Daxiet

Very true! I think a saddle without cut away would also be a must .

Not cut and dried. I changed from DS to HT, I am very happy with the change, can quite comfortably handle 100km rides on the HT not feeling any worse than I did on my DS. The catch is to the weight penalty of a DS, to get one as light as you can get a HT for lets's say 25K you'll be paying maybe ~15K more on the DS. That said I found my DS much more fun on technical/rough descents, plus more forgiving on bumpy terrain. HT can jump around a bit and loose traction so I found on the back end of the Sun City course this weekend. Plus never got a single pinch flat on my DS, 2nd race with my HT and got to experience one. All this said, the HT suites me and I have no regrets.

Look at the new 2010 range of Merida, price good and some very well spec'd bikes. One really good deal is the 2010 Matts 80 but its @ R9000 (if you can negotiate) That said, it might be safer to pickup a 2nd hand one and see how it goes before expending too much on what might not stick.

Thanks guys, good news is tomorrow morning the results will reflect correctly. I think in all honesty the results are very skewed, the only draw back to an otherwise great race this year.

The results are finally out and after some hard work and a sprint I knew I had come 1st in my batch, personal achievement (All be it in C Batch). However this morning I see some really cool results and would like to make special mention of 3 guys that to put it bluntly cheated and still chose to cross the finishing mats for an official time: Van Niekerk, Christo De Pinho, Tony Coetzee, Andre Unfortunetly the other guys chip is not linked to a name. All these guys have terrible times in previous races, but according to the results did a brilliant job all by themselves. Why do people still do this, is it a quick way to boost your seeding, furthemore why didn't Racetec have mats on the 103km loop to verify riders completed the full course. On the final 15kms to the finish we passed a number of C and D batch riders who had obviously opted for the 70km route. I was in the front 6 of C-batch all the way to the finish, I ensured no one snuck away only to find these chops had cheated.

Probably going to have a lot of people saying you are evil to cross the white line. Truth be told in a huge bunch it is often unavoidable to cross into the other lane as long as you don't do it as a force of habit, I see no problem. Road Bella Bella and was part of a huge bunch VB (dropped off VA and joined up with VB). These guys spent plenty time in the other lane, mainly because the bunch was massive. Today I tried to stick as close to the left as possible, I was at the front of my batch and for the most part we could stay in single file occasionally 2 by 2. Anyway you seemed to encounter a classic "Klas Kaptein" mentality individual. They do tend to detract from your race, best ignore it and put it behind you.

Replace like with like, if you want to save a couple cents go with HG73 chain. If you really need to save more cash, then SLX cassette. But if you can stick with a good XT package. I wouldn't be tempted to cross to the SRAM world.

I also avg. ~2000kms, not yet certain if that was good or bad, felt bad when budgeting. Will see how my Rocket Ron's hold out.

Buy them now while they still there! I have been to 4 Sportmans in JHB/Pretoria area and they say they don't keep the accessories, but they can order them. Many cycle shops don't even know what a GSC10 is. In all honesty that must say something about the demand for Garmin accessories. GSC10's break left right and center, so they should be a common spare, but they're not.

Got to say I have learnt there are no shortcuts in fitness. Interval traning has its place and if you want to be the complete package I feel it is a must. However a cyclist who doesn't put in the hard yards will not make a mark in normal races. That said by normal I mean: 90km+ road races and 50km+ MTB races. Sure you will struggle to find pro cyclists who don't put in the long hours and there is a reason for this.

Don't be too scared, I ride that road once a week and over the past 2+ years that has only happened to me once, but never came close to be in too much danager (wasn't a Chrome Carrier truck either). Pretty sure this is not a concious act by the truck drivers, the Chrome Carrier guys generally are very well behaved, but with the distances they cover they may day dream a bit and wonder from yellow lane to normal lane. That said the N4 as straight as it is does have a lot of fatalities. Think people just get bored and day dream, plus want to over take in frustration.

Got to agree with you on this. My max is 194bpm @ age 30 I'm not a fan of heating my max in training, only stretch out there on interval training sessions, otherwise don't go much over 95% MHR. Furthermore sustaining MHR for minutes on end is very unlikley in my case, not sure if that is the norm for most. Are you sure your HR monitor was not misreading, how did you feel, could you talk, could you sustain power? My Garmin misreads plenty, my max HR to date on it is 252bpm.

Again, proves Garmin's devices are purely there for GPS and maybe a tiny bit of elevation detail which because based on barometric pressure is inaccurate. For the rest they're flashy toys. I own one of these flashy toys. Garmin need to up their game for the price they charge! That said, anyone know how accurate the Polar's are on Calorie burn?

Goodie Bag? Now I'm upset I never got a goodie bag, just 2 brown envelopes. I feel cheated! Did I miss out, were the tissues any good?

Thanks for providing feedback, many guys don't bother once their issue is resolved.

Did my collection yesterday in Centurion, went fine. No frills. Not sure if they wanted to make a couple Subaru sales by having the tables right in the corner by the used car section . Mark what issues did you experience?

What a stuff up, glad to get some feedback, but the results do show the 7 riders as finishers with ammended times (why I still don't know). Yes last year the route was said to be 70kms it turned out to be ~63-64kms. This year the route seemed to be longer, but my Garmin reported just over 64kms (normally 1km short of actual distance, so the race was probably 65kms). So these organisers seemingly do not ride the route before the race to measure it, the guestimate, probably a rough measurement from Google Earth. Anyway 2 years running now these guys have been ~6-7kms out of true distance either way. They either need to up there game or lose entrants. Why they couldn't supply a route map weeks before the race and perhaps a profile, who knows. But on the day there was a Google plotted map at registration. Oh, I snagged 2 cups of something, tasted almost like Fanta Grape. Had they complained I would have thrown my toys out the cot Daxiet2009-08-18 01:42:43

I have never had anything on the Avid range better than Juicy 3's. They got on my nerves with constant rubbing against the disc. Would always have to calibrate and niggle with. Comparing Apples with Apples, my wife's Deore's were better calibration wise than the Juicy 3's. I now have XT's, not a single issue to date. light, comfortable, responsive and cool looking. Besides the Juicy's calibration issues they were good. So in summary go XT's!

My bike as I race it weighs ~11kgs, as off the shelf 10.6kgs. I must say I am happy with its race weight, would love it to be sub 10. But to drop that 1 kg is going to cost me close to what I bought the bike for. The difference between my bike (Carbon) and its Alu brother with the exact same components is ~600g.