NGM

Ya all good man. My post was really just me thinking out loud about the 3 possible outcomes you mentioned. Option 1 sounded most likely. Turns out the guys I fancied for the win got dropped about 3km into the climb. Good stage though.

Such a weird stage to call because of where the climb is, and because the stage is kinda short. As a GC rider is it worth trying to put 30s into a rival and then have to defend it solo for the last 40km? For a pragmatic/clinical team like Visma whose GC rider also wants to do the TdF, it makes the most sense for Jonas to only target a handful of key mountain stages and this isn't one of them. Especially since a lot of his key rivals either crashed out or didn't make the start line. So for me it's a "sprinter who can climb" stage: Tobias Lund is a good shout. Even Magnier might be a dark horse here because apparently he was also a decent climber before he decided to focus more on sprinting. He's riding a wave at the moment. My uninformed opinion.

Ah right. Ya I thought something like that existed, did a quick search and couldn't find info. Didn't look hard enough!

I'd imagine gravel is one of the best use cases for these and it's pretty easy to see them being common place in the future. Relative to XC, say, straight line speed and minimal rolling resistance is far more important than maneuverability. If they are faster without any significant tradeoffs, then why wouldn't it become the standard in some disciplines? It's hard to see this size being workable for some of the shorter road riders like carapaz, but the likes of Tim DeClerc would have been quite at home on 32". I wonder if we'll ever see 2 different sizes in the peloton. That said, I bumped into somebody riding a pyga pascoe the other evening; a 650B bike I owned and then sold in about 2017 to get a 29er. It's still the most fun-to-ride bike I've ever owned despite the handful of decent dual suspension 29ers I've ridden since then, and now that I don't care about being fast, that's all that matters. And even then, I've actually still never come close to some of my best times on technical descents that I got with that bike. I wish I'd never sold it, although, I'm not sure how easy it is to get spares these days.

Some well placed advertising.

Sure, will hang on to them.

I've had these 3 bike touring pannier bags sitting around at home and wont use them again. They were my partners pannier bags on a long bike tour and during heavy rain some of her kit inside did get a bit wet. That aside, they worked well and clipped onto tubus racks without trouble. Someone can have them for free if they collect them from me in stellenbosch. Otherwise they're going to the charity shop.

Everyone from 5th to 37th place is on the same time. Position is arbitrary.

This is how I feel about it too. The order also matters. If a buyer exhibits behavior I disapprove of after I've given them my word, then I'd be OK with going back on it. It's new information. But if I gave them my word in spite of this/after the fact, then it's on me to honor that. And if a 3rd party contacts me in the mean time saying "I can be at your house in 20 minutes with the cash" then I would give the original buyer a deadline, just to be sure he keeps his word too.

It was this post that prompted me to do the same. I was gifted a garmin 800 with a cracked screen from a family member who doesn't ride anymore. I emailed garmin and eventually got a badly worded email back that essentially said "We can't replace individual screens but feel free to hand-deliver the device and one of our technicians will book it in and then given you a quote on a replacement unit" or something along those lines. So I picked up a replacement one from AliExpress and, like you, 2 mins and it was replaced. It's working well so far. The only pain in the whole process is AliExpress' delivery company, imile, who just come across a dodgy.

Ah right! Well I hope you enjoy it. I recently read a book called "The best, the emperor and the milkman: a bone-shaking tour through cyclings flemish heartlands" - basically an englishman touring flanders watching as many classics as he can, fueled on beer and fries/frites. Sounded like fun, at least for a day or two.

This is getting silly. We all know the only plausible option is Adrien Boichis. Beers and Boichis. It might be the greatest south african team name ever.

I lived in the UK for 8 years before coming back. While the winters were pretty miserable one of my big regrets was not popping over to belgium to watch cyclocross (on TV it looks like a great vibe) and some of the cobbled races. So if you manage to do that, you will be making at least one person from big sky country a little bit jealous.

I just want to manage my expectations here... is that a "no" on florian lipowitz?