Rata Del Spruit

http://i.imgur.com/1URtUhS.jpg For anyone between 165cm and 180cm, you need to take up inline skating. Sorry.

Yeah, I'm in my mid thirties and I still cringe when I remember it. I do have to laugh when I imagine how it must have looked from their angle, though.

Man, I was on my slow commute on my motorbike when some guy slams on brakes in front of me just so he can watch two crazies fighting in the street. Some angry dude in tights and what looked like Butterbean both swinging at each other. I nearly went head first through his rear windscreen. People need to watch what they're doing.

http://dialdbikes.co.za http://i.imgur.com/kipYEj8.png I'd like to put an order in sometime this week but it's under the R750 free shipping threshold. If anybody else in Joburg, near Greenside preferably, would like to jump on it, let me know.

By the sound of it he was the bigger vehicle.

Hahaha, that's a winner!

Let us know when you need some extra hands

I was 16, full of hormones and spots in equal measure and a girl had just moved into the house next door. She was beautiful enough to make me nervous. The kind of girl that makes you run through conversations in your head just to make sure you don’t stuff it up when she talks to you. Something that guarantees you’ll stuff it up when she talks to you. I didn’t yet have a motorbike on which to embrace my teenage freedom so I had to make do with my bicycle, a purple Diamondback Topanga. In an ill fated attempt to look cool while riding it, I had spray painted my SABC TopSport helmet a matching purple a few years earlier. The helmet was enormous to match my awkwardly sized teenage head and TopSport hadn’t spared the cushioning in this thing either. The net result was that when I wore it I looked like a penis. I even noticed my friend’s mom blush when I arrived at their house. Being a teenager, not looking like a giant pork sword in front of girls was more important than my safety so the helmet got left in the back of the cupboard. Someone who didn’t care about my image as much as my wellbeing was my mom. Maybe she just didn’t realise that I looked like a weiner on wheels when I wore it but if she was around she would insist that I ride with my helmet on. The Hub would have loved her. So as I was sneaking out the drive on my bike (sans lid) one day I heard her voice from the top of the garden, “HELMET!” (The Hub would have really loved her). I tried protesting but it was pointless, I was going to have to wear it, or pretend to at least. I reluctantly walked back up the drive, took my helmet from her and stuck it on my head. I left the straps unfastened, ready to take the replica bell end off the moment I turned the corner. As I was pedalling away I felt I was nearly far enough to be able to safely remove the purple mushroom without being spotted. At exactly that moment the neighbour turned into our street in his convertible. An electric shock ran down my body as I saw who was sitting in the front passenger seat: hot-girl-next-door. And they were approaching the pedalling winky rapidly. I couldn’t afford to be seen like this. In a moment of panic I flicked my head back hoping to eject the helmet and save some face. Unfortunately the straps, despite being loose, were still over my ears and my ears were coming second only to my head in my body’s race for dimensions. The straps caught on my wingnuts and instead of flying off the back of my head the helmet flew forward and covered my entire face. I was blind, in every sense of the word. If the occupants of the car hadn’t noticed the gangly kid on the bike earlier they sure as hell noticed him when he started weaving all over the road with what looked like a todger tip covering his face. And they definitely noticed it when he crossed right in front of their bonnet and rode into the ditch. When I pulled the willy cap off my face I found that they had pulled up next to me. It was clear that they wanted to see if I was okay, and I sensed that her dad was trying especially hard to ask but just couldn’t get a word out between laughing, apologising for laughing and laughing even harder. And she could barely look at me she was laughing so uncontrollably. I mumbled something and rode off. The helmet stayed in the ditch along with my dignity and any shred of a chance I’d ever had of kissing that girl (or any of her friends as it turned out).

Firstly as a runner and a cyclist I've never had any bad experiences from either party when I'm enjoying the other discipline. Secondly, stop getting into an 'I'm more entitled to the road than them' debate. It's childish and it's exactly the type of attitude we'd all like to eliminate from South African roads. Road runners are really the flip side of the same coin. They're out there enjoying themselves just like you instead of sitting at home on the couch watching reruns of Judge Judy waiting for their Spur steak to digest. They're just using different equipment. The majority of cyclists and runners will work around each other to ensure the other isn't inconvenienced or endangered in any way, though you'll always come across someone who either wasn't aware or felt entitled. Just let it go, you don't need to teach the rest of the world a lesson on how you would like things to be. Often our pavements aren't suited to either biking or running and in a lot of suburbs in Joburg, home owners have illegally covered their verge with plants or other decorations that prevent pedestrian use (so go outside and check that your verge is in an adequate state as well). There was some research conducted recently which showed that if you empathised with the person who had upset you, it reduced your anger and stress levels immensely. Basically, the next time somebody pisses you off, try imagining that he just received the most upsetting phone call of his life, his dog died that morning, he lost his job or his wife just ordered the Downton Abbey box set. All things that could cause an adverse reaction from a person. i.e. he's not a dick, he's just having a bad time right now. And then let it all go, you'll be much better off.

Good thing you posted this on a running forum.

My one great satisfaction is passing cars that flew past me five minutes earlier when they all hit a bottleneck.

Which trick gives you the most satisfaction?

Isn't that because statistically the most commonly travelled area is within 5km of a person's home?

I would actually like to try riding road, I really would, but what I've seen during my commutes has put me off it completely.

Gobi?

Prenup

I just learned to look left and right at a green light. Light went green for me, I began cycling across and midway through the intersection a garden services van with a trailer skipped the red light and missed me by around four feet. Seriously, how long must his light have been red for me to have made it halfway across the intersection on a green light?

You'll need to follow it up with a nomination of the next two people on The Hub to pass on some cycling goodness.

http://i.imgur.com/hQ0Gvcp.jpg

Here's the final say on why you should wear a full face helmet instead of a basic lid. Now imagine what his head would have looked like if he didn't have a full face protector on? Convenience and comfort is not an excuse for inadequate safety: http://i.imgur.com/dl4mqFe.jpg /devilsadvocate

Someone on here mentioned running a line along the other side of the river. It sounded pretty speculative at first but I did a recce on a run yesterday and it could work. We'd need a jump over the river but the section just before that has a really good gradient (at the expense of the bottom half being a bit pedally. It's worth a look.

Don't tell me that was the same trip where Peach got sidelined on the third day?

I've just set up a standard Sun Ringle rim to run my tubeless tyres, process was pretty straight forward: 3 layers of insulation tape wound tight, 1 layer of Stan's tubeless rim tape wound tight with about 20cm overlap, cut an x where the valve goes, pop it in, screw it tight by hand, put on the tyre, add sealant and you're good to go.

I'm not sure about that one, it's possible it could have been city parks flattening the bump to make it easier for the tractor mowers. The Jan Smuts one was very deliberate, though.

For sure, just nice to know it's conveniently available directly on your TV now too.