Think an Aluminium frame will be equally dangerous... Think while traveling you will be mostly safe, especially going through built up areas. Can take gold course safety into account and stay away from trees and wide open spaces.
Raining in Jhb at the moment, think I will take a chance and take the bike to work tomorrow, hopefully no rain so that I can cycle home in the afternoon. If it rains in the afternoon I may do a "Rule 9". On my way home from work I saw a bicycle commuter with an Umbrella (looked like the Chinese paper kind), not sure if it helped much but it was entertaining.
I usually leave the office early (around 3 in the afternoon), today was an exception (left just before 5). Halfway through the very slow 20km drive I realized that cycling home would have been faster.
Why not fix yourself? What kind of hubs? Shimano? I had a bit of a niggle with my bike, front rotor rubbing and no matter what I do regarding adjusting the position of the caliper it just continued. Eventually had the front wheel out to inspect the hub (fulcrum with sealed bearings), opened and cleaned all the parts nicely and adjusted the play again. No more rubbing rotor!
Not sure if I like it when robots are out, sometime quicker to cross the intersection but have to cross with a car otherwise the other drivers just go for it. On a lighter note... Don't get why my commute always turns into a race against myself, think I had my fastest commute home from work today, even after I told myself a couple of times to chill and slow down.
Closest I get to a cycle lane is the "voet padjie" next to some of the roads... Will be so nice to commute with other cyclists (think I'm way to early for most, still using my light for the morning commute)
Was not today, but last week. Had a bit of Holiday and visited the in-laws in George. After K2C I still had plenty of time cycling around. Pics taken at the top of the radio mast (next to Montague pass) and in the Forest close to Saasveld.
My STR29 is running the same fork and I love it.
Problem is that I will now love to get a Epicon 120mm for my 26" (which is running a cheap and heavy coil fork at the moment).
And then get a set of TA Sliding Dropouts for the STR29: http://www.paragonmachineworks.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?search=action&category=ISA8 If you know someone who can machine such sliding dropouts I will be very interested. Note that these guys have the detailed drawings on their website. I'm not as big as you (about 94kg and 1.82m tall), but I have broken an alloy Silverback frame, part of the reason why I switched to the Momsen steel frame.
Got a set of Red Metal 5 26" wheels which I picked up for a steal about a year ago. I have clocked just over 2000km on them without any issues. My wheels still use J-bend spokes (bladed), replacing them should not be an issue. I recently built a 29" MTB and could not find a set of Red Power XL wheels at a decent price so I settled for something cheaper. As far as I know the servicing is not too cheap, around R700 for a set of bearings (front and back, totaling 6). I have noticed that the bearings on the Disk side is very wide (20mm or so).
Rigid Alloy fork of the Scoops size should be less than 1kg, Steel Regid forks are in the Region of 1.2 to 1.3kg. 15.25KG is very heavy, think those tyres will probably be in the region of 1.4kg each,
I prefer the Shimano Resin Pads, may wear quicker but the braking performance is very good. I'm running 160mm front and back on my 29er. My 26er is also running 160mm front and back, big difference is the pads (old tektro pads on the 26er, which is not nearly as good as the Shimano Resin pads on my 29er)
R13k the Double Scoop is maybe not a bad price and believable when you look at the spec (SRAM X5 Crankset and FD, with SLX RD and Deore Casette, SLX brakes, and there is no suspension fork). The Current 2014 Sola 1 retails for around R16k with SLX/XT drivetrain and Deore brakeset, RS Reba fork and Stans Rims.
