MISA

On my way to work this morning I came across two lads cycling ever so nicely along old main road in Botha's hill in the direction of Drummond. This is all well and fine on a Saturday morning when traffic is at its least, but to do this in peak hour on single lane roads with countless mentally retarded taxi drivers and KZN buses aiming for their destinations is pure stupidity if you ask me, not to mention these two hero's weren't hugging the kerbside when I suddenly found them on a blind corner on a bridge half in the roadway.... if I hadn't have been there I am damn sure the KZN bus behind me would have flattened both, I luckily drive slowly along this stretch as I have witnessed too many incidents of a nasty nature. I fought the temptation to verbally abuse them when it was eventually safe for all off us to pass each other as it was clear they were not of sound & sober senses. What scared me the most was: one was a roadie and the other a MTB'er... AND they were riding together? Here with a top class pic of the above mentioned chaps in action as they past my office: Any body know them perhaps?

As per ctMTBer says above, yet at the discretion of the officer he can deem a vehicle to be be travelling too slowly if it begins to obstruct the free flow of traffic, it is also dependent on the number of lanes etc.... National routes usually have more than one lane and a posted max speed limit of 120 unless otherwise regulated by a sign stating a lower MAX speed limit for that section of the route. from what I remember I am pretty sure there was a minimum of 60kph on national routes but I stand under correction as things may have changed since I left the force.

from what I can remember of the RTA whilst I was still a porker many moons ago... "No driver of a motor vehicle shall willfully and or intentionally inhibit/ hinder or obstruct the free flow of traffic ..." thus by having an escort vehicle driving at what ever speed behind a group of cyclists will be deemed to be obstructing the free flow of traffic.. a cyclist riding along public road is not deemed to be an obstruction funnily enough... unless of course he too purposely rides in such a way to cause traffic to slow or be obstructed.. Edit: No bicycle or pedestrians are supposed to be within the confines of the roadway on a National route either...

I saw the tweet via @pigspotkzn posted by @doa121 on 24th Nov at 07;35 As it was posted: by @doa121 "Kwadakuza metro F.... YOU. You stop and ticket a group of cyclists with lights, helmets. But mostly african people cycling or walking to work from the informal settlement on the N2 are ignored. you are racists. In the new SA, there is no space for you F off." Sounds to me like someone dropped an ovary when someone got more than they bargained for on their ride?

I have said it before and I will say it again, flame me if you wish, I care not... The current government somehow benefits from the spiraling crime rate, why else will they not put an end to it or at least place some form of priority to curb it? simple they scoring from it! hatred is what causes a "person" to stab another 25 times, by any other name its racialism, you know it and I know it... but we just wont say it!

From what I can see, that looks either to be a juvenile mole snake, or cape cobra in speckled phase was this pic taken by any chance down EC or Cape town way? Naja mozambica (mfezi) or Mozambique spitter's are usually a dark redish brown colour with salmon coloured belly with bars across the chest area.. Poor snake,

Its all depends on how brave you feeling? A trick I learn in the days of conscription was to use a hypodermic needle to suck out the "plasma" and then to pump in some clean methylated spirits, it burns a bit but the underlying tissue is hardened by the meths so when the blister cap comes off the skin underneath is not sensitive.

Eish , if its the same place I think it is, I know the owner, will have a chat to him and see if he owns a shot gun or not... from what I hear he has subdivided his property and is selling the unused section.

Good to see more Hillcrest peeps, welcome! when you say open land which area or part of Hillcrest/ Waterfall are we talking? curious, as there isn.t too much vacant left in the area,

Source: http://www.ecr.co.za...from-KZN-pupils Pupils from Durban who have been preparing for the 2012 Schools Adventure Race have been targeted by criminals just days before the event. Thieves stole 17 mountain bikes belonging to children from Hillcrest and Kloof High Schools, as well as two from pupils from East London. The bikes and other stolen gear and supplies are estimated to be worth tens of thousands of rands. They were taken from the children's trailers at a camp site north of Pretoria last night. Margaret Mitchell, a teacher from the Eastern Cape, says they're trying to help the pupils whose bikes were stolen. The race gets underway on Saturday at Mountain Sanctuary Park near Pretoria. "There are three schools here - this is just a pre-race venue. We woke up in the morning with the chairperson coming to us and saying that the bicycles had been stolen. All the children are upset because obviously their bicycles are personalised for themselves. "With the help of Gauteng schools here, we're trying to get [other] bicycles."

Greetings, Am curious as to how or why you got to your chosen size of ride, be it 20, 24, or 26" besides the obvious diffs between the sizes is there a particular reason for your choice of ride? For interest sake Is there anyone who has ridden all three sizes and can give a comparison between the three? ~MISA~

Nice! I bought the Onza bird Tarty has on special, as its a fairly cheap entry level bike that I can learn on and won't feel too bad when I kill it, once I have my skills dialed in then I will get myself a "better" bike... have heard/ read the 20" are more forgiving in the learning stages. Remember the customs and vat etc are relative to the value of the bike, so your machine might incur a bigger cost than mine did... if you can, try get the wheels etc sent in part form and build them here, full bikes tend to incur greater costs, just a thought.... seems silly we pay highly for something we cannot get here in SA, the high costs are supposed to put people off importing goods instead of buying local, a bike is a bike to these peeps irrespective if its a unicycle or a drift trike... it's got wheels thus is falls into the bike category vat/ customs bracket.

greetings, I just bought in a 20" Onza from tarty last week , yes, you pay when it gets to customs here in SA, I cant give you the exact % or what ever but all in all I coughed an extra R1400 for customs, vat, Fedex's clearing fees etc over an above the bike. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. (I have heard some shipments slip under the radar but i wouldn't count on it) The guys at Tarty are brilliant, in fact the whole deal from start to finish was smooth and took 5 days, I ordered Monday morning, and bike was in Durbs on Friday morning. The biggest problem is learning to ride the thing, ~MISA~

Ta for the replies, I have the above moongoose already in my stable, so not looking to buy another of the same but different if that makes sense, in other news.. my "parcel" from tarty landed at OR tambo last night.... now for the long wait for it to arrive in dirtbin so I can collect it....

Hey what can I say I learnt from the best, I grew up (got older.. not neccesarily grew up) with the likes of the above, Monty Python, Benny Hill and some other prize nutcases...

There was a brief insert on a "younger" Greg on supercycling last night, they did mention the upcoming PMB World champs briefly.. Did anyone see that nasty machine he is/ will be riding.. made by one of the motorbike manufacturers.. I just saw the tail end of it...

was it nerves? I saw one of the gents also took a dive on the third corner, the commentators werent very supportive about it either and made me spill my beer with their comments on how "he at least made it safely out the start gate"

Desperation is an evil thing... I am safe on this cruddy chair as no matter how I try I can not get it to hop on one wheel, nor can I do a rolling stoppy to attract the attention of the receptionist. I have tried adjusting the ride height to lower the center of gravity to avoid the fatal nut jam under the arm rest disaster so typical of a slow speed roll over. I have polished the back rest lever and put new oil into the hydraulic lift reservoir to help gain some top end speed when tackling the four flights of stairs down to the basement to impress the tea lady. I have carried this damn chair up to the canteen and attempted to hop my way onto the serving tray counter only to be given a written warning for destroying the "meal of the day " arrangement so lovingly put together by the old bearded hag that I am damn sure drools in our food. I have asked fellow workers to push me at speed towards a step in a sad attempt to do the worlds first front summie on an office chair, that... I am afraid ended badly with three broken teeth, one dislocated coccyx and 2 sprained toe nails, none of them my own luckily! So here I still sit on this office chair when I would far rather be outdoors scraping the skin off my shins and or helping doctors make their new car installments by testing the gravitational pull of the planet when things don't go as planned. Now for the "do your part for society" part of this post, the whole point of this exercise... I need you, your better half, your squeeze, your parents, your kids, your work mates, your work enemies, your cycling mates,your neighbors and your neighbor's neighbors to please ask around to try and find little old me a TRIALS specific bicycle that is for sale here in SA... I need to get my demented lame office bound backside off this faulty chair and onto a trials bike ASAP. I am sure I don't need to go down the "nutcase" explanation route now do I? Best wishes and a happy new Wednesday to ya all, may you all be blessed with many children and thousands of miles of safe cycling! ~MISA~ PS: for the short sighted and dyslexic types please note its a TRIALS bike not a trails bike.

I have scoured the net, this site and just about everywhere else trying to find a trials bike, short of selling grandma into slavery to raise the tin needed to import a trials specific bike from the UK I am outa options, thus I struck upon the idea of perhaps doing one conversion and all to the bike above, us "deben people" are sharp at converting things....

That would have been the 1st option patches, but according to the 2nd comment on that exact thread, that bike is sold...

What would you do to turn this ugly duckling into a semi reasonable "trials bike" ?

Sorry to raise an old post, has there been any developments on the above matter of trials bikes being available in SA?