BDF

Mega for one ride man. Nice one!

Thanks S@B. What's the entry fee?

I have still never ridden there. Must make a plan soon...

Cool. The thing is to only do from the bottom up, not the top down as well. Thanks!

You make a good point HappyMartin. I guess the thing is we get so jaded by all the excuses people come up with that when we read articles that don't include all the detail behind the defence we see an almost totally unbelievable excuse being given. What are the chances that that pharmacist would have been working with a banned substance just before another client walks in and asks for empty capsules to put baking soda in? Not only that but there was enough residue on the capsules to generate a positive doping test even after they were handled again to put the baking soda in and must have been put in some sort of container. You must admit that that seems far fetched. Anyway, If it was all totally provable and substantiated with evidence then we must believe it.

I think you're right. And amazingly it worked! Then there was the Spanish beef one and the recent "that's not my bike" mechanical doping case. Do these people actually hear what they are saying. Trevor Noah should do a show on it!

I think there must be some sort of book they get with all the standard doping excuses in it. Kind of like a dopers excuse manual. If asked "xxx"; then answer "yyy" Must have hundreds of answers in it but I think we have heard many of them already. Some more creative than others. RC and the tyre sealant was pretty desperate though...

It's always a mistake Patch... Like just falling off your bike except you fell onto a needle... Social media doesn't need plausible. Just look how those women went bananas when a farmer shot a feral dog recently!

Pharmacist?

Imagine big round Bambi eyes with tears. "I made a mistake. I was punished. I have served my sentence. Now I'm shiny and clean. But these Dopers Suck people are making me lose my only source of income. How can I support my family if I cant compete in the only profession I'm good at. They are DISCRIMINATING against me UNFAIRLY. Its no different to racism. Poor me"

It seems like social media has been pretty effective in getting things done without any courts involved. Phrases/Words like "vigilante justice", "Mob justice", "Unfair discrimination" seem to get the public stirred up big time. Just look at the attention anything remotely connected with racism gets at the moment.

Tell more. I need to bleed some Shimano brakes this weekend... Cup at the top and syringe at the bottom only, otherwise brakes get phooked?

T's & C's only apply insofar as they are within the bounds of the overriding law which in this case is the Constitution of SA. Regardless of what the T's & C's are, the laws of the land take precedence.

Just to clarify the perception that cycle races (in the main) are private events. They are not. They are indeed very much public events. As such, any form of unfair discrimination is prohibited under the Constitution. Unfair would be for example not allow entry for a cyclist on the basis that they were caught doping, sanctioned and served their sanction. (Ex-doper). They have therefore resumed cycling life as a fully fledged licenced cyclist and are no longer under sanction. If this is what some of the race organisers are doing, they are at risk of being at odds with the constitution (Section 2 - Bill of rights). They could potentially be charged criminally and sent to jail for a maximum period of 2 years. No problem refusing entry to dopers who are currently serving out their sanction. A private event would need to be by invitation only and also make ZERO use of any public property. Then one has the liberty to just not invite on almost whatever grounds one likes.

I also use this approach on Formula and Avid brakes. Works well.

Laws exist to regulate human interaction in a predictable, responsible way. They are mostly all written on the basis of what broad society accepts as reasonable behaviour. Most laws also include some sort of consequence for transgressing them. This is why lobby groups form. To influence the lawmakers to believe that broader society feels that the laws no longer represent what they feel is reasonable. The thing is to get support from broader society so that the lobby is seen as representative and not an isolated viewpoint. Said all of that to point out that it is the lawmakers who need to be lobbied, not the race organisers. They are part of society that needs to be part of the lobby. They must be on board if you want to see any sanction changes for dopers or ex-dopers (however you may define them)

Agree with this. Pretty much what I tried to convey in an earlier post. Also, listing so called "dirty races" will not accomplish anything good. Glad that page was deleted from the website.

I have found that bleeding from top and bottom gets all the ait out of the system better than top down or bottom up only. Not exactly what the manuals say but it works. I don't have a bleed block at all so I leave the wheel in and put a clam in between the disks and the pads (which I do leave in for bleeding.) Once bleeding is complete I take out the pads and scrub them and the disks clean. Bit of a "boer maak 'n plan" approach but so fat it works well.

Did you bleed the calliper as well as the lever ends?

Spent much of the day at Northern Farm again. I like that place and it only costs R25 per ride if you get the 20 pass card. Rode with my son until his rear axle broke at 44km. I got up the Grassy hill first and took this one of him. Top of Grassy hill Devastation after axle breaking But we got rescued by Bongani! Even with the problems we still had an awesome ride and got a pretty decent ride in! Love that I can ride with my son!

I agree with this stance. Who needs Telkom anyway

Make a girl pregnant and there will be a baby. You can say you are sorry to her and her parents, angry brother etc and be forgiven. This is good, but the baby is still there. You have to change what you were planning to do in life because your action had a consequence. For sure, one of the consequences is financial, another is social, another is time and so on. The baby is not punishment but a consequence. Punishment would be the girl's family moering you. Back to cycling: What you do in your circle of influence given the consequences can either show that you are indeed a dwis or that you really do love the sport.

SAIDS as I'm sure you know are responsible for a lot more that testing cyclists. One of their revenue streams is "Doping control sales" for which they received R2.428 million in the 2015 financial year. That is in addition tot he R22.764 million received from the State, Lottery and sponsorships. CSA members pay an annual fee to be a member of CSA and an additional amount for their licence. It is not unreasonable to expect that they deploy some of this licence fee for doping controls. Seems that funding is not as big of an issue as deciding what is the best strategy for deployment of the funding. Personally I think they are doing quite well with their strategy. They seem to have at least 80 doping control officers. Not sure how many dream of having but that seems like quite a lot. They did 2760 tests that year which means that each controller did on average 34.5 tests each for the year. Seems that they are not exactly over-utilised. Not sure where you got your information from though.

I must confess that while I am all for exposing the dopers, I also feel that sponsors and race organisers have the life of the sport from a competitive perspective in their hands. I would do as much as possible to keep them on board. I don't think that a boycott of the races they organise and sponsor would help the sport necessarily. It would be great if the dopers would be more humble, admit that they cheated instead of make up all manner of excuses, accept their ban/sanction and do something among the cycling community to discourage and expose doping.

Should be random testing at every CSA sanctioned event. At least samples from all licenced groups.