a six-cell battery pack which holds plenty of juice. Also paid a couple of hundred more for the MJ-818 tail light, which came with a Y-cable so it runs off the same battery pack. The MJ-872 is designed for off-road use, since it is more flood than spot, but it works pretty well on the road - in fact I usually use it at 50% or 70% power. I also have a LED Lenser H7 headlamp on my helmet, which gives a narrow beam for "looking around" - a good complement to the MJ-872. On the road the MJ-818 taillight is brilliant - at least as bright as the brake-lights on a car - I may still be killed by a car, but they will definitely see me first! There are lots of (mostly positive) reviews of the MagicShine range on the net, and there's a nice dismantling test here: http://www.light-test.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=103%3Amagicshine-mj870-mj872-cree-xp-g&catid=34%3Arowerowe&Itemid=55&lang=en. In your shoes I'd also look at Pyrolights (Hannes is a member here) which, AFAIK, are modified MagicShines - I think there's something to the argument that "warmer" light is better than the normally "cold" LEDs. See http://www.pyrolights.co.za/