Daxiet

Just to chime in on what appears to be general unhappiness. CWC has been phenomenal with their discount/sale products, quick and efficient service. No doubt the discount and sales will vanish with CycleLab taking over. Nothing against CycleLab, but they are not the best on price by any stretch. Cycling has just got a whole lot more expensive than it already is. Back to international shopping I go, with my weak rand. Very sad news indeed. Let's hope Evobikes fill the void, but CWC usually won on price.

At risk of repeating the fact that there is always a risk to buying second hand. So the decision to buy second hand comes down to risk vs. reward. The reward in this case is a far lower price tag, well should be, many times I see insane asking prices. Needless to say, it is the buyers responsibility to do their homework so as to avoid over paying. As for carbon frames, I have bought 3 carbon bikes second hand and 1 carbon frame. The one was purchased at high risk, sight unseen and my reward was a couple cracks in the rear stay (MTB). The price was worth the risk, so I got the cracks repaired, no further issues. The other was a road bike, I spotted a crack in the frames seat tube and walked away from the deal. The seller later called and asked for advice on what to do, I told him what the rough repair would cost based on past experience, he then dropped his price dramatically and asked if I would be interested. Note, this seller could have continued to try sell the bike to others, hiding the knowledge of a crack, but was honest enough not to. I took the bike and sent the frame in for repair, no issues since. The other carbon bikes/frame were 100% perfect. If your carbon repair has been done by a reputable repairer, you should be good. Decent repairers know what can be safely repaired and what can't, I am also sure these repairers would also like to ensure their reputations are not tarnished by repairs failing. Side note, decent repairs are very hard to spot, so you will bump into undisclosed repaired frames being sold. In all of the repairs I have had done or that I have seen, no full respray was done, the frames therefore look stock. So there is a risk, so make sure the price you pay balances out the risk.

Shopped local - Cycle Zone Rustenburg - pricing always very competitive.

After many years of avoiding the 1x movement and being an avid Shimano supporter. I took the delivery of the GX Eagle on Friday morning. Timing was perfect as my beloved 2x10 XT groupset was well aged. I have only taken the bike out for a single spin since fitting the new groupset, but my initial assessment is that I am very happy with the change. Comparing ratios to that of my trusty 2x10, the 34T matched with 10-50T does have fractionally less top and bottom end, but close enough for my liking.

Your total height makes for a nice compact ride on a Medium frame, your inseam means a slightly higher seat position on a Medium, but your short upper body in relation to inseam means that a large or typical 56cm frame will be a stretch. Too stretched for a stem change to resolve. Plus handling is impacted by shorter than ideal stems. Look at the frame geometry of each bike you are interested in, IMO top tube for your upper body should not exceed 560mm. That means S/M Merida, M Giant/Scott, M Spez.

I know this is a very old post, but in the event someone down the line poses a similar question, allow me to provide feedback on my Bryton Cardio 60. I have also owned 2 Edges, own a store that retails TomTom's and one Polar RCX3, just some background. I took the gamble with Bryton, looking for a true multisport watch, but not keen to pay the high premium for a Garmin. I got the Cardio 60 for R2750, so by far cheaper than the Garmin. Rough review of the Cardio 60: It is safe to say the finish is by no means up there with Garmin, TomTom or Polar, feels like what you would expect from a device located on Alibaba. Lap/OK button is not responsive in the water. Functionality is brilliant, it is a true Multisport watch, offering full Tri mode, swim (gps works in water), T1, bike, T2 and run. Picking up sats can be a bit slow and sometimes just doesn't pick them up for minutes. Brytonsports website is a shocking site, I have never been able to upload directly from the device, always have to save to disk then upload. Sometimes when editing an uploaded record, it fails to save the change. Reports available on the site, to be be blunt, are pretty uselss, not much value offered here. First watch got water in it on the swim leg of a triathlon, continued to work, but lines on the screen and misting took place (~6 months old). The watch was seamlessly replaced under warranty by BrytonSA, had a new watch in my hand within a week. So impressive support from the local importer. I gather the water entered due to the buttons. With the amount of force required to press the LAP/OK button, I suspect whatever is behind the button to keep water out gets cracked or torn. The old watch froze on me and could not be used until the battery drained. The new watch has done the same, so you can't rely on these devices. I have heard the same complaint about the Rider 40, so appears to be a Byrton party trick. All in all, I would not recommend Bryton, if you need a true Multisport watch go for the Garmin. TomTom's Multisport watch is not a true multisport watch in that it doesn't have a triathlon mode nor is the GPS enabled on an outdoor swim. One day the TomTom developers may cotton on and add this functionality to the software as the hardware is ready for it. I have endless issues with the RCX3, so Polar is off my shopping list. If I was just a cyclist or runner, I would go with the TomTom Cardio Multisport based on price and integrated HR monitor. Battery life however is far greater on the 910XT. The new Bryton Amis claims to have 14hr battery, but it is a Bryton and I wouldn't risk spending the money to only find it has the same quality/reliability issues as the Cardio 60. For cycling I use an Edge 510, no complaints, before that it was an Edge 705 - until that was taken during a bike jacking.

Ah, my favourite Team

Nice feedback on stage 1. It was a tough stage with some really good riding in the first 40kms, I however felt the haul from Brauhaus to Konka was possibly stretching to make it fit and in the end left a lot of riders frustrated. Stage 2 however was great, we repeated the same climb that we did at the end of Stage 1, but with only about 30kms on the legs, it was much easier. We then got to ride some good singletrack sections along the sides of the river. Upon leaving the river the riding included some rocky climbs and descents, all ride able. The balance however for Stage 2 was much better than Stage 1, there was time to regain your energy in between the tough sections. To give you an indication of how the stages differed. I completed stage 1 in 5:07:26 and stage 2 in 3:25:29. Stage stats: Stage 1: 80.5kms 1595m ascent Stage 2: 60.4kms 1106m ascent The extra kms in Stage 1 were attributed to land owner issues requiring last minute adjustments. It must be noted that this is a new event and as such teething issues are expected. Hopefully with the feedback the organisers have received they will look to making it a far greater success next year. As for the low numbers, I think that can be attributed to contention with other events in this area. Groot Marcio on the Saturday and NW Time Trial Champs on the Sunday. As Squier mentioned, marketing was also not great. All that said and done, many thanks to the organisers for all the effort and time involved in setting up this event. Looking forward to next year.

My second Tour Durban, first was in 2009, finally made it down to Durbs to give it a go again. Just as great a race as I recalled from 2009. Sad that the race doesn't get the turn out it deserves. Brilliantly organised and an entertaining route. If all goes to plan I will make the 700kms trip down again next year. Brought 3 riders with for their 1st Tour Durban and all 3 loved the event. Went off in AL and completed in 2:48:01.

When I was bike-jacked in 2011 a gun would have done me no favours. They planned their location well, 1 in front to block my only path of escape and 4 peeled around from the side and behind. That said, yesterday with the 2 air breathers trying to kill my wife and I by forcing us to swerve into traffic, well a gun would have done me a brief short lived favour, but I would be in jail now and not typing on this forum. Yes, it sickens me that we have to defend ourselves against the law in an otherwise lawless country if we take action against those trying to attack/kill us. It further sickens me that when you report these issues to the authorities little to no effort is put into preventing or bringing the perps to justice. It is this very reason that people get to the point where they want to carry a gun while cycling, knowing full well that no one will come to their rescue should they be attacked, not the police and not even those witnessing the attack. Bottom line we shouldn't be in a position where we cycle constantly thinking of how to subvert an attack, but I do every time I get on my bike. I personally won't carry a gun because I don't want our so called law coming after me when I do what they should be doing.

Just a word of caution when cycling past Hawston on the R43 (exiting Hermanus). We had gone out for a late afternoon ride, just after exiting the single track stretch next to the R43 we passed the entrance to Hawston, 2 youths approached the side of the road and as I went past the one charged shouting something, motioning as though he wanted to grab the bike. It was evident that his intent was for me to swerve into traffic and get taken out by cars coming up from behind. I lent into his direction and pedaled on past, my wife was a short way behind me, so I turned and sprinted back towards them just as they were lining up to charge at her. They made a charge at her and then noticed me coming and raced into a ditch next to the road and back onto a side road in Hawston. Luckily she managed to stay on the bike and not swerve out into traffic. She had an old BMW right on her tail, there would have been no room to fall or swerve. It was clear these air breathers had not intent to steal the bikes, it was purely a vindictive attempt to seriously injure or kill a cyclist. We reported the incident to a traffic cop parked outside Fisherhaven, he assured us he would go and look, needless to say he continued to recline in his evidently comfy car chair. Once we got back home we reported the incident to the Hermanus Police Station. They say this is the first incident they have had reported in the area in sometime. There were 3 of us riding at the time, my wife and I were about 500m behind the rider in front. He had gone past the area with no incident and was unaware of what transpired behind him.

I was in D at my first Amashova, a couple guys must have snuck off the front at some stage (1st 6 places), clearly they did a great job in breaking away and achieving a good result. Each batch is its own race (sort of a race of "equals or close to equals" thanks to seeding), one of the things I love about road racing is the cat and mouse games. On each turn the batch speeds up, on each climb the leaders keep the pace up trying to fracture the group, it's all part of the fun (active effort to drop the fat from the bunch). The leaders often do work together in a united effort to shake it up. Without the games it wouldn't be fun, just sitting in what would best be described as a bus until the finish line. Also think it is more risky when the bunches remain very large which is typical of flat races, so thinning them out is safer. All in all it remains a race, not just for the elite men, but for each batch. All that said I think what sort of messed up D batch's progress was us catching a large contingent of C batch that had been dropped as well as some riders from other earlier batches (collecting more as we progressed through the race). We seemed to lose drive because of this and sub 3 vanished from our grasp, don't think the wind is all to blame, just complacency set in.... I finished in 3:05:09, would have prefered a sub 3, but can't complain, I should have put in more effort at the front of the bunch to try achieve it like the 6 riders who finished ahead of us (3 of which achieved it, actually 4 if you consider we had close to 1 min added to our actual times). Great race, the profile is very deceptive, plenty climbing which was great, worth the trip down and I'll definitely do it again next year.

D batch on 06 RC3000 (aka The Iron Horse) and probably in 09 Hill2Hill cycle jersey (red/black).

Can't comment on the deviation between on device and uploaded value. The difference between your device and the race organisers can possibly be explained by a difference in barometric pressure. Even pilots have to calibrate their altimeters to the airfield they are approaching (QFE for the airfield). Barometric pressure varies based on air temp, weather and possibly a couple more factors, can change rapidly. I found with my ex Garmin Edge 705, that I would leave for a ride from my house at a particular altitude and return to my house which had suddenly dropped 50m's, sometimes even more than 50m (in as little as 1h30mins). All depends on the temp and weather changes during the ride. I also rarely matched up with race specs. So I would say depending on the weather and air temp changes during the race plotting and the weather and temp changes during you completing the race, such a variance is feasible added to that these are 2 different devices used by the race organiser and yourself.

I had the 08 MC40 - same rear shock. The bike was great, as you mention the shock has 3 modes of travel. I rode mainly in the 60% travel mode and for downhills switched to full travel, very rarely locked out, just felt odd going from travel mode to lock out. The shock I had was great, gave me no issues until I sent it in to Probike to be serviced. It never was the same, they seemed to not assemble it correctly and it came apart a couple hours after the service. Probike then replaced the shock with a new one. I don't see that you can replace the shock with any other off the shelf shock, this shock if I recall correctly is pulled as the suspension drops where as the common shocks out there are pushed in. All in all I loved the bike, but wanted something newer and lighter so I went to a hard tail. In hind sight I should have kept the bike and just upgraded the components, it was an awesome machine. By the way the Scott Aspect only has 2 modes on the rear shock, Full travel and Lock out it was the little brother to the Marathon Concept (MC) Series. In the long run however that bike you're looking at is very old, but for 4K it is ok.