johanpre44

How do I see this only now? Guess your GP visit is done? Would have loved to try out a Tallboy... Edit: Realized the those dates are for March and not Feb. Hakahana Demo then on 18/19 March?

This bike is one of three on my wishlist for the next bike. I will have to go and visit Dirt Merchant to see what the bike is like and if I can maybe organize a ride some time on one. Wolwespruit does sound like and excellent spot to try it out, see what it does on those steep climbs and give it a thrashing on the rough stuff going down. Definitely time to break the XC mindset...

Like the fact that full cable outer's can be run for the gears, I'm not strong enough to run it SS and must say after a dusty ride with some water added (from water bottle) the gears changes do get sticky (a wash sorts it out quickly enough). Can't say that the water bottle bosses ever bothered me but have to agree that they are a little off-center (but that actually worked out nicely on my medium/19" frame not fitted with side-load cages). Nice frame, but I also love the Contraband Rogue, will be tough to choose between the two (especially if you run gears). Don't think I will get rid of my v1 frame, was thinking of making that a monster-cross (maybe with rigid steel fork like the Surley Krampus) and just running skinnier tyres like 2.0s or 1.9s with a faster rolling tread. Interested to see those field testing builds!

The high prices just puts this bike out of reach for most people... I'm probably one of them. TB2 is probably a very good alternative, or a Pyga for that matter.

In case any wants to sponsor a Tallboy 3 PM me (don't see how else I can afford one)... Jokes aside, anyone seen a Tallboy 3 in Aluminium or know if they will be bringing them importing?

It was a hard day out in 2014. But I'm a sucker for punishment. Hope I will be quicker this year... Other than the suffering the scenery was fantastic.

I've also been to Mankele. If you want to save lots of money you can also camp. Some of my friends have gone camping and MTBing in Sabie before.

Have you checked the Angle of the saddle? I couple of mm to high on the nose can cause your hips/pelvis to rotate too much causing your back to be less straight than what it aught to be. I had a similar problem where my lower back will be very tender after 30 minutes of riding. To solve I went for a bike fit (I do have cleats and a wide 760 mm wide bar with 10 mm rise and a short stem). To my surprise the saddle came up and forward a lot (to fix the seat angle and my knee angle), And also a slight change where the saddle's nose went down ever so slightly (to sort out my pelvic rotation causing the lower back strain). After chatting to the guy who did the fit he said best is to try a neutral setup first where the height of the saddle and handlebar (or rather grips) is almost the same and then trying to get the angles of my knees right to ensure I do not strain them unnecessarily. He also said he likes to get the last third of the saddle level (with a spirit level) in which case the nose seems to point up ever so slightly. My wife doesn't ride too much or hard and when I bought her a 29er two year ago I cut the handlebar down from 700 mm to about 670 mm to accommodate her narrow shoulders. She is on a medium (172 cm tall) and loves the feel of the bike with the narrower bars. Hope you get the setup sorted out, just remember if you make changes to make a single change and riding to decide if the change made any improvement or not. you should eventually have something that is close to perfect even though you still ride with flats.

Same happened to me recently, luckily I had a Zee shifter on my other bike and the cover fit perfectly (except it now says M640 instead of M670). Looks like the Deore (M610) shifters have the exact same cover. Will try and source this cover locally, failing that I guess sjcycles.co.uk is the only way. Will post updates.

At least I got a nice shirt, but dont think I will be around next year, much rather go for a long ride somewhere.

Hope it's worthwhile on Saturday. Really hoped to take a Pyga 110-29 for a spin but with Pyga not there and the races on all Saturday...

Somehow I completely missed the food stalls, could only find coffee and craft beer... Decided to head to my sisters place in Lynnwood Ridge where a couple of fresh pies was waiting, well deserved after the half and the ride there.

Was my first race for the year. Enjoyed it. Kind of happy that I walked the steep climb after I saw how long it was (had to dismount because of all the walkers walking on the easy line, when are people going to learn!). Was a bit tricky merging with the 10km or 20km groups in the last 3km (man I forgot how slow they can be!). Was there any food stalls at the end? I only found the coffee and craft beer, and then decided to leave. How was the traffic getting out? This time I cycled rather than waiting for my wife to pick me up, really did not see too much traffic at 11:30.

I remember how tough the "reverse" route was last year and speeding past the last water point only to run out of fluids. This year I'm a bit of a softy and only doing the Half (first race for the year).

Just to add a bit more specifics, ISO Rim diamiter for 650b/27.5" is 584mm, and for 26" its 559mm. This is a 25mm difference which will drop the BB by 12.5mm if 26" wheel is used on the 650b/27.5" frame. Doesn't sound like much but the rock-strikes on crank ends are very scary when it happens (and can through you off the bike...). If you ride smooth trails or tar it will obviously not make much of a difference (BB height on Road bikes can be 50mm less than Hardtail MTB). Changing tires on a 26" MTB from 2.3" wide to 1.5" wide slicks have a very similar effect (+-10mm drop in BB height).

This is very much the only time of year I watch sports and must say the races was fantastic! Nino and Julian are both Heroes in my book. Must say that I felt Julian's pain when Nino overtook him right at the end. Didn't see that Jenny actually hurt her knee in that fall, but what a last lap! Looks like the RSA Ladies did well (44 and 51). The Men's race on the other hand must be so tough, cant believe how many of the guys dropped back 20 or so spots from the first lap. 88th for James is not bad at all, but it just shows how strong the Europeans are. @_PAT_, will be very nice to get a Racers perspective of what's going on, especially the kind of support you have compared to the guys with the big teams behind them. Looking forward to next weekends racing!

Very quick trickle-down. So happy they're keeping the 10 speed bits alive! Wondering if the Cable Pull ratios are the same on the 10 and 11 speed rear derailleurs...

Cant wait! Like the Syndicate boys a lot (hoping GM has another good year). Will be interesting to see what Bruni does on his new bike, pretty sure he will be awesome when the run comes together without any hiccups. I also suspect that Gee will be putting down some good runs on the new bike. No idea what Gwin is going to do, but with his aggressive style who knows?

I remember a thread on the hub of an international team of cyclists who broke the last record for Cairo to Cape Town, they cycled for about 38 days in total. Just browsed the Redbull.tv site and came across this article telling a short story of Michael Strasser (an Austrian triathlete) who broke the above record by 3 days. He may have competed in the CTCT a couple of days after his arrival in Cape Town. Anyone heard about this?

Most LBS's stock what sells well in terms of bikes, and sometimes they do not even have stock (because of issues outside their control). Unfortunately the interesting bikes are not really available (like Pyga or Contraband) unless if you hunt down a frame through some LBS you know can get them. The other problem is the accessories etc. I struggled to find long finger gloves that fit my hands and could not really get a nice selections of shoes anywhere. At the end of the day you just get to know a lot of bike shops and what exactly they are good for. Some have good priced parts mostly in stock (like chains and cassettes), other go out of their way to get you specific parts you want (like a Pyga frame), even others for a good selection of cycling shoes etc. What the Spez concept stores do well is that they have a good selection of different bikes with all the related kit under one roof. The only other brand I can see able to pull something like this off is Scott. For the rest you just need to know which LBS to visit.

And to think I was impressed with the 2000km chain life on my 2x10 (probably need to replace the cassette at around 4000km when I put on the 3rd chain). But I realized that us heavy folk are a lot harder on chains and cassettes and shoes when it comes to wear...

Very good write-up on Bikerumor.com. Looks like a lot of work went into the chain and and chain-ring especially on improving durability. This is really impressive work from SRAM. Wonder how long trickle down will take (maybe another 2 years) before this tech is on regular (and much cheaper) alloy cranks and maybe a cheaper (and much heavier) cassette - Like X9/GX level components. Still insane to think this cassette only is the price of an XT 2x10/1x11 drive-train. I must say when it comes to s single chairing setup that I do love the SRAM direct-mount solution.

Impressive weight, thought the cassette was going to be more than 500g. All that machining on the cassette is probably why the price is so crazy (over R20k in SA?). I still prefer my dependable 2x10 at the moment, mainly because the maintenance cost is so much lower.

Thanks CWC, order almost done.

Kmc x10.93 chain and Shimano Deore M615 rear derailer big please!