Rock Guy

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I'm probably what you'd call an Enduro Bru. Learned how to wheelie, bunny hop and ride trails when I was still in school, many years ago. So ja, I know my difficulty gauge is not the same as someone who only started riding at the age of 35. I'm not the best rider out there by any means and I can't ride jumps to save my life. I ride on the cautious side nowadays after having had a few surgeries myself. That said. I don't think the cobra is difficult. Its also not the easiest trial to ride if you've just started riding. Grabbing a hand-full of front brake in the rock pile that lies just beyond the aforementioned rock slab is going to cost you a collar bone. Keep left as you enter the slab (this used to be a sneaky line, but it's now pretty much the main line). Break on the rock slab, then control your speed with the rear break around the right hand corner. Don't touch your front break in the corner, you will crash. make sure you enter the slab slow enough. You can always put in a few pedal strokes after you exit the right hand corner at the bottom. Just take you time, and learn the correct technique.

I'm sure if we increase the membership fees by a few 100% TMTBC could pad all the trails with high density foam. This should make everything very accessible to riders of all skill levels. Added bonus, weeds cant grow on high density foam.

I haven't even asked Specialized for quote. Their lack of interest in fixing it the first time round makes it very difficult for me to go back there. I'm sure new bearings wont cost too much, but I'd rather just have the problem solved.

I opened up the headset on my 2019 Enduro over the weekend to give it a "quick" clean and grease. To my dismay it became immediately apparent that the stock headset is absolute rubbish. It seems the development team over at FSA's OEM parts department may have accidentally developed the perfect one way valve for trapping dirt and water. ALL the water and dirt gets in there, and nothing escapes. Bearings are rusted after being replaced less than a year ago ( I've only ridden ~2000km, no races and no pressure washer). I had Cane Creek 40s fitted to my last two bikes and neither of them ever had any issues. Its quite obvious that the FSA headset I have now is far lower quality, the top has only a single o-ring sitting in the middle of the cap, and there is a visible gap between the frame and the top cap of about 1.5mm. I've taken the bike back to Specialized after noticing the obvious gap, they haven't been very helpful. They only removed the ~0.25mm shim that rested on top of the compression ring, which has clearly not solved the problem. It's also not an easy problem to solve as Specialized seem to use a somewhat unique integrated headset system, making it difficult to find alternative headsets. I'd like to know if anyone has had similar issues with their Specialized bikes and what your solutions were? I'm quite sure that if I continue using this headset, it will eventually cause damage to the frame. (For reference, I have the carbon 2019 Specialized Enduro Expert 27.5)

Blasphemy!!

I always try to answer all questions when selling something on Bikehub. Common courtesy I reckon. I would also never insult someone for asking a question I think is stupid. No harm in being polite. So if asked if something is still available I just say "yes, it's still available", "Sorry someone else just bought the item", "Someone else has made an offer, but you have 2nd option", etc. I leave adds up until the buyer has made payment. I have sold a decent number of items on Bikhub and I must say that potential buyers have mostly been great to deal with. I can't think of a single bad experience I've had so far, a bit of faffing from time to time, but nothing serious. I know that not everyone have been this lucky though. When selling (e.g. a used cellphone) on Facebook Marketplace though...that's a different story. I've legitimately received hundreds of messages in the first few minutes of an ad being up. You simply cant reply to them all. Most of these messages are of the classic "is this still available genre. If this happens, I just go down the list from the top as low ball offers get denied or people don't reply to my responses. When buying on Bikehub, I don't mind too much if someone doesn't reply. I mean it's not ideal, but I think its safe to assume if the seller isn't replying, the item has been sold or there are other offers in the pipeline already.

Sorry to hear the trails aren't looking great over at Meerendal. I ride Tygerberg trails all the time and I can tell you that much of the vegetation (weeds really) have basically popped up overnight. That said, I haven't been to Meerendal recently, perhaps the vegetation there is a bit worse than other parts of the Tygerberg network. Next time give Hoogekraal a go. The trails there are in mint condition and I can't say that the vegetation bothered me much there last weekend. Trails there are about the same skill level as Meerendal, but in my past experience the trails are better maintained. Also I find the scenery nicer and it mostly provides much better protection from the southeaster. You can always go to Meerendal for drinks after the ride if you like. Or head on over to Contermanskloof for some very lekker beers and/or coffee.

Makes sense that your bike will be faster with more expensive bearings… Through my own empirical studies, I have come to learn that nothing travels faster than money leaving a bank account. Conservation of energy therefore dictates that if your money transfers its kinetic energy to the bearings being purchased, the bearings will gain speed. Furthermore, because the money completely disappears after the purchase, special relativity also applies. The physical mass of the money is thus converted to speed, ergo, a larger sum of money will result in faster bearings.

I don't know hey. Seems to me the shop could have saved themselves some fallout by just giving the customer the discount as advertised. I doubt they'll be running at a loss with only a single unhappy customer wanting his extra R200 back. I'll say this much though, Advertising should be clear, and what is found in the shop should match the advertising. Your customer shouldn't be expected to go and read through the terms and conditions in order to fully understand where a retailer could have some legal loopholes. I mean, who does that? In my opinion, the shop could have made a legit mistake and accidentally put the bibs in the sale category, or had the bibs listed with an incorrect regular price. If this isn't the case then they knew full well they weren't honoring the email they sent out. Sure the discounted price was clearly visible on the website, but still, it doesn't honor the email. They offered the customer a refund, which is great, but I wonder how many other customers were happy to proceed with the less than 50% discount? Did they offer refunds to any of these customers? I guess we'll never know. With that in mind, would you trust a shop that is potentially exploiting legal loopholes to make an extra buck off their customers? I'd rather spend my money elsewhere. But ja, OP, you could have clarified the details on the price with the shop beforehand. Then you would have been able to make the decision on whether or not to support them based on their feedback before you actually spent your money. I don't have a massive issue with them merging shipments. It seems like an obvious place for a small online business to save some money. Surely you must recognize that it would be easier from them not to do this? It is their decision to put in the effort to do this and hopefully the savings find its way into pricing of goods. I wouldn't be surprised if they actively try to save money in other parts of the business too. Lower running costs could be why they are able to offer such massive discounts during sales?

Can't find any info, but perhaps to adjust the angle at which a detent stops the pedal's rotation?

Thank you for putting together this nice list of products that Cool Heat won't be bringing into SA.

"fixed" it

I guess this is true, but really I think we should ask for more technical climbs. There is nothing quite like clearing a tricky section of trail going up the hill. This topic came up while we were riding up Spykers climb at Hoogekraal just after they fixed it up recently. I understand this repair was done for drainage purposes and in order to prevent too much damage to the renosterveld, so no complaints here, but it got us talking about the distinct lack of technical climbs in Tygerberg. I can only think of two sections really, the Lombards Terra climb and the short rocky section leading to the Contermans mast (coming from Hillcrest side, It's fun if you try sticking to the right hand sided of the road). I for one would love to see some nice, natural, rocky singletrack leading up to the trail heads. Roots would be nice too, but last I checked we only have about seven trees in Tygerberg. It doesn't need to be steep, it doesn't even need to go uphill, just something that gets you from A to B in not the easiest way possible. Remember going up the old lower canaries in Jonkershoek? Slow, rocky, fun.

Haha, that's okay. I'm not too fussed about who exactly the aggregate players are in the Cape peninsula.

I'm guessing it's Afrimat. They run the operation at Contermans, which actually coexists quite peacefully with the trails there.

You are aware that mining/prosepecting rights and surface rights are two completely different things right? Its more than likely not the owner of the farm that has applied for the prospecting license. It is incredibly difficult for the common man to acquire a prospecting or mining license in SA. So no need for anyone to get all up in the farmer's face. If for some reason you have inside info that it is in fact the farmer, you should keep that info to yourself.

Mining rights in SA are "complicated", so I won't be worried about the Hoogekraal trails before I see a drill rig on the hills. These guys are doing one of two things. 1) They may be legitimately interested in mining for aggregate, the geology (hornfels) in the area is certainly correct for mining aggregate. It's also what gets mined all at the neighboring quarries. If this is true they are probably well versed in the art of making a deal under the table and it will almost certainly materialize. Sadly, the mineral resource industry in SA is incredibly corrupt. or... 2) Its someone that knows that the area is perfect for mining aggregate, but has no interest in actually mining it. The sole purpose of acquiring the license is to keep it until someone willing to mine buys it from them. If this is the case then the shelf company probably belongs to someone with connections in the DMR. Hopefully it's the latter and we get to have Hoogekraal trails a little while longer.

Love how they make a point of mentioning it's 2.5km away from a waste disposal site. I guess that's to make it seem like less of a big deal. Nevermind it being located in the middle of a recreational area that serves thousands of people. I've heard through a grapevine that Hoogekraal has had a very troubled past in terms of ownership, not sure how true any of it is, but quite sad if it is.

If I were you I'd go for a tyre with the strongest possible casing (i.e. Downhill casing, maybe Double-down will work too). At 160kgs, the weight saved using anything less is a sub-marginal gain. You won't find anything with an XC tread pattern and a downhill casing, but there are options such as the Maxxis Minion SS or Specialized Slaughter that will offer somewhat lower rolling resistance.

Back on topic. I don't agree. If your bike is noisy, you're not giving it the required maintenance. If you ride more or ride in terrible conditions all the time you will need to do more maintenance to keep your bike running well. If you do minimal maintenance or don't replace parts when necessary, your bike will ride like a P.O.S.. I do however think you get two types of cyclist. The one that hates a noisy bike, and the one that doesn't even notice the noises. Sometimes I wish I was the latter, I would save a lot of money and I would probably ride better not thinking something is going to break because of whatever new noise my bike is making. On the other hand though, a silent bike is soooo satisfying to ride.

Oh totally! I am often guilty of this. I even slapped a bunch of new grease into the freehub, so my ride is super silent now.

A friend of mine had that same issue a while ago. Turned out to be his rear thru axle that wasn't tightened properly. Dead silent again now. This weekend my bike also started making creaking noises under load. I was SURE it was the BB. guess what...Thru axle. Which also explained my slightly crappy shifting.

This is generally why SRAM brakes makes you faster on the descents. You simply cannot afford to use the brakes as often as the Shimano folk. Nothing to do with modulation as the internet would lead you to believe.