Scooterza

I reckon the comment to have some kind of ID number or something carries merit. Sadly until you start nailing idiots who behave as if they personally own the road, you will get this kind of thing. I would be happy to wear a number because when I see a car I move WAY over (if I am not already way over) and get out the way. As someone said this is a respect issue - let's all respect one another. I 100% sympathise with CR - even though it is very busy right now, there are plenty cyclists in this area all year round. If I had to deal with this kind of thing every weekend, I would get the total zig myself. And this results in escalating aggression on the side of motorists. Not good for anyone!

That is not a bike, it's art! It's even called "Sculptura"!

I was riding an offroad race and wasn't able to afford MTB shoes so was using my road cleats. About 2km, I was riding over a tricky bit and tried to unclip - no luck. Turns out the one bolt holding the cleat on the shoe had fallen out so when I twisted my ankle to unclip, the cleat just twisted. Ended up having to take my foot out my shoe on every rough bit (and there were quite a few) and running along in my socks. Hee hee! Those shoes were never the same again. HIJACK - reminds me - on that race, I was riding past a marshal in her car. As I got next to her, I saw a HUGE python crossing the road just there. The snake saw me and got a fright and headed for cover - the car. The marshal was sitting in the front passenger seat with the door open and as the snake headed towards her it reared up to try to get into the car! She closed the door JUST in time and the snake ducked under the car and into the bushes. Her screams must have been heard along the whole route! Man that was funny! HIJACK OFF

Guys 'n gals - slightly different angle/point. I was supposed to ride for CHOC but due to circumstances am forced to break my 7 year run of doing the 94.7 (boo hoo). Rather than giving up on CHOC, I elected to find a replacement. A friend of mine said he would ride in my place for CHOC. Initially he was not raising a cent and then someone from CHOC got hold of him and said something like, "Dude, you aren't taking this seriously. You have to raise money to take part." By setting a target for him, he became motivated and now has raised about 30% more than he was required to. Remember too that CHOC sponsors you an outfit which is a few hundred rands worth and if you are going to give away stuff, you will always get "chancers". By setting a target, they exclude these kinds of mud suckers. I am willing to bet if you raised R3800, they wouldn't stop you from riding.

That is pretty impressive. I had a good experience at Cycle Lab JHB recently. But that is seriously impressive! Almost to the point of silly actually - the shop will close down if they keep that up!!

Don't be a tit

If they get out the way when a car approaches from behind, I see no problem with this. It is only if they remain riding 3 abreast that it is in issue as far as I am concerned.

This is a simple issue - to my view the cyclists are in the wrong - particularly those in the 2nd image. Their behaviour is likely to result in the driver overtaking over a solid white line on a blind rise. If there was a car flying down the other way, the car would swerve left and bang - cyclists lying all over the road. As a cyclist I try to be careful of other riders on the road when I am driving. If I see that cyclists are on the side of the road and another car is approaching, I will slow down until it is safe to pass. BUT even though I am a cyclist, if I see cyclists blatantly riding WAAAY out in the lane, when they COULD move over or ride single file, forcing me to slow down unnecessarily, I also feel annoyed. Make some effort at least to move out the way. So I can only imagine how Mr XYZ feels after a tough week and now some idiot in lycra starts giving him agro when it was the cyclist who was riding in a selfish manner. I TOTALLY understand people getting annoyed about that. There is 1 word here - consideration! We can ALL use the road - cyclists need to TRY to keep left and listen for vehicles approaching so they can move over if needs be. And motorists need to be considerate of cyclists and when necessary, realise that you may have to slow RIGHT down to wait until it is safe to pass. But us cyclists bring it on ourselves - I keep seeing behaviour that confirms that we are our own worst enemies - too much testosterone and a up yours attitude is not going to help us win this battle. And I see that same attitude on this thread.

You didn't misplace a spacer or something in your cluster? If the other gears are fine, then it is likely something to do with your cluster. Otherwise you would experience problems in other gears too.

Hi Michael. Sad to see a club shut down. However, I can tell you that I have been a member of Cycle Lab for about a year and have been pretty happy there. They are a big club and that has its negatives but they are pretty organised and at least on club rides there are enough people to make a bunch and you feel safer. Also the ThinkBike guys help to control traffic. I tried out at Cresta Wheelers. I know everyone has their own ideals but my personal issue with Cresta was a policy to stop for EVERYONE that has any kind of problem (flat tire, chain coming off etc). That is great for the person who has the problem but it is ANNOYING if you are just getting into a rhythm and you have to stop for 10 minutes. Also makes the rides take longer and if your bike is properly tuned and your tires are correctly inflated etc, shouldn't happen often. And if you are like me, you need to RIDE HARD so you can do other stuff on the weekend and not spend all of Saturday with the club! Then on a practical level, I would say that in terms of traffic to your club, if you are like me your are usually late getting out of bed, slow to eat your breakfast and then in a rush to get there in time! So a nice easy road like Witkoppen is going to be better than Beyers with all its robots. Just my 2 cents!

Oh yes! I tend to take guys to task over this though I know it makes my name mud. I was aware of guys tossing their used wrappers into the bushes but nobody that close to me that I felt the urge to kick up a stink. To the guys that toss their wrappers, WHO WILL PICK THESE UP??!! I have had some geniuses respond that "That is what my race fee is for." Well guess what Einstein, if you think that your R160 odd fee covers a team travelling the ENTIRE length of the race and cleaning up hundreds or thousands of empty gel sachets, THINK AGAIN. It doesn't happen and those sachets are not biodegradeable. Furthermore, the residents of the area have already had to deal with the major inconvenience of having a race along their roads and now you add insult to injury by leaving your mess behind to remind them. WAKE UP! Oh and it just shows a total lack of class and consideration. I just wish I knew what goes through people's minds as they toss their wrapper into the bushes.

Ok - so I am guessing that those are not camel packs on their backs - they are parachutes!

Very sad news. I didn't know him well but he seemed like a great guy.

Hey guys! How did this happen? Dave seemed in good health!

Dirty Twin - how did that happen?!!

Hyper to hyper 4 years ago on Tandem with brother in law - 98km/hr

I see we are all very brave on the forum that the wifey doesn't read!! Ha ha!!

Eish! You are not the first. Also that damn reverse thread catches a few! I always say if it takes more than a little effort to screw something in, then you are doing it wrong. And yes this applies to all walks of life!

Yes - awesome ride and the weather played nice too! The min temp this year was about 10 degrees vs 5 or 6 in years gone by! I was just thinking of a modification to the route I might suggest to Dave - start at Clarens and day 1 would be Clarens to Spioenkop Dam. I think this distance would be manageable and would give you a ride through Golden Gate! How awesome would that be! The ISSUE would then be day 2 - already 120km. To get from Spioenkop Dam to Little Switzerland is about 20km so that would mean day 2 would be 140km. That is quite some hectic distance on a pretty rough route. But on the other hand, the extra 20k's are mostly downhill so maybe not a MAJOR issue. Then day 3 is Wagendrift to Midmar. That way you avoid riding through Pietermaritzburt which I think is pretty k&k. It is a pity that it would cut out the section through valley of a thousand hills but still, you add other lovely parts to the ride. Also safer with fewer cars as I found that as we got closer to DBN, the higher number of cars, trucks etc resulted in more "close shaves".

Man if this is not a hoax it is seriously sick. http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=fur_farm&Player=wm&speed=med I feel nauseous after watching it!

I had a little incident this weekend riding on my usual Saturday morning cycle lab outing in Joeys. As is normal when the big rides come along, the groups grow and often there are guys riding that are not part of the club. That is no problemo as far as I am concerned PROVIDED they behave themselves. There was one guy riding a Raleigh Microsoft Team orange and black carbon bike wearing a yellow and white top and a red giro helmet. Anyways, I was riding behind this guy and as we came up to Beyers Naude and turned right to go past Toadbury Hall, this guy takes out a goo, sucks it and then drops it. To me littering is like a red rag to a bull and ESPECIALLY when we are in a relatively pretty area. So I stopped, picked up the sachet, rode like mad to catch up with the group again and firmly but politely told the guy that littering was not cool and that the sachet would simply lie there for years and to please not litter. Anyway, I dropped back and after a while this guy slowed right down and I figured he did this so he could drop his litter out of sight. During the ride he proceeded to totally ignore the marshals pleas to ride 1 or 2 abreast, often riding way out in the road and in the way of passing motorists. On the return journey, true as nuts there is his sachet again. (I recognised it because the way it had been torn was distinctive.) So I picked it up again, caught up with him again and asked him a lot more sternly to please not leave his litter lying around. This guy then says it is not his. I told him it 100% was his and there was a bit of verbal sparring before I basically rode up to him and shoved this sachet down his shirt! I felt him throw this sachet at me as I rode away from him and his ride buddy told me I was an idiot but the point had been made. Looking back on it now, I admit I lost my cool and I am not comforable with how it all went down but I get so totally when guys do this! Who do these guys think is going to pick up their trash?!! I just totally lost it and this guy showed himselt to be a selfish ass who doesn't care about buggering up the environment for others AND he is prepared to lie about it too! Seriously lacking in backbone! Please all- let's keep taking people who do this to task and for those of you who do drop your sachets, take a moment to think about what our rides would look like if we all decided to drop our bottles, sachets, peels, packets etc on the side of the road. Even on a race, I would never drop anything and if you really have to, try to do so within 50m of a hydration station. That way it is likely to be picked up. There is enough litter around without making the problem worse.

Yes - servers are down. Some of the guys in my office are coming back online now. 1.44pm

Bugger! So better stop taking that gummy berry juice!

Bustthesickness - your attitude blows - hard. I think your view is cowardly - you are just too scared to put your arse on the line when you see someone doing the wrong thing. It takes guts to take someone to task for behaving like an ass - you seem to not have any.

I must add here that I was seeded VA for the Fast One. I am definately not in their league (2.47) as within 1km, I was so far behind I couldn't even see them. So my question is, for the next race, what must I do to ensure that I don't end up in VA again and get left in the dust. It sucks riding a race like the FO on your own for 50% of the race!