LazyTrailRider

The 80s called, they want their styling back 😬

Rode up the spruced-up Fairy Garden BMX track (just kidding, it's great 😆) yesterday morning. Good work, thanks guys! Special appreciation for fixing that sharp rock that has for years wanted to eat the left of your rear wheel as you sneak past it coming out of that left-hander. IYKYK.

I raced a provincial DH against Matt Kimble in 1992, the guy made me look like I was standing still.

While we're on the topic of initial price, let's have a quick chat about depreciation. My 2023 battery-powered machine cost me just under R200k in total, and it has seen 1560km of riding since then (my gravel/road bike does more). Conservatively, it's cost me R64/km in depreciation alone. This means that an average 17km spin in Tokai costs me R1000 so far. Every time. You know what? It's utterly ridiculous, but I don't care because this $%^ is what I live for 😄

Do you store your cash in a savings account, where it earns less interest than CPI? Bonds are where plenty of people with lots of money stash their cash. There is no such thing as money without opportunity cost, it always either earns a return, or it does not. If you're taking cash out of an investment portfolio, you're giving up the return it could have earned there. If you're taking it out of a bond, you're giving up the interest savings (on an appreciating asset in most cases) it could have earned there. Your original statement looking down on someone drawing cash from a bond means that technically, the only people who genuinely can afford toys like bicyles used for sport are those with zero debt and annuity income from investments with zero replenishment of capital required. Basically, people who have enough money that they don't need to work and can live off interest.

Yup, in the same boat mostly at 47, so I get tons of satisfaction when I do manage to improve!

It's quite amusing to watch people get onto their high horses with "I only use my activity data for the noble purpose of my own training, people who care about what others are doing are vain". Strava literally exists for you to be able to compare yourself to others, that is 95% of its selling proposition. I pay the R599/year because I want to see how my segment times compare to others every time I ride. Most importantly, I freely admit this. There is no point in pretending that I'm better than everyone else and I don't care about others. We ALL care about how we compare to others, if you don't, you're lying to yourself.

More than 25 years. I met Meurant in 1997 when he convinced me to help him and Jack with the Botmaskop DH build. He was already a legend back then, like he was for the 28 years following that. RIP Meurant and JP.

For R2.5k, you can even look at the new Specialized Recon 1.0. But, like others have said, shoes are like saddles: what works for one person does not for another, so try them on.

Wait till you see the stats. On a Saturday morning in the peninsula, my Varia records being passed by an average of 200 vehicles per hour…

I’ve just changed to Transmission from Eagle and I’m going to change from 32T to 34T to spread the load more on my expensive new T—Type cassette. The GX that has just come off has around 1400km on it and still in very good nick (700km on a GX chain, 700km until now on a XX1, which is still perfect), but it’s very obvious that the larger 40% of the cassette saw very little use, which is not ideal.

Thanks for reminding me 🤪

There are some outliers in the market, I've sold several bikes I've had for 60% after 2 years, 70% after a year, but 1) those have been machines that have seen only a few hundred kilometres of use and 2) I don't treat my bikes like most people do, minor scuffs and scratches aren't "normal wear and tear" for me unless it's on a bike that I'm riding properly hard.

They had me at Pazzaz.

Also, the advertised price includes the dealer's costs and profit to finance and keep something worth several hundred K on a shiny floor for a month or three, keep it clean, advertise it, and pay people to show it to interested buyers, spend hours helping them with their paperwork, etc etc.