Edge_Design

Magicshine is the factory's own brand and is thus the internationally recognised brand... It is the only brand that will still be around if the various one-man shows get tired of their business.

Why not go with Magicshine and keep it original where you at least know you'll get backup service in a year's time?

MJ870 has 3 LED's and is 1200 lumens, the MJ872 makes use of a 4th LED and thus is considerably more powerful at 1600 lumens.

Just keep in mind you are paying for access to the parks land (i.e. the mountain), not for access to a bike park... On the logic applied here, why do walkers need a wild card, what is being done for them? In theory the single track is the exact opposite of what they should be trying to achieve with the money they get (they are there to preserve the environment/land, not to make it more fun). It is there for us to dawdle up to silvermine over the course of a day and enjoy the scenery - they are giving back by allowing people to build trails for our benefit. That is my understanding of the situation, I very possibly could be wrong. I think the day charges are pretty high for what you are getting, but the wild card is very reasonably priced (especially if you ride there twice a week like I try to do).

Why do people care about this at all? This is a global economy? CRC spend more money on cycling than anyone in SA as far as I can tell. The local big brand agents sponsor local riders too, not only the one or 2 "manufacturers" who probably put less in than anyone else? They don't need to be putting their personal sticker on the frame in order to do that - the sticker isn't sponsoring the riders, the company behind it is? Whether the stickers are made in South Africa or Italy makes absolutely no difference at all. The only reason to buy "local" is for job creation which would only come about if there was a genuine production facility locally which could create a meaningful number of jobs. Is it value for money? Take a frame that lands here for <R4k, put stickers on it and sell it for 3 times that amount? You could get 3 frames yourself for that price which covers any concerns about backup value (or 2 Rapide things if you prefer someone else to do the import work for you). The best I've seen recently is a website of another local "brand" - not Momsen - where you can buy components separately or complete bikes at almost R10k premium over their own retail prices of the components - the idea of paying R50k+ for one of these hardtails frightens me. You can get an Anthem 29er with full 2012 XT for <R30k yet someone is saying a similarly specced Momsen hardtail at a higher price is good value. I like the idea of these unbranded bikes getting pretty stickers and being sold at good prices, but then they have to actually be sold at genuinely good prices (even with only 100% markup, you can still put some money into sponsorship/marketing!). And that doesn't mean good relative to a Specialized frame, it means at a price relative to the actual landed cost of the parts. The deal including the Crests is good, but should be the normal price and not a special deal.

Really? There are also some horrific ones... I've had my crank arm come off while riding straight after a shop fitted a new BB in a service (quite dangerous as it was still attached to my shoe and very close to my back wheel) - my frame came back from another shop with a crack down the front of the headtube which they denied any knowledge of (irrespective of the cause, they should have seen it at least - once again fairly dangerous error!) - I've paid for new parts and had second hand parts fitted - most recently I had the shock on my brand new dual suspension frame swapped for a lower model while the bike was assembled (still to be resolved, but that's straight theft in my opinion).

My MTB is on about R360/km at the moment and hopefully coming down tonight! Completely meaningless as the resale value is considerably more than I paid for the bike...

Also got pulled over for it and R500 fine... Went and bought a new plate the following week to put on the back of the rack. Guess I'm the only one to blame for the fine - do have to say it's a ridiculous law in my view, but apparently meant enough that the guy chased me down at about 160km/h in a 100km/h area in his Nissan Tiida...

The prices appear very steep IMO... If you assume a retailer would normally add 30% minimum on a complete bike then that hardtail is theoretically a R63k bike which is top Spesh/Cannondale territory for what is essentially a standard blank frame available from E-Bay with some stickers added (and our wholesalers aren't exactly running tiny margins themselves)... If you bought those parts yourself at retail you would still have around R10k left to put into a frame and still come in cheaper than the hardtail. That means you could probably spec a brand new Giant XTC carbon 29er frame at the same level for the same price (and that's at prices available to all of us easily - not wholesale prices) - I know which one I'd choose (I'm estimating prices here to some extent, but I have a pretty good idea of what is available). Given what they are and what they claim their purpose is, they're probably around 10 to 15% overpriced at a minimum.

Why? You're just going to be sacrificing reliability for no real riding gain... Ultimately wheels and tyres are going to be the best/cheapest place to go for the biggest saving and then the bar/stem/seatpost could probably give you a few grams (of course keeping in mind the massive performance advantage a lightweight seatpost gives you!). I've done the sub 10kg hardtail and I ride faster on my 11kg dual susser over longer courses...

I do have a pair of brand new Stans valves at home if you want to go the expensive route... You can have them both for R100 + postage (on the assumption I can find them!).

I know you can definitely get the Anthem frames as aftermarket - they have different paint jobs to the complete bikes too (retail around R11k). Haven't seen the XTC, but sure you can get them.

And I've finally joined the (almost) black bike group. My new toy arrived on Friday (since fitted with XT front derailleur, a chain, pedals and a whole lot of mud!) Still waiting on the Rockshox Monarch which should be on the frame, but hopefully get that sorted next week:- Still some work to be done with a new stem, wider handlebars and a new saddle hopefully to be found soon...

Why can they knock a few hundred off the price just coz u ask? Why not offer you the right price in the first place? What about the guy that doesn't ask and then see's CWC's price afterwards? IMO they've always been horribly overpriced on 99% of their stock, their workmanship is horrible and their integrity is questionable (all based on personal experience).

Basically you are branding Chinese blank frames and you are now pretending to be a customer for your own brand? That is an advert, not a question. Rather be honest...

The magicshine MJ818 is definitely the most powerful I've come across (80 lumens)... PM me for more info if you're interested (come through and have a look at one if you're in the CT area)...

Based purely on what I've heard and not on personal experience, the SLR's will be the better ride, but the XTR's will be more reliable in the long term... The SLR's also have better resale value due to the "bling" factor they have over XTR's so easier/cheaper to upgrade before you have any maintenance issues!

A bike like that from Claremont is very likely to be sitting at Neil's house in the top of Wynberg (they seem to move very quickly from houses in Claremont to his garage - personal experience)... Unfortunately no way to go and check.

To most of us an S-Works Epic is a dream, to the lucky few it's petty cash... Why work your a** off to make money and then buy a cheap bike because you aren't a good enough rider? With that logic, we should all drive Chevy Spark 0.8's as that is all we really need to get from A to B every day so we don't deserve anything more. Buy what you can afford - if you're a serious racer, but don't have the money, you'll probably find a Deore rear derailleur isn't really going to slow you down at all (same as the XTR isn't going to help the novice). In the end, most of it is marketing hype aimed at those that can afford it. Give Burry an XX equipped bike and an X0 equipped bike - I can guarantee you there will be no difference in the way he rides at all (maybe he isn't good enough to warrant XX though?). Do you really think they produce those hugely expensive parts to make pro racers faster and not in the hope of selling them to as many people as possible? Without those wealthy riders spending the money there would be no market for the parts and they would never be built.

I expect climbing (normally lots of it), but at least mix it up a bit with a few faster sections to keep it interesting - 2+ hours of climbing (before the last few faster km's) is very tedious... Didn't do the Argus MTB so can't comment on that one (did a trail run that weekend which involved running up table mountain 3 times at night - there were flat sections in the middle so it was VERY interesting! )

A seeded/staggered start would have made a huge difference... I arrived late (my fault) and could get nowhere for the first 5km's. After that I just hated the ride overall and heard many ppl who shared that feeling - my view is that it's very easy to make a ride hard (just send you up every climb available as they did), but that definitely doesn't make it enjoyable. There was absolutely no "flow" to the route and you were never able to get any kind of rhythm going. Just include a few short flat sections in the first half to cover some distance and don't put hairpin bends at the bottom of every single reasonably fast section and it could be a very good ride. I ended up walking at one stage just because I got bored of climbing the whole time and my head just wasn't in it at all...

Honestly, there will probably be very little difference as far as time is concerned... It will come down to your skill (bit more needed to handle a hardtail at speed on technical stuff), the technicality and surface you're riding on (really rough then a dual should give you better traction/drive), the comparative weight of the bikes (dual would normally be heavier). I vote for comfort and hence will never ride a HT again - I definitely climb slower (possibly the extra 2kg's on my dual), but descend and do rough flats much faster (I'm not the most skilled rider so need the more forgiving ride).

I don't often like ppl doing what he's doing, but he is basing his opinion on facts as far as I can tell unless what he is saying is incorrect. Are the frames designed and/or manufactured in SA? If not then there is nothing more South African about them than buying through the SA Scott agents... A rebranded Chinese blank should be considerably cheaper than a big branded frame that has development/marketing etc. costs. His name is also Sintesi which coincidentally is another "brand" that just rebrands Chinese blanks so maybe he knows what he is talking about? Momsen just did their marketing better than Sintesi in SA hence people believing they are "proudly South African"... This is all obviously based on the assumption these are rebranded Chinese frames which I might be mistaken about.

You sound like you have something personal against ASG? They made a mistake - they admitted it and dealt with it in a manner the customer was happy with... If he wasn't happy, maybe they would have had the kit made correctly and given a discount, who knows?! Customer service is about the customer being happy (i.e. not whether you would have been happy, you may have been treated differently in the same situation) - maybe he would have been less happy having to wait for new kit to be made than just taking the discount. Each to their own... Why are you on such a high horse and what point are you trying to make? Why are you comparing a tattoo to bike kit, where's the similarity? If you got custom printed toilet paper and it had a spelling error - would you be worried your friends would be disappointed in their experience or take a 50% discount? I'd take the discount... Sorry, but it's about as relevant as your analogy here. ASG seem to get extremely high praise in general and have obviously done something to deserve it (I've only dealt with them once in a routine transaction, but they were extremely efficient - and most wholesalers in SA offer very inefficient service from my experience). It's definitely not the brands they sell either as they took on Pinarello which had an exceptionally bad reputation from the previous agents (something I experienced personally) and turned it into a big, viable brand in our market.

Surely that's basically the new price? You could try your luck at R5k, but probably expect less than that... The resale market for hardtails is very bad so you can get top bikes for not much more than R6,5k used.