4barlinkage

We make full stainless racks that secure the wheel only. These are ball mount or hitch receiver style. Also modular so you can add up to 3 racks. Adjustable from 26" to 29+. Also works with road bikes. Looking at roughly R7,5-8k for the single bike.

What's all this moaning about a little bit of rain.....? Rain = mud = more slippery trails = more odds of falling = higher heart rate = increased health benefits.... It's a no brainer! It even sharpens up your technical skills and has beauty benefits if you are that way inclined...

For pain on the outside - It may be that there is too much backsweep. Could also be conditioning. Is your saddle height versus bar height the same as your previous bike? A lower bar will put more weight on your hands. Is your reach(distance from saddle to bar) the same? - also alters how much weight is on your arms/wrists. You mentioned that you had bar-ends too. The continuous movement of the hands from bar-ends to grips, etc does aid circulation and alleviates discomfort. Even without bar-ends, I find myself moving my hands around the bar(on top of brake levers, grips, ends of bar). It could also come down to the angle of your brake levers in regards to how your arms angle is as it contacts the grips( check from the side in a mirror - It should be a continuous line). The angles are pretty standard on most modern flat and riser bars as you noted. Gravity orientated bars tend to have more backsweep due to there width(710mm +). Try loosening the stem clamp enough to rotate the bar in the stem. hold the bar without placing fingers on the brakes. Rotate it forward or backwards until you feel even pressure across your palm. Then adjust your brake levers to the same angle as your arm as above mentioned. Should give you a good starting point. Hope this helps.

Can't remember the last time I sold a traditional drop bar or Ergo bar....Compact road bars(shorter reach and drop) are a great combination... Never seen a geniune flat bar... 0deg upsweep and backsweep Not sure how the width of a bar affects the rake and trail of the bike... That is normally a fork offset(standard offsets from 26er forks were carried over to 29er forks before real time testing was done. Now there are forks made specifically to cater for the 29er market) and head angle problem(head angles are steeper on 29ers to make them steer faster). A wider bar will generally slow down your steering, improve high speed stability and put you in a better attack position. Your shoulder width determines how wide you should go. A shorter stem can also speed up steering, but make technical, steep climbing more challenging. There is an ideal combination depending on the type of riding you do. A wider genuine flat bar with 0deg backsweep and upsweep will make your wrist angle inwards and cause pain in the wrists and hands. Hence the backsweep to put the bar in a more natural position. Too wide will cause discomfort between the shoulder blades. Agree with the "ride what works for you" attitude though It's all preference.

Backsweep puts the bar in a more natural position in your hands. If you hold your hands in front of you and look at your palms, the bar should rest in the nook of your thumb/index finger and line up halfway between your pinky and wrist for maximum control and comfort. By rotating the bar slightly up or down, you can slightly alter the way the bar fits in your hand. As your bar gets wider, you will also need more backsweep(this is if you have a wide bar given your shoulder width). The upsweep also plays a significant role in how the bar feels in your hands. So your hurting hands could be a number of things... Most bars are 8-10 degrees back and 4 degrees up depending on bar width. Is the pain through the entire hand? outside of hand? or inside of the hand?

You start by making it to the parking lot. Then to Delta. Then Barry Hedgehog road... etc... Small steps . All the puking and hard riding will have you mean and lean in no time .

Why don't we start at 6pm and do a "ride till you puke" ride? The slightly cooler conditions at 6pm will be nicer to ride hard in. That means guys will hang in there until about Emmerentia before crumbling into sorry heaps... Maximum output = maximum return . Should also mean you can get home early

Now that is a proper MTB event in every sense of the word!!! Nice one guys!!!!

All the bikes will be manufactured in Taiwan. All the geometry and design is done on our side. Prototypes are manufactured, tested and then revised. Then we do it all over again until we get it right. Manufacturing locally is too expensive and laborious. Even Morewoods parts are not all manufactured locally (Bikes are welded/assembled locally). The All-mountain bike will be Alu. Dual-sus. CX bike will be steel 650B HT will be Ti

These greases are hard to find locally. The only one I know of that you will find locally is the Manitou Prep M suspension grease. It has a light texture, doesn't attract masses of dirt and doesn't gunge up. So yes, I would suggest using the proper stuff.

I don't want to give out to many details on the bikes yet, but post a question or two and I will give some answers. We have a website (www.contrabandbikes.co.za), but it has not been updated as yet. We will be updating the site shortly with more details on the new models and brand philosophy. To give you the genres of bike we are looking at: Trail hardtail, Race hardtail, Trail/all-mountain and road/CX frames. We will more likely than not be offering 2 grades of build kit on each model.

I would suggest you look for a bike more suited to DH if that is what you are looking at doing. The Genius that you have will have a head angle too steep and top-tube too long for DH. Also not sure how well the bike will hold up to the rigors of DH mtbing. For gravity riding, I'd suggest a bike with a minimum of 160mm of travel.

the single with the blue rims? - That is a second generation prototype of our Contraband bikes hardtail. It is designed to run both 650B or 29er wheelsizes and is able to use forks from 100-140mm of travel. It is SS and gear compatible using an eccentric BB. It has a Reynolds 853 main triangle and cromo stays. The bike is designed primarily as a trail hardtail and has been fantastic so far. I even raced that one at the SSWC to 9th. We are finalizing the last geometry tweaks for production now. Expect framesets in the market early next year. We are working on 3 new models which we will get out during the course of next year. Expect them to be different.... But in a good way.

All Whyte carbon bikes have a 114kg weight limit. I would still not recommend carbon bikes to guys in the 90kg+ They put a bit of extra wear and tear on things... That's regardless of brand. It's less important though if you are not the type to jump or ride aggressively. I do have guys 85kg+ riding them though...

Was there on Sunday afternoon. That was a Whyte E-120 XT that belongs to Eric from Van Gaalens. Third bike from left. 120mm trail bike. http://sphotos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/389861_10151065680008583_1475509370_n.jpg

It's a large. Whyte only make them in 3 sizes. So there is a bit of overlap in the size curve. A bit more of a compact frame. I am 184cm tall to give you an idea of size.

Here is my rig. Whyte 146-X frameset built up with some delicious goodies. Rockshox Sektor RLT - upgraded with the Revelation World Cup damper KS Dropzone height adjustable seatpost - Soon to be LEV Once off Hope straight pull hubs in green with loaded USA rims Once off Hope green stem 70mm Hope Race EVO M4 brakeset (FR-203mm / Rr - 183mm) FSA Gravity Light CSI flat bar 740mm SDG Aliso Saddle FSA Afterburner 2x10 BB30 crankset Truvativ 2X chainguide Shimano XTR shifters Shimano SLX shadow plus rear mech XT drivetrain parts XT pedals http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/527572_10151091541948583_1484258087_n.jpg

Any 8,9 or 10 speed chainring should work fine. A dedicated 1X8/9/10 chainring will give better wear and last longer though... http://www.hopetech.com/webtop/modules/_repository/images/HOPEChainRing.jpg

That should be complete hogwash! How does your age effect the wheel size of the bike you ride? You should ride the wheel size more appropriate for your height and riding conditions. Rather restrict gearing if that will prevent damage to emerging riders. Even then, XCO generally rerquires higher cadence pedaling, so what limiting gear choice will do is beyond me.... Whoever pushes that rule through has very little/if any knowledge of cycling. Rant over.

Keep your eye on the headtube junction ... That frame is not designed for that much travel..... Most frames give you a 20mm lee-way in either direction. Just a heads up...

For a trail bike I would run between 685mm-720mm(Small - large rider). Wider than 720mm on some of the JHB trails means you need pin point accuracy on some of the tight stuff. Wider bars slow your steering, so I would also recommend going to a shorter stem to speed it up. Not to mention the wider bars will also pull you forward on the bike as you stretch further forward. Wider bars make more sense in gravity riding where you require more stability at speed (Hold your line better and allow you to muscle the bike a bit more easily). My personal preference on a trail bike would be 720mm wide with a 70mm stem (I'm 183cm tall). The 70mm stem is great because it still keeps enough weight on the front of the bike that it doesn't sacrifice climbing ability that a shorter stem would. If you ride a small or medium frame, a 50mm-60mm stem would be a good bet. Good way to check you aren't too far back is: While seated in your normal position on the bike, look at the front of your stem (where the bar is clamped) and then past it to the front hub. For a trail bike, I suggest the hub either line up with or sit just forward of the handlebar. Too wide a bar will leave you with a sore middle back if you aren't up off the saddle enough. Plus you aren't in a particularly aero position if you plan to ride longer open trails. My two cents

Correct, deraileur too high. Set it that either the inner plate just clears (2-3mm gap) the middle ring as you shift to the big ring. If it catches the big ring like this, then set it so that the outer plate clears the big ring by 2-3mm when you shift into the big ring.

Kind of like predicting the end of the world.... Or saying mountainbiking was a fad about 10 years ago.... Or saying that 29ers will never catch on..... Or 650B is just another marketing hype to sell bikes.... I apologize for attacking a poor old Dangle..... Age is showing how anti-change he is..... Little senile maybe.... Who knows? Thanks to Slick again You say I'm rich?.... Ha ha, what do you know.... Been working since I was 15 and have worked hard for everything I own. I choose to buy bike parts instead of going out and partying/drinking every night like people my age do (Not that they all do...). I do own more than one bike... All built up piece-by-piece over time. Guess being in the bike industry for almost 10 years helps here I suggest wider bars for your bike Dangle. Will give you a little more leverage on the single-speed. Also helps on rough downhills. May need to shorten the stem a bit if it's one of those 100mm+ jobs though... Rub-a-dub-dub , Dangle in a tub...

The cassette will wobble/appear to wobble slightly on most freebodies. Shimano freebodies tend to have a larger degree of wobble and when they become badly worn, they can cause shifting problems (We talking about alot of riding here). The other wobble you may be picking up may is the profiling of the teeth on the cassette (They are cut like this to aid shifting). If everything is aligned properly, then run through your indexing on a stand and check there is no skipping or excessive noise on each gear you shift to. If all is good, the next step is to ride the bike in different gears under high load (beware endagering your testes on the top-tube when doing this). Cassettes tend to wear out fastest in the middle as you spend most of your time there. Put the chain in about 5-6 gear and test - If it slips under load with pressure, then the cassette is toast... . To double check this, you can put the bike into (28t-34t) gear or (11t-13t) and try again - If it doesn't slip, then it's definitely the cassette as the new chain willl mesh properly with the less worn sprockets.... Hope this helps.

A mountainbiker with many choices of bikes to ride in the places the suspension design best suites..... What you ride Dangle?