bustthesickness

Dont bank on seeing Chapmans peak open for a very long time, if ever. The road is almost totally ruined from all of the failed attempts to stabilise the rock above it. The real problem was in fact alien vegitation taking over and claiming the space that the fynbos used to take. This fynbos was holding the surface together. Then Bombela and their bright sparks decided to lever off every losse rock they could find, letting them pound the road to bits when they fell off. Behind each loose rock, is another. So they did a nice little kick back deal with an overseas crowd to install attractive steel nets to catch the rocks. Then they gunnited the entire face, so it looks like the lost city! In the meantime, they kept letting trucks through, and the road has parts that are falling down the cliff face. IMO Chapmans is ruined for good. It has been mismanaged and bungled. Past the point of return I think, especially since the Cape town city budget is stretched so thinly thanks to the stadiums' costs. So every day, more and more grass grows out of the cracks in the road, and nature reclaims these things very fast. I was up there the other day and was shocked at the damage. Btw, this is what has happened to Tafel road, at the cable station.

get a cheap well padded seat from Makro.

Raleigh = No style

It's shocking to think' date=' but I've already seen a couple of those out and about... some people just have absolutely no bluddy taste![/quote']Well,how many people are walking around in CROCS? THAT is poor taste

Here's the matching helmet http://media.nowpublic.net/images//9f/d/9fd391944cd4cead5b2842e126e18aad.jpg

WOW!!! That REALLY sucks man. Thanks for the heads up. Before I read this, I actually felt very safe at Tokai for some reason. I guess this scum just keeps flowing out of the toilet bowl and into our lovely havens.

what language is this? Is this secret roadie talk? like pig latin??

If I'm riding in a remote place, and another rider comes along, I would say Hi, but to greet every single person you pass who happens to be on a bike is just annoying. Why must you greet everyone? Just because they happen to be on a bike doesnt make you friends. Do you walk around the shopping mall and greet every person you pass? No. Just 'cos we're all on bikes doesnt mean we're part of this secret club or brotherhood. This isnt the military, or boy scouts. Maybe people just wanna ride, and not have to crack a fake 'Hi' every 30 seconds. So you can't blame the roadies, it's maybe just the fact that with most MTB we are in remote places, where seeing another person is kinda cool in a way.

Wow! yip, they're thriving up there in those pine forests, which is why the initial post seems odd to me. Why would they reintroduce the puffs, when they are already there. The lesson learned from this though is to be vigilant and aware when stomping around the place at Tokai. I do this all too often, get so ampd and worked up about the riding, I forget I'm in nature. This is usually the cue for a bunch of baboons to be around the next corner!

http://www.wildlife-pictures-online.com/image-files/puff-adder-knp-p3311774.jpg Note the short, fat body, and the backwards arrow pattern on it's back. This is an teen/adult puff adder. http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zSm_99Nvb8Y/R4sui8KIbrI/AAAAAAAAB1k/YJuq7CiqHfc/s720/Baby%20Puffadder_001%20%28Large%29.JPG A baby puff adder. Not newly hatched though. The arrow patterns are there too, but the shape of the head and the short body is the tell tale sign in any case. Be careful of the little guys. They often look like sticks. I once bush whacked through an area and in the middle of this area, realized that I was in a nesting area. I nearly shat my pants. On a climbing trip once, we were using a black and white striped rope, and only realized at the end of the day, that a baby puffy had been chilling in our rope bag, amongst the rope, ALL DAY! bustthesickness2008-12-03 03:19:08

MOST?? All of them are dangerous' date=' the cousins, aunts, uncles and close relatives aswell not just the Adder family.[/quote'] Nowhere near as "dangerous" as mankind I can assure you my friend!! oh no, here we go!! yes global warming bla di blaaaaaaa go tell this to my friend who has NO CALF MUSCLE left from a puff adder bight!

There are puffies in those forrests anyways. I have seen a few up at the silvermine climbing crags before, and I know the puffs love pine forests. lots of little critters to munch on there. Also have seen one or two on table mountain and one was seen a little while ago coming down the chain section on Lion's head! Main thing is PLEASE educate yourself on what they look like. Not only when they are fully grown, but as nippers too, as a baby puff bight is JUST as harmful as a big boy. DO NOT blindly step over logs in the forests. Puffs love to lie and hide there. If you do get bitten by any snake, make sure that you either know EXACTLY what it is, or kill it, so that the medics can start to administer the correct anti-venom right away. A puff adder's venom will start to digest the tissue from the inside. A bight on the leg will very quickly destroy your calf muscle etc. Be sure not to panic, elevate the injured limb. Get help immediately, keep the heart rate down. DO NOT use a tourniquet or try to cut the wound and suck out the venom. Ideally, just try to avoid the little buggers altogether. They are nasty!

R2k for the hub,rim,spokes and build

Thanks Johan, all good info this. Although I think the point is that a poorly built wheel, ridden HARD, will give way to big forces far more easily than gran's wheelchair (unless I push her down the stairs, which I often do) To sum it up then, I had my wheel well built, for under R500, this year, locally, and it's still going strong. It didn't take 3 hours either. It took 1 hour. Back to the topic then, and relating to your industry, I have found some wheelbuilders in the states that also guarantee their work, again, far better prices. Since you are in the game, what would your price be for a build? Use the specs I provided earlier. A Hope Pro II hub, 321 rim, DT spokes? My best quote so far has been just under 2 grand. bustthesickness2008-12-01 08:52:04

I eat allot ok!! I mean like your day to day clothes! You are right by what you mean that people should not rip you of... But shop around, tell the guy in the store that you are finding it so much cheaper online and if they dont bring their prices down they will loose your bussiness... Rather talk to the people and explain to them that you are not a sucker and you have done your homework on what you want... My day to day clothes tend to just be a Speedo, cos I'm an aspiring life guard, but they never have the patterns I like at PEP I have no desire or time to bargain a shop down. If I do get a cheaper price, it means someone else might not bargain, and get ripped off. Anyway, if it makes you feel better, the support your local thieving bike shop/cartel, but I'd rather just log onto CRC, place an order, open the box, smile at my new CHEAP shiny gear, and spend the money I saved on beer.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of these costs. I have no doubt that the Hope hub cost R1500 or so. Then, spokes ( the cheapest good quality spokes) cost R9 each. 32 of them give R288. All but the cheapest rims are R1 000 each. This gives us a total of R2788-00. Plus rim tape, we have a materials cost of R2800-00. Which leaves R500 for labour. I suspect that the components cost more than that however, lets work on R500 for labour. To build a rear wheel is at the very least an hour's work. Sometimes two hours, if the spoke count goes down and the customer wants fancy spokes and difficult rims. Are you prepared to put up with something slapped together by an unskilled person charging R100 per hour? For instance, unskilled builders guess the spoke lengths. They don't understand trigonometry and can't use Excel. Just the slightest miscalculation on the spoke length could leave you with a wheel that looks OK, or as you say "still going strong", but two months or two years down the line has to be retensioned. That's when you discover the quality of the workmanship. If the spokes are just-just too long, you cannot tension the wheel again. I see lots of that. Or, they use crappy spokes. At the time of receiving the wheel you are none the wiser. They all look the same. Two years later, you pay for new spokes. Or, the builder puts loctite or glue on the nipples. Tomorrow you want to tune the wheel a little - impossible. I think R500 for a rear wheel is within ballpark. Front wheels can be had for a bit less, unless they're disk brake wheels. These are similar in complexity to rear wheels and should therefore also carry a premium. There are lots of shops out there that will build a wheel for R100, but you get what you pay for. I was quoted R2400 for a hope rear hub, R700 for a 321, R11 a spoke. 32 spoke hub. [CRC: Hope Hub R1590.02; Mavic 321 R251.64; DT spokes R4,12/spoke] "Are you prepared to put up with something slapped together by an unskilled person charging R100 per hour?" No, I'm not. My last wheel built was done by FritzP in Pta. I didnt pay R700 to R900 for the build. The guy who built my wheel knows my riding style. I have run that wheel for over 9 months and by "still going strong" I mean it is still as true as the day I got it, and it is still stiff. I ride hard. I abuse the sh*t out of my wheels. The wheel has seen big drops, kickers, and been slammed hard into things. So yes, you DO get what you pay for. R500 is still too much to charge for a wheel. Seriously, it's not rocket science. There is software available that provides all the data you need to choose the correct spokes, and seriously, it's a spoked wheel, not a large hadron collider! Lets not sway the point of this post Johan, it's about local bike shops RIPPING people off. NOT the cost to build a wheel. We all get robbed on every part we buy, from a wheel, to tools, and this post is to get a group of like minded folks together so that we can share the costs to have these imported, and all save some cash. bustthesickness2008-12-01 01:18:45