DirtyFrank

No more toilet stops,with the right bibs you could do a number 2 without getting off the bike!

Listen to the man, do it. The plastic/teflon insert kit comes with a set of sealed bearings and freehub pawls if i remember correctly. Crossmark hubs wear our so quickly and you can feel this in the wobble on the cassette body, causes shifting issues and the bike shops will always tell you your chain/cassette is gone. The design is crap i.m.o. and eventually the hub axle body( the part where the teflon washer rubs against the alu when you freewheel.) wears out. I eventually replaced my freehub bushing ( +/- 10 000km with a hub doctor bearing conversion and have since then done at least 5000km without any hassles and my chains/ cassette combos have lasted much longer and are no longer super sensitive to the least bit of wear. The notorious mavic cassette wobble which causes many of the shifting hassles is gone. I reckon the steel bearing will ultimately eat the rest of the hub shaft but at that point the wheels are toast anyway. Great product and service from HUB doctor and would recomment them any day as I would have turfed my mavics long ago had it not been for them.

I only have one bike nowadays and it`s a DS 26" MTB ,actually more of a trail than xc bike, I ride it mostly off-road but as I live in a built up enviroment I have to ride on tar to get to the dirt as it were. I love my aggro knobly tyres and can`t be bothered to change tyres for the tar. I ride in lycra because it is comfortable and my bloody pants don`t get snagged on the saddle as my baggies do.I do sometimes miss the pockets. I don`t shave my legs and only regret this every time I shed some skin on the ground. My wife likes my hairy legs. I regret selling my racer a couple of years ago and have been trolling the hub for a suitable replacement lately, love the responsive and taut feel of a good racer. I have done quiet a few road races including the 94.7 on my DS trail duallie with full knoblies ,wearing a camel bac, covered in mud and all from the previous days MTB race( what a pity that they split these events!) I apologise if I scared you when i passed you on your carbon racer with my howling knobblies ( 2,4 Mountain kings ) on route to a very respectable 3:32, I will try not to do it again, but I think that I just possibly might.

100% I have assisted quiet a few pushers and have twice ridden past some very nasty liedowns( broken collar bone / arm ) and have also been caught in the mother of all thunder storms underneath the power lines where I did feel rather `vulnerable` with nothing but a double condom width of rubber and a virtual lightning conductor stuck between my legs, so if you can, ride with company or in the very least ride prepared because the walk/crawl back to any form of help can be a loooooong way, especially during the week, week-ends are better because there are more cyclists to lend a hand. It is a lovely place, best place to cycle in relative peace and train some hills in Gauteng. Worth taking the braai along for an after ride steakroll too. If it were any closer to Joburg it would be the perfect roadie spot but that would also spoil the tranquility one can experience there.

No Garmin dinges but Polar printout , this will give you a good idea of the profile. This is the best hill training ride in Gauteng without a doubt, beautiful place too.

Willie is a legend, one of the best songwriters of all time. If being high was the source of that talent, I say keep it up Willie, suck that spliff dude!

My 2008 Trance X0 has just passed the 17000km mark. I have been thinking of an upgrade for a while but nothing has caught my fancy, I think i have found my new bike

I think it has been law since 2004 , i doubt whether anyone has ever been fined. We already have too many laws in SA which are only selectively applied purely to extort money from us, rather than to promote/enforce safety regulations. How many people do you see every day driving with their kids not buckled in or talking on their cellphones whilst driving.( Both of these a pet hate of mine, You have a R500K car but cannot/do not bother to use a hands free kit which probably came free with the f*cking phone/car .......grrrrrrrrrr! , also , why buy a fancy car with self tensioning belts, airbags galore if you simply don`t care to use them for your kids safety? All of which are much more serious than an adult riding his bicycle without a helmet.

From personal experience , having seriously crashed motorcycles and bicycles and having fallen off horses many times, I SELDOM ride without a helmet and I will not allow my kids to ride without one. However, I don`t care if someone else chooses to ride without one, outside of a competetive enviroment. It`s their choice as far as I am concerned providing they accept the consequences. If they are doing something stupid which may impact other road users ( like not being visible at night, speeding in built up areas, and driving/walking drunk etc.) then I take exception but riding without a helmet does not fall in that category. What next?, obligatory wearing of elbow and knee pads? back protector, Leatt brace, banning bicycles/motorcycles altogether? all these things would increase safety but do we really want to squeeze all the pleasure out of life for the sake of saving a few!

Easy come, .....I have seen the same poor appreciation for the sponsored equipment at Northern farms.....

"Entertainment sports soap" ....not quiet, some of the best endurance athletes in the world suffering in the most grueling and spectacular sporting event, yes. Don`t get too hung up on the drugs thing , this is a serious sporting event taht only a few will ever complete with any success......vive le tour !

Nobby nic front racing ralph back, snakeskin both. sidewalls are adequate but not super strong, great combo , very light too.

Lovely race, deserves much higher attendance. I will be back.

I agree with JGR , loads of crap and zero science. As far as the loads on towbars are concerned the towbar should realistically be rated to the maximum towing power of the car. You would most probably find that the static load would be 100 - 150kg vertically on the ball but this can dramatically increase under heavy breaking and emergency swerving etc. Any towbar that cannot take a pidly bike rack should not be fitted to a car. I am sure an engineer on the hub will clarify this. The additional leverage on the ball due to the cantilever on the rack will probably see the rack bending long before the ball breaks off/bends.

Rode the spruit yesteday late afternoon, black armband, Johny Clegg playing on my iphone, Asimbonanga.......!

Please can the moderators bring a bit of organization to this thread so that this initiative does not become fragmented and diluted . We need an authoritive statement from CSA and the Burry Stander spokesman and Criitical mass organizers. i will make myself available to distribute posters to as many Bike shops and cycliists hangouts in Jhb to adverise this event. We need a formal date,time and place?

Choked for words. So so sad!

`This issue can be cheaply sorted out with a replacement slip on chromed exchaust endpiece which delects the exhaust gas downwards in stead of straight back.

I reckon he is just lying there pondering his next decor scheme!

Thule 3 bike Euroway. Usefull in more than just for cycling as you can see. 60kg weight limit but i`d say we exceeded this on quiet a few occasions. Expensive but worth it. If you are a mountainbiker and take 2 bikes then dont wast your time with the 2 bike model as it is a tight squeeze. 3 bikes is best.

Eddie Merckx

Let me start by saying that I am not a LA fanboy in the purest sense but I do think he is undoubtedly one of the greatest cyclists ever. Did he use some chemical help? absolutely. Is he lieing about it ? sure. But they all did, at that level ! You don`t get to that height without exploiting every conceivable method at you disposal that you can get away with, be that trainers, equipment, diets, team support, meditation.....whatever gets the job done providing you can get away with it within the application of the rules! Was he caught out at the time, possibly, but no allegations stuck. For many of the others that were caught, tough luck. Point is they were caught red handed within a reasonable timeframe, not years after the fact and largely based on the bleating of some major sinners with a sudden attack of conscience. He did not get to the levels of achievement through EPO and testosterone alone contrary to some of the haters and whingers posts. He`s easy to hate, no doubt, arrogant, bullying, ambitious....but equally easy to admire, tough, focussed, intelligent, brilliant rider ( the Beloki shortcut incident springs to mind!) I don`t believe that any of the past winners were clean , and i don`t care, it`s high level sport and they wanted to win, they all played by the same unspoken rule( don`t get caught!) Do we now strip all the past winners of their titles and hand the yellow jerseys to the also rans? You`d have to believe in fairy tales if you think top level sport is totally drug free! I think the USDA with their rabid and typical hypocrictical Yank attitude have done the the sport so much harm with the irony that Armstrong as one of their own did a lot of good for the sport etc.( I can feel those flamethrowers lighting up !) The UCI have joined the crusade to try and save face but the truth is they are directly implicated in that they knew what was going on all along but ignored it in the interest of BIG business. Heads must roll there too if the sport is to regain some cred. A lot of speculation is going on now regarding possible law suits against Armstrong by sponsors etc. but that would be absurd i.m.o. as they all got their moneys worth from Armstrongs success, If they now go and claim their money back they`d better be willing to pay it all back to the suckers who bought their Jawbones and vitamins in the first place.That is unlikely to happen but you can bet that a lot of lawyers are nursing their hard ons as we speak! All of the above has been said before and none of it will change anything. I will only loose major respect for Lance if he rolls over under this pressure and blubbers a confession as per the other soft c*cks. Untill then he will always be one of the greatest in my eyes chemicals or not, I am not naive enough to believe in fairy tales!

small butane blowtorch, (cape union sells a nifty lighter/blowtorch) apply heat to crank close to spindle. spray some more penetrating oil onto the thread, heat again and try to loosen as normal.

What bike are you riding? Sounds to me that you may be on an xc bike and your preference is for a trail /am bike which has a geometry better suited to the upright position you are after. You can also try a different bar with a greater rise but these dont look too hot on a xc machine. At 1,8m and given your inner leg measurement the frame size seems ok, any bigger and you will stretch out even further. i think you are simply on the wrong type of bike.

ESI chunky are brilliant.