Jewbacca

A piece of 15mm OD pipe with a 1.5mm wall width from a plumbing shop does the job perfectly.

Would the removal of the cable/cable housing not have resulted in the need to reset the gear indexing? I'd guess your indexing was out initially and taking it apart and reassembling it forced you to re do it and get it right?

Rook are for sale... Starting a bike company at the moment might not be the best idea. Some of the biggest brand movers and suppliers globally are struggling. The bike market is struggling world wide. I'm not trying to poo on your dreams, but it's probably not the best time Quite a long wait currently. I don't think Dave will be making any bikes in 2023

I'd just adjust the limit screw slightly and see if that works. The chain is at a helluva angle on the smallest cog and sometimes it might catch the ramps if it's jiggling.

hahahaha dasilvarsa just hates Titan 😝 Any thread which discusses them will have a bunch of negative posts from him. It's one of those things

I think you have to have 'endless' aero bars (no pointy bits) and no elbow rests. But skinsuits and aero helmets are pretty common at the pointy end of these things in the states/Europe/Straya. #marginalgainz only come into effect at a certain ceiling of performance that few of us clacking away on our keyboards here will ever hit. I'm a jorts and T-shirt kinda Guy

Who are Trident and how did they test them?

Upgradealitis I fully understand, but if you already have fast rolling tires, very little other than a proper slick tire will be noticeably faster. Maybe less noisy, but nothing is going to buy you an hour for free. I'm also lazy and changing tires is a mission, so in my world the ultimate win is setting the bike up for what it does 90% of the time and just dealing with being under/over equipped for 10% of the time. Good luck making choices, these sorts of things always come with compromises and caveats

Are you racing to win? Do your current tires need replacing? I'm just asking as a new set of tires at minimum R2000 will likely only save you a handful of minutes. You'll be looking at like R100 a minute ish? I don't have that sort of cash lying around for such minimal gains if I'm riding solid mid pack. If it's a simple case of upgradealitis that is different, but fishing for midpack gains at pretty big expense is helluva exorbitant for me. If you are trying to win/podium then yeah, I get it, but if you're out of the top 50, I'd rather buy some cake and have change I have a set of 1.5 Chaoyang slicks. They run tubeless and are SUPER fast rolling. You can have them for R400. One was fitted but never used, one is still rolled up in it's packaging. Disclaimer, I will need to find them

Am I the only one who thinks it would be rad if Thomas won? Washed up domestique nobody who can't stay upright long enough in a GT to get Covid and withdraw..... Won TDF by accident after breaking Froome'e elastic, crashes over his own team mates' bidon on stage 1 or falls and breaks his scapula trying to take off/put on his rain jacket. I love the guy. He is so oddly human in a sport of absolute machines.

I also see flat bars 3rd from the back....... BUT..... out of 12 odd off the front, 11 have curly bars, 1 has a gravel bike with a short suspension fork and one has no suspension and flat bars. So absolutes aside, the general 'winning' formula was a gravel bike. Again though, who cares. Buy one if you want, build an ugly monstercross if you want, or ignore the whole vaaaib and ride the MTB. Buying/building an N+1 bike very seldom comes down to practicality. Yes. It's called a TanPan https://www.merlincycles.com/wolf-tooth-tanpan-inline-shimano-adaptor-161778.html?utm_campaign=googlebase-ZA&utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=shopping&utm_term=MTB+Gear+Cables&ucpo=88776

I have about 30 Banjo's for shimano brakes I got in a box of spares that cover all things hydraulic brakes. Must I dig them out for you? You can DEFINITELY buy shimano hydraulic hose by the meter. With no attachments. I also have a few meters. So, in closing, if you want a banjo fitting I have. Your LBS should have too. You definitely don't have to buy a pre made cable and banjo.

hahahahahahaha N+1 does not care for 'reason' If you want a gravel bike, buy/build one. Being practical about buying bikes is an endless cycle (yes yes) of anecdotal opinions. 'I love my hardtail'... 'I love my Gravel bike'.... Both are opinions based on a feeling. Neither are facts. Buying stuff, especially toys that possibly do or do not give people NOT functioning close to their optimal ability (Outliers excluded.... Waldo!) or close to optimal weight/power a teeny tiny advantage all comes down to an emotional curiosity or 'want'. I personally don't see the gravel bike fad fading as stated, mostly because South Africans love to do stuff and say they did stuff. The more impractical the better. 'Oh, you rode Freedom Challenge? I did it too, on a Rigid Single Speed'.... 'Oh, you did Epic, I did it too on a rigid single speed in jeans and a flannel shirt!' So people will ride their gravel bikes on MYB trails, at MTB/Horribly rutted races because hardcore. On the flip side they will ride the same gravel bike at Argus and do a sub3 so they can say 'Oh, CTCT? I got a sub3 on my gravel bike' Practical has no place in this discussion. Be gone with all of you. OP and those interested, if you want a curly barred bike that is exceptionally good at absolutely nothing in SA but can offer you bragging rights and a heap of impractical fun, buy one

'Wrath'

31.5mm.........

It's also against the BikeHub terms and Conditions. Take a look at clause 5.5 https://help.bikehub.co.za/en/articles/4656778-terms-of-service

Not sure how much riding anyone will be doing in Cape Town, unless you want to contribute to the 2nd hand market next week replacing things!

I am so confused. Would the 2nd hand market be thriving if things were selling for cheap? Or woud it be thriving if things were selling (actually selling, not being advertised) for lots? As a buyer and seller surely you would want the latter? With the Rand/Dollar being decimated, putting bikeshops in the dwang and pushing up new prices, how will that help the second hand market other than make it more expensive again? Or do we want that as per my first question? Some are rallying behind a cheaper 2nd hand market but also pointing out indicators that will 'help it' by pushing up prices. Jaco is also definitely trolling everyone with his finding insult in everything. Which is pure comedy gold after accusing Shebeen of being an internet troll. The student has become the master! or If you can't beat them, join them! Personally, from a very informal, non economist point of view from somebody who knows his own intellectual limits, there are a lot of holes in all of these economic models. John Maynard Keynes is rolling in his grave.

To add to my comment above, by 'poor pre race day' I mean not staying on top of my hydration/food intake in the few days before OR heading out for a couple of beers for 'carbo loading' or both. Sometimes it's easy to lose a bit of focus in the build up to a race if you have to travel to get there, stay in a place with no kitchen and then go out pre race to eat. I guess a combination of all of the above and race day 'gees' leads to one heading out for a PB without having trained or prepared properly for a PB. But ja, cramps suck and I hope you figure it out.

Death to the Market! Long live the Market!

I'm also a VERY sweaty person. Like excessively so even for sweaty people. I only used to cramp when I had poor pre race days OR pushed the speed a bit too far. One year I was cruising to a very comfy sub3 at Peninsula, possibly 9 minutes faster than I had 'trained' for. HR was perfect, fluid intake was perfect.... Both hamstrings popped on the riser coming out of Glencairn. Floored me for almost 15 minutes. I've run far, like 400km in one go far without cramps, but speed is the killer. I've run a 100 miler on the weekend at reasonable clicks without being stiff on Monday and 3 weeks later cramped doing speed work 400m trackwork. I put cramps down to the body asking you to stop running/moving above threshold for longer/harder than you've prepared for

I think there is an internet 'extreme' being assumed that it happens all the time on every ride? It is likely something one encounters sporadically. Which means you needn't make provision for it on every corner of every ride. But when you do, slow down, stop and move on. Tell them they are in the wrong place and the next person might clatter into them at 55kph. But do it politely. That is my point. All the hypotheticals are just going round in circles.

Is it though? I can still go pretty fast, shred some gnar, hit decent jumps and pass a lot of people on the climbs and I haven't entered an MTB race in years. Go balls deep, by all means, but if you see people who aren't meant to be there then slow down and/or stop. Many people don't. They just ride up and then slam on their brakes if said people don't move. Same to be said when people encounter dogs on shared trails. It's easier to ride really fast and expect everyone else to get out of the way and then complain on socials if they don't. The trail runners are seldom on the really steep stuff with jumps etc as they simply aren't runable. There are a ton of 2 way MTB trails which seldom yield head on collisions, so a bit of patience goes a long way. I think you are missing the point I'm making. Across the board, all people, seem to be obsessed with their right to do what they want unobstructed by other sub groups. Cars are happy to stop with other cars in traffic, but if a cyclist holds them up!!!!! Cyclists are happy to encounter other cyclists walking/sessioning/going slowly on the trails, but OMG runners! Runners complain about dog walkers, dog walkers complain about cyclists... It's an eternal loop. Do I think people running on MTB trails are idiots? Yes. But I am also happy to stop and let them pass so we can all get home safely. hahahaha 'training for actual races....' said like I've never done a race or trained for something 😋

I have bodged a tire on the side of the road by using the plug glue to stick a piece of bar wrapper onto the inside of a tire. It worked like a dream and got me home comfortably. Took no more than a few minutes. Latex strip and an elastic cement glue work to fix almost all tires from the inside unless it is slashed. Then you can stitch it and apply the above if you are in a pinch (ie doing a big long stage race/Freedom Challenge/Munga etc and need to get over the line while having time on your side) BUT realistically carrying a tube and using it is the easiest solution to road punctures that wont seal

Looks like a little aero trike or one of those battery powered endurance racer things!!!