NGM

Yip, it's definitely become much more real now. During the "first wave" I only knew of a couple of people who got sick. But for round 2 it feels like I'm in the minority because (to my knowledge) I've not had it. But who knows, I might have. I had a few rides over Christmas where I had to turn back because I was just feeling lousy. Not in the legs, but my breathing and heart rate weren't great. Also on new years day I woke up with a headache and feeling a bit nauseous. It seems like such a lottery though. My brother and Aunt both caught it, both in the UK. My brother (a relatively healthy 40 yr old) couldn't get out of bed for a week. But my Aunt, a 70yr old overweight ex-smoker was practically asymptomatic.

89 spm can't be correct if you're running - it's pretty much half of what is normal for jogging so it's possibly counting every second stride or it's some other metric. 160-180 is pretty normal. Running at 89 spm would look like somebody permanently attempting to triple jump.

And the guys in this video seriously need to consider a bearing service on their pedals. Once you see it, it's all you see: https://www.news24.com/ride24/skillsandtips/watch-aerodynamics-in-cycling-and-how-to-use-it-to-your-advantage-20201208

OK so this is just about perfect for this thread... I bought a second hand road bike a while back and it came with one of those cateye cycle computers. I wasn't expecting it to be with the bike I bought and its really not fancy (like R250 or something)... but what can I say, I've grown fond of it. But the only problem is, the magnet that sits in the spokes is missing. It didn't come with the bike. I know that any magnet will do, but I'm not about to duct-tape a fridge magnet to my spokes. So there must be somebody out there with an old cateye magnet lying around... sitting in a bedside table next to that foreign currency left over from your last holiday, some defunct cellphone chargers and an odd number of cufflinks. Replacements cost R90, so: if you have one of these live less than R90 worth of petrol away from stellenbosch are happy to give it away... then please let me know.

Check out the bolt where the seatstay joins the chainstay for getting the belt on. I've got a splitable seatstay too on my touring bike so have been coveting one of these for a while. Sounds like the rohloff needs its own thread.

Lovely from a maintenance POV but they weigh a ton and belt drives are less efficient than chains. Although I guess you could run it with a chain too.

That's awesome, I guess he was dropping in to see if you were really dead. A spotted eagle owl nearly took my dog once but that's not really the same. Yeah I always thought they were "African" Vultures too until a friend from Charmonix sent me a photo of one from his house. I believe there are stable populations in the Alps and Pyrenees. I think they can only really survive above 2500m so Drakensberg/Lesotho is the only place the works around here. Outside of captivity, I've only ever seen one miles above me when I went up Sani Pass. But I did see an Andean Condor pretty close up in this very random mountain town in Peru and it was crazy, honestly it looked like a small plane.

Nice. Yeah I was asking if they were black because I think there's also the Cinereous vulture there which is much darker than the Griffon. But I think the griffon is most common so probably the best bet. Spain seem to be pretty good with their environmental protection, the spanish imperial eagle was brought back from almost certain extinction thanks to some great conservation efforts in spain.

The Pyrenees is one of the European strongholds for the Bearded Vulture (MASSIVE bird), which we also get in the Drakensberg. But they're pretty rare so most likely a more common species if there were 40 of them. Were they mostly black?

Doing deals on the fly like this without running them past Morne is playing with fire.

No I'm almost certain it would be manufactured elsewhere. Most likely taiwan but that's a guess. But that's not really what I was getting at. We've got this fantastic south african company that you could use to source just about everything you needed to build a bike... run by a kiwi. Edit: and I mean that entirely as a self-deprecating joke, as in, we couldn't get it right ourselves.

Lol, yeah thanks to a Kiwi we can now make a bike entirely from South African parts. I happened to see that frame a few hours after the ad was posted and thought it was/is beautiful, but there was no fanfare at all, it's like it was quietly snuck into the classifieds. I hope it takes off. All of the rapide stuff I've ever bought is still going strong. How are we pronouncing the name of this badboy anyway? I'm going with spanish, as in "El Tee-grey".

Some adds for Farr frames were posted on bikehub about a day ago. So you should get a response here, or at least this should open up a channel to more private communication.

Just out of interest, english is far more common than afrikaans as a second language in south africa. So while more people speak afrikaans at home, far more people can speak english in general. Not trying to start a culture war or anything. It's just completely factual that english is the more spoken language in general (about double relative to afrikaans) and it goes some way to explaining the odd person's surprise about the magazine being afrikaans. It's a bigger market of 1st language speakers, but maybe a smaller general market. Personally I don't mind, it looks great and I read Afrikaans much better than I speak it.

If it's the brothers Kepler I saw advertised on here a while back, well done, that's great frame. I would have bought it if it were 1 size bigger. Might be useful: https://bikepacking.com/gear/guide-to-mullet-drivetrains/

Thanks man. Ya sorry I could have been a bit more sensitive with my timing. Thanks for the recommendation though honestly I love this bike. Oh and while I'm being insensitive.... ahem, they also come in blue. And I have some unused spares parts I'd donate.

Thought I'd post a pic of the final build. The frame got lost by customs for a couple of months, but it gave me the time to source all the parts. I splashed out on a few items, like the Thompson seatpost and brooks saddle. Also the Yokozuna breaks are amazing, but I got those at a special price that pretty much made them impossible to ignore. The matching brooks bar tape was essentially a gift. A couple of things were sourced second hand. I got the Chris King Headset here on the hub. Then a bunch of things from Rapide. I've got a GRX 2x10 groupset with Tiagra shifters - I need those to talk to the cable disc brakes. This 30t:36t gear ratio gives me 24 gear inches, which seems like its the lowest bailout gear ratio I can get with road shifters and no fancy tricks (like a wolftooth tanpan or similar). A lot of people don't like the stacked-up stem but the whole point was comfort. I started to get back pain on my road bike so wanted to set this up so that I'd be comfortable to ride 6 hour days. This is the most comfortable bike I've ever ridden. Now I need to source some carrying stuff and do some overnighters in the Karoo and cederberg. Thanks for all the advice and suggestions along the way.

Can't say for sure. Apart from being accosted by a bushpig at a camp site in St Lucia, my knowledge of the hog family is limited.

I KNOW! Are we not going to talk about the wild boars? Where is this guy living that boars are so problematic? Also, if you were riding at 52kph and "a boar hit you", then actually you hit the boar. No disrespect meant, it sounds like it was a serious injury.

Hahaha, true it does match my checklist. It really shouldn't though and that's my fault, because i didn't mention anything about gearing in my original post. I really wouldn't want to do a multi-month trip on a bike like that. I'm sure I COULD. But I COULD also do it on a BMX. It just wouldn't be that pleasant. They are the right bike for mass distribution to rural africa though for sure.

Just an update here. I ordered a Soma Wolverine which has just cleared customs. I'll include pictures of the build if anyone is interested. I've sourced most of the parts; mostly new stuff but a few second hand bits and pieces. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I'm selling my road bike to make space. So if you know anyone that's interested.... https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/road-bikes/412679/cannondale-supersix

So you're the guy that beat me to that frame!

You say that but I think stellenbosch is still below par for this time of year. Technically we (at least here in stellenbosch) have not had an above-average rainfall year since 2014. Thankfully The previous two years were close enough to the average (and people changed their behavior enough) that our big dams are in great shape again. Anyway, this is a thread about mushrooms not hydrology and that is a monster you found. Those and pine rings are some of the only ones I'd happily forage and eat. The rest either don't taste nice enough, or taste great but could be easily confused with something dangerous.

Agreed. Either way though, I kinda wish I hadn't seen that pic.

Brilliant news! Even though I'm reading it pretty late.