LBKloppers

With the rains, comes grass. Lot of grass! Tall as a man, grass! Grass overgrowing the trails and hiding the hazards underneath. I've been a victim of such a hazard where a rather big loose rock was lying in the path where my pedal came down. One massive pedal strike, one massive adrenalin rush later, I am left with a broken clip on my right hand SPD pedal. What is amazing, I did not fall. Barely, but I did not fall. Well, something had to give and it did. The little spring loaded arch holding onto the cleat from behind, broke. Anyone else battling in the grass?

I have something like the Levitate and I think I bought from Takealot with one difference. There is a strap and a eye-bolt to hold the top of the bike in place. The strap can not damage the frame. The beauty of this thing, it doesn't matter if its a skinny road bike or a 27,5 Plus, they all fit. Mine is mounted nice and high so we can walk right past it without any interference from the bikes, and my garage is small. Mounting them high does mean I am the only one hanging the bikes or taking them down. My choice and I am happy with it.

I have a little saying I like to repeat more often these days. "Some people have money to buy cars, but they do not have money to buy brains". My attitude is one where it doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong. The bicycle will always come short. With that approach I don't shout and swear at fools. I cycle in a way to survive. About taxis. More than once I used them, by communicating with the driver, as a shield when crossing big dangerous intersections. About entitled Fortuners, how about those BMWs, and Audis. I recall an incident when it was extremely dry in the Cape. Calls for everyone to take care with cigarettes etc. to prevent fires were being made everywhere. Radio, newspapers, advertising, you name it. I came across this bloke in his topless Audi stuck in a traffic jam, carelessly throwing a cigi out of his car. A white car, white leathers inside and white clothes. Very entitled and very set on his image! I stopped, picked up his damn butt and threw it in his lap. He couldn't move and I enjoyed his rage while I continued on my merry way. The "I" has become too important in South Africa these days. It is not just cars trying to intimidate cyclists, it happens all over and in different ways, but almost always because the "I" has become too important.

This is a cycling health issue and I need advice from all those well-educated and experienced Hubbers out there. I am 57 and I have been cycling for eons. Through the years I have encountered some incidents that took me off the bike for a couple of weeks, and at the time I just bit the bullet and heal up all by myself. Medical aids and funds for treatment were just not available. Three serious events impacted my health. 1. There was an attempt on my life in Madagascar while out cycling, whereafter I had to start wearing glasses, and I was diagnosed with Osteo-Arthritis. 2. I broke my shoulder going OTB on the other side down Fangs1 during the Transbaviaans. 3. And I broke my collarbone going down while crossing the rails in the Cape Town Harbour. Several smaller crashes happened over the years and each time, it was just a case of HTFU and ride. Well, getting older, these things start to show up and it is slowly starting to threaten my cycling. Maybe it has become necessary to have a look at the more serious old injuries and I hope I can somewhat be mended. My question/s to the Hubbers out there, help me decide, please? When I am cycling, it feels as if the outside of my feet slope down. I ride with cleats since I can not remember anymore, and I had a fitting when I got my latest bike. Even when I try to focus on my technique while peddling, my feet wiggle and the inside of my left knee is bothersome, and it feels as if my left leg is weaker than the right. I experimented by putting a little washer as a spacer underneath the outside bolt holding the cleats and it did feel a little better, but then to top my knees (especially the left knee) started to complain. My left lower back also becomes so painful that I wish to stop riding. I used to cycle 5 to 6 times a week and it's already down to 3 to 4 times a week and my cycling is my therapy. What am I going to do!? Compounding the knee issue, I have a rather painful situation on the edge of my ribcage. This one is hard to describe. I can pinpoint the location of the pain, but there are no organs where the pain occurs. I was tested and screened for a whole bunch of stuff and there are no out-of-range indicators in my blood. When I am cycling, it is as if there is a muscle cramping at this one spot and it makes me breathing shallower with all the associated disadvantages, but the doctors I have seen can not tell me what it is and they can not help me to heal. The costs of hospitalization are just scary and to become a lab experiment is not my idea of a solution, but I do love my cycling and I do wish to continue doing so for many more years. Any recommendations will be welcome.

Titan Racing.

Dit is sulke hartseer nuus! Reinet, Die een pyn word nou vervang met 'n ander. Ek bid jou sterkte toe, want al leer 'n mens om aan te gaan met die lewe, kan 'n mens nooit vergeet nie. Ek persoonlik kan my nie indink hoe jy jou emosies en persoonlike pyn verwerk nie. Net God alleen kan jou daardie krag gee. En net soos soveel ander Hubbers al genoem het hoe Cois ons lewens beinvloed het, wil ek byvoeg. Jy Cois het familie geword. Al is jy miskien nie 'n groot fietsryer nie, jy weet waar om te kom vir hulp. Sterkte

On a more serious note. I worked in Tanzania for a long time and as such this was where I rode for 9 months of the year. There are no fancy cycling paths. No sir, you share the tracks with cattle, goats, motorbikes, pedestrians and thorns. Due to covid I was there for such a long stint that the bike's tires showed no more tread and frequent flats. So, when the opportunity presented for someone to bring in a new set of tires, it was grabbed with both hands. The friends brought the new tires over upon their arrival and I wasted no time changing them out. Those tires, both the front and the rear, looked like pin cushions turned inside out. The average thorns in the area where I rode were about 20mm in length and about 2mm at the base. The trees bearing these thorns is the favourite firewood for the locals and they drag branches for tonight's cooking from the tree to the home via the tracks we all shared. My friends said that I would have told them how bad it was, they would never have believed me. Seeing is believing I guess. And then there is the discussions about what slime/sludge is the best.... It doesn't matter. Just don't go without!

This is when I want to add 50 laughing my ass off emoticons. I just saw this in my mind and it cracks up. Everyone in the office thinks I am crazy.

Dude, I've riden in Africa for over ten years (South Africa is slowly starting to become dark too). Dark rural Africa! And when you fall (you will if you're a mountain biker) Lycra vaporizes, leaving very little to nothing for the imagination. Even riding with Lycra that's a little worn are way too revealing to the locals and you have to respect the locals! Baggies have kept me decent and I learned to enjoy my riding more than to pose. Baggies have pockets and it wears down much, much slower than Lycra. Baggies does have some extra drag, but you're a mountain biker FPS! And BTW, I am not worried what other people think. It more about respecting them, their place and their traditions.

The tree has been removed.

I went for a casual ride on Saturday, pushing just a little against myself, but mostly just trying to enjoy the outdoors. The greenery after the early rains is so....just lekker, but guys, you'll need to sharpen the track maintenance as it is going to become overgrown if you're not careful. An overgrown track does not go down well and negative news will spread like wildfire. Just check out the forum for the Meerendal trails. I do not consider Modderfontein a difficult place to ride. The slopes and technical bits are generally not too challenging, but there are definitely some spots one could consider dangerous enough to be marked. The trails going up the river and through the ruins especially has one or two spots that could cause injury. There are some places where one passes underneath something (trees or structures) are so low that when I am as flat as I can, still scrape through touching my Camelback. At some of these spots, it come upon you quite suddenly and for the unprepared, it could cause some serious head injury. Another place passing through a doorway where the passing width literary catch my handlebars both sides at the same time. That one is a stopper! On Saturday I had a crash in an area where there shouldn't have been any risk! No, I did not fall, I crashed into a tree hanging over the track. I just did not see it! In general I would not have any warning in this particular spot, but I did crash quite heavily into a tree hanging over the track. It is possible this tree fell over during the storm passing through the Friday evening. Again, this is a nice flowing zig-zag bit where any dangerous bits are not expected. Signs of the recent fires are still evident and the fires may have weakened the flora. The tree hung over the track with branches caught in a tree on the other side of the track leaving the one part of the tree inline with the visor of my helmet. I was gunning a little uphill and looking at my typical 6-10 meter ahead, going at about 22-25km/h when I hit the three head-on! I came to my senses lying on my back looking up into the sky. Luckily there were some other cyclists around (I don't know who you are but thanks guys) and they made sure I was okay and helped me to wash most of blood of my face. I rode back to the car feeling fine, but the thought of emergency procedures did come to mind. I do not think it fair to expect Modderfonein the have ready and cover all eventualities, but I do think the clients (walkers, runners and cyclist) do need to have some from of emergency arrangement ready. I didn’t and it could easily have been more serious.

I am not so sure the trees surrounding you is keeping you safe. We've always been told NOT to hide under trees during a lightning storm. It not that you're likely to be hit, but the proximity of the strike may have dire consequences.

I will smell

I once read somewhere that the safest way is to dismount and sit in a bundle with your feet together. I had to do that once in the Namaqualand as I was the tallest think for miles around. I am still here, so it must have worked. The thing is, I also read that it is not necessarily the tallest structure being hit. Lightning is an electrostatic thing. I don't think its easy to predict where the static discharge is likely to be.

Cycling is a passion for me. I am too old and too casual to try and win races, but I do ride more that most. Since the summer raining season appears to have started in Gauteng, I was wondering how my fellow Hubbers feel about cycling in the rain and especially when there is lightning? As much as I like cycling, I am dead afraid of lightning. It my phobia and I will definitely not ride when there is lightning around.

I am a heavy rider. That means I am hard on my hardtail. My Crests did not last 3 years, but the WTB KOM 30i are great. I had mine built by the Wheelbuilder. Solid man, solid

In South Africa of today, sadly, it appears there is enough money to buy cars, but the gray mater is still lacking. You don't have to be a cyclist to observe that.

I have had a rather expensive experience with these racks. Although the ball is rather tough, the tow bar and the way it is mounted on the vehicle has restrictions that a vehicle owner is not necessarily aware of. Any tow bar mounted on something like those Land Rover struts should be fine, but many are mounted somewhere down there where it is out of sight and out of mind. Do not be caught out! Remember having bikes at any offset from the ball is a lever. Your rack may be rated for 60Kgs but you drive along the roads going through the bumps and potholes, those bikes on the rack exert a force many times more than the rack's rating. And when you add the bike rack to towing a caravan or a trailer, that force and load adds to the strain a tow bar must bear. My tow bar broke of underneath the car on the road between Mariental and Windhoek. Long distances and a steady slow metal fatigue doing its thing. Just be careful.

No it does not. By the time the front mudguard catch debris, most of it has flown up past the down-tube and into your face. The geometry is wrong. It only catches the mud when it gets to the fork.

Guys and galls of the mountain biking fraternity It has been a while that I have been struggling with this dilemma and I wouldn’t mind an in depth discussion on the matter. At home in South Africa, I have a very nice Scott Spark 710 plus with 11/2 speed Shimano XT kit throughout. South Africans will know the type of terrain and weather we face throughout the year in the Swartland, but for the others, its mostly dry and rocky with a patch of sand thrown in every now and then. During the wet winter season it becomes damp(unless one ride while it is still raining), rocky, mud pools with a patch of sand every now and then. The bike came with a perfectly made and matched mudguard that bolts onto my Fox 34 and it does not prevent mud or dust collect on the stanchions! It looks nice, but that is all. At work in Tanzania, I ride a solid but heavy Titan Elite Plus with 10/2 speed SLX kit. In Tanzania there are 2 seasons. Dry and wet. When it is dry, it is DRY! you don’t have dust, you have powder and that powder gets in everywhere. When its wet on the other hand its mud everywhere! Black, tyre sucking clay that gets stuck on everything and it builds up until no riding is possible until excess mud is removed manually. I have tried several of those aftermarket plastic megafters to the fork. Again it fails to function as a mudguard. The stanchions get full of dust or mud, whatever the season and as far as I am concerned, these need to be kept clear of any grime. I even Mcgyver-ed. something similar into the seat post and chain stays to attempt keeping the grime of the chain and the crank, but I have to admit it does not work. Now I understand that as a market where costs could be recovered, South Africa is generally considered too small, but is the mountain biking lads and lasses in wet, soggy Europe or anywhere else where it is wet happy with this rubbish? I have noticed some more tyre hugging types of aftermarket guards on the overseas markets, but does it really work and will it stand the test of African conditions? I don’t know and I cannot comment on them simply because I have never seen a similar type on the market in South Africa. There is the matter of appearance. Some people just would not like a mudguard on the pride and joy simply because it could look ugly (feel free to add your own dislike), but then it will be a choice. I am after something functional. I do not have a LBS around the corner to take my bike for repairs. I have to carry what I want in my luggage through airports and checkpoints AND if a season like 2020 and C19 occurs, I am busted for spares. Reliability and endurance of my kit is of utmost importance. Therefore if I can install anything to extend the rate by which my gear wear down, I will be in a happy place. Am I alone?

Is "saalpaal" dalk 'n bietjie gevaarlik?

After a trauma experience, I all of a sudden needed glasses and due to the nature of both my job and my mountain biking. I absolutely hate wearing glasses! However, I opted from the beginning to use multi-focal as taking the glasses off for when it is not needed, store them somewhere and replacing it when needed was not a burden I was prepared for. This was 10 years ago and I started with Adidas. Worked well enough, but at the time it was damn expensive. When the lenses were due for replacement, I was told that they can not make the lenses on their own. That was a bit disappointing, but life goes on. I have since gotten a Nike frame which was very durable and now I am on something I can not even read the name off. I sweat a lot while cycling and it fouls my view every ride requiring a deep clean with light soapy water after each ride. It is another pet hate of me, but I also hate the streakyness left behind if it is not washed. Therefore I use glasses with an open frame on the bottom. It makes washing and drying easier. I have only a blue filter (for working on the PC long hours) on my glasses as I found the photocromatic filters can be a bother in some situations.Funny enough, I think the most expensive part of my glasses has always been the price of the lenses. The cheapest I managed to find was around R3500/lens. I wear glasses while cycling for two reasons. First there is the "keep the crap out of my eyes" reason ( I ride mostly in deep Africa and the crap can be anything from dust, gravel, and insects to cow dung) and the second reason is that I am vain enough to have a Garmin mounted on the handlebars and I would like to see from time to time what is happening with my effort. Having to use glasses at any time is a pain in the @ss for me, but since my eyes only need the glasses for close-up reading, opting for the operation is not on the table. Glasses it is then :-(

I am with you on this one. I have a forerunner 45 and its a nice piece of kit recording almost the whole day and night, but it has its drawbacks with regard to cycling. If one want to peek at speed/heart rate or anything in particular that is possible with the watch, you have to take extreme care. As a mountain biker, opportunities to read is not always possible at the time you want to read. Rattling down a slope or negotiating a muddy trail requires one to focus on your line and getting the angle to read on the wrist is just looking for pain. If on the other hand you had a Edge, just like a car a quick glance down and you're sorted. I recently started a training program from Garmin and it requires me to ride at certain HRs for certain durations. It is just not working well enough with the Forerunner. Struggling up a loose slope trying to maintain a level 4 HR zone is near impossible with the forerunner. My Edge is old school and all the new data fields are not available, but I can clearly see how the Edge would trump the forerunner if I follow a program like this on my bike. My problem is I have the Edge 500 and it is still working fine. I have the Forerunner and it too is working fine in all other areas and to have these small upgrades does not justify the expense for a new Edge. One thing though. Although there are many opinions about the accuracy of the heart rate monitoring differences between the wrist based watch and the chest strap for the Edge, for me, the strap is a problem and one of my more important measurements I look at is the heart rate. I do not need it to be as accurate as a monitor in a hospital and I did my own comparisons. It is more than good enough for me to easily see where my condition and exhaustion level is with a couple of percent error either way, but that strap....it is not working for me.

Postcard beautiful!

Jehosefat, I am not a teacher or even a writer of sorts, but I'll try. Imagine a tennis ball covered in soap bubbles of the same size, but they do not deform like real bubbles. They each must have a nice round sphere. These spheres will overlap each other. Lets say the bubbles are 32 in number just like the GPS number of satellites above our heads. If you can picture this, you're halfway there. You may now position yourself anywhere on the tennis ball and at any elevation within this sphere of bubbles and you will intersect different bubbles at different angles and distances and because at at specific time there are about 11 satellites over our heads, there are way more than the minimum 3 to determine your x, y and z axis's. If you have ever seen how the old school method to develop topographical maps from aerial photos by just using a couple of lenses looking at one point but at different angles, you might start to get the idea. Its just now done on the fly using electromagnetic radiation and calculated by electronics, but it boils down to the same thing. Remember GPS satellites are not geostationary and the receiver of the GPS signal need to use the relativity theory to calculate approaching or departure speeds. Some satellites visible to your device are at relative angles from you due to the curvature of the earth. It takes quite a bit of calculation and one of the reasons a GPS device uses so much more battery power than a normal watch would do. Also remember the entire discussion started with the need to have a barometric measurement on your GPS devise. If you're a pilot you get the actual local barometric readings from the local weatherman. That allows the pilot to make the adjustment to his instruments (correct me if I am wrong, but the pilot does not make this adjustment to the GPS) in order for the instrument to display correctly. As the pilot flies to his new destination, he will get the updates as necessary. A cyclist does not have that. The weather can change in the time since he started on his ride. There in no way the device can know or measure that the reference barometric pressure has changed and on the cycling device, the cyclist do not have the ability the determine nor adjust for the changes as it happens. You also keep asking about cruise missiles. If what you're saying is true (the necessity of maps), then the USA need to have very detailed geographic maps of the whole earth. It my be 2020, but I can guarantee that is not the case. There are a number of tools they use to guide those missiles to its destination. Star positioning, gyroscopic compasses, Radar in various forms and frequencies, Laser in looking forward, looking down, weather and even some remote adjustments from the launch controllers on the fly. Often there will be team who can light up a target using portable lasers or if that is not possible they do that with military satellites. Many options and all of those contributing to the costs to develop and run these machines. Not many countries can afford that and its my guess that the exclusivity of the entire package lead to the global availability of GPS in limited accuracy, because GPS on its own is not enough to do the kind of harm a country like the US fears.