NGM

MTB fans may disagree.

I notice my Sunsynk inverter has a Wind Turbine input channel. Curious if anyone has tinkered with connecting a dynamo up to rollers or an indoor trainer and feeding that in instead.

Are you referring to the article as trash? I must admit I felt all the talk of fireflies at dusk and water dripping off thick brown hair made it read a bit more like "The bridges of Madison county" than anything that resembled journalism.

For me there's absolutely nothing wrong with a "Hey what's everyone else out there using?" type of question. 👍 I like the specialized pathfinders (38mm) I currently have but I actually ride a lot of tar and only a small amount of smooth gravel. It's got a nice smooth strip down the middle so in straight lines it's not that far off a road bike in terms of speed. If I rode lots of gravel I'd definitely go with wider higher volume tyres. 45mm at the least.

For sure, something to factor into the decision if one was going that route (Geyser or children!). Your initial comment indicated that those high temps didn't seem right and I'm just explaining the reasoning, for better or worse. From the Geyserwise Delta T manual: You can adjust the cutout temp. Personally I'm more afraid of the black widows in my house than the hot water tap.

It's "free" hot water. As long as it's not damaging anything by getting too hot, then there is no point in stopping the system from doing it's job. The hottest my system (plate and circulating pump) gets to is about 71 on a long sunny day. If I somehow throttled it at 60 deg (for example) then I'm just leaving the geyser with more work to do the next day... which could be cloudy, in which case it would have to use mains elec - which now both expensive and unreliable. For about 8 months of the year my geyser element does nothing.

A disadvantage of PV relative to EVT or plate is that it requires more of your roof area to generate the same amount of hot water. ie: it's a bit less efficient per square meter. This is only a factor is real estate is at a premium.

I've used these guys a number of times and they've been very good: https://www.triptychresources.co.za/ Talk to Andrew.

I have 2.2kW of solar panels, 5kVa sunsynk hybrid inverter and 5kW freedom won lithium battery. 1. I went with the bare minimum in terms of solar (just to save money) which was 4 x 550W panels. When I can afford it I will add another 6 panels. But for now this is working well. Our "background" usage (2 computers and 2 monitors, a fridge, some lights and a small pump that circulates water from our solar plate geyser, etc) sits at about 500W. So we typically have another 1.7kW to spare on a sunny day, which is used to charge the battery if needed. If I turn the kettle on (2kW) the inverter will use that excess 1.7kW from solar and make up the shortfall via eskom (if available) or from the battery. Adding another 6 panels will take us up to about 5kW which is the limit of the inverter. But for now in the long sunny days of a WC summer, the 4 panels I got are working far better than I expected and load shedding doesn't really exist anymore apart from me occasionally checking if we have mains power or not, in case I want to use the oven. Being just the 2 of us, having a solar plate to heat water and a gas stovetop has made it easier though. From your point of view though - it really depends on what you want to supply. I have a colleague with 16 x 500W PV pannels because he also supplies his geyser, a pool pump, multiple aircons, etc. 2. As I mentioned, I went with Sunsynk. If I had the money I would have gone with Victron which is the Rolls Royce of inverters, if the price and the opinions on many forums I read was anything to go by. Sunsynk it probably a bit more like the VW Passat of inverters. 3. Freedom Won eTower LiFePo4 5kW 52V. These had a good reputation from the little I'd read and heard. I was initially going to go with Hubble but had heard too many complaints on forums. I don't know how valid they were, but it was enough to put me off. I'm by no means an expert though and one can always do more research. I've only had this in for a month but so far so good. The lowest I've seen my battery so far is 88%. I can't recommend an installer as the team I used were only just branching out of the northern suburbs (CT) so I don't think Centurion is on their radar yet.

It didn't make for a bad tour in 2022.

Thanks

Hi All, I'm a bit late to the party here but I recently got a subscription for GCN+. I didn't/don't use a vpn and so far I've watched a fair bit of live track cycling without problem. I assume we need one because RSA is blocked on some of the bigger races?

As I understand it Sunsynk and Deye inverters are made in the same factory. Sunsynk have just been customized a bit for the western market but the same internals I believe. Also spending more time on powerforum.co.za than bikehub these days.

They did an installation at a friend's place and he seems happy with it. It was a battery backup only (no solar). I've not seen the installation and don't know them (the company) in any capacity. I also got a quote from them and found the same thing as you, about 15% cheaper than other offers. I don't know much more than that I'm afraid!

Dedicated DC output for routers and ONTs makes sense. Well, it's more that it doesn't make sense to use a conventional UPS, which takes the battery's 12V DC output and converts it into AC, and then have that converted BACK to 12V or 9V DC for your router via the power adapters. An inefficient and pointless round trip.

OK, I've used them for other minor stuff around my house in the past and they were good. I didn't realize that they did solar installations too. Thanks.

I'd typed the same question, almost word-for-word. Maybe the answer is just "Yeah I slept a lot" but I would love to hear what the first week after the race was like.

I'm looking at going the PV, inverter and Li battery route and am looking for recommendations on installers. I'm based in stellenbosch but would be happy with anyone that is relatively local (CT, Somerset, Boland). These chaps did an installation at a friend's place and he was very happy with it: https://www.solarandgas.co.za/ But before I spend more than I've ever spent on a bike (hey I'm just trying to keep it topical), I thought I may as well ask around a bit and get some other recommendations. So if you're in a similar neighborhood to me and have someone you can recommend then I'd be keen to hear.

We took our bikes over. Mine was a Fuji touring that I got from CRC. My partner rode a 2nd hand specialized awol that we picked up over here and modified massively with bits and pieces i picked up on the hub. I originally built up a separate bike (which I love) but it just couldn't take the load without wobbling around like noodle. Also it has short chain stays. Basically it was/is not a touring bike, more gravel-oriented. My bike and cargo weighed just over 40kg altogether, often a bit more if we'd stocked up on food. We wild-camped quite a bit in the Scandinavian countries so often stocked up quite a bit. So I'm now stuck with 2 bikes but wont sell either because I love them both. Our bikes were great though, no mechanicals. We saw many, many other tourers out there. 99% were on dorky traditional touring bikes with 3x10 mtb groupsets, ortlieb panniers and kickstands (including us). The other 1% were on bikepacking setups. The trend is pretty much inverted on social media. I've been roasted for saying this before but it feels like bikepacking only really happens on instagram. Anyway, that's a cynical statement and the best bike is the one that gets you out there I guess.

I hear what you're saying, but if you're riding from Cairo to Cape town it's fine to start in Cairo.

Just an update here, since I started the thread 2 years ago with the hope that I could do a biggish international tour one day. My partner and I rode from Oslo to Venice over a 3 month period starting in July this year, camping most nights. It was fantastic. I thought I should at least post it in case anyone is thinking of doing something similar. The hardest part was making the decision to go. Cheers. Photos of the first and last day, Baltic and Adriatic.

A useful resource: https://bicyclesouth.co.za/routes/

Does anyone out there have any experience with Synapse inverters and Pylontech (Lithium) batteries? I recently received a quote where these products were specc'd. I only ask because the main brands I really hear about (and keep hearing people recommend) are Sunsync Inverters and Hubble batteries.

They have a really quick strike but that quote is up there with Muhammed Ali saying that he's so fast he can turn the lights off and be in his bed before it gets dark.

Hi All, As per the title, is anyone aware of any adapters that allow flat mount hydraulic disc calipers (shimano GRX) to pair with IS mount fork and frame? So far I've not come up with anything on google. Thanks