FlandersZA

On Sat I am riding with my brother and his girlfriend and it will be their second ride. They did a ride with us two weeks ago but both nearly pegged. Part of the problem was that on the GF's bike (her son's entry, entry level MTB), the front fork lockout is jammed in the locked position. She basically rode 35km of trail on a rigid sus for her first ride. For Sat I am trying my best to ease the blow to entice both of them into the lifestyle. For starters we'll be taking them on a 20km blue route this time and she also has one of those spongy seat covers now. I am desperate to get this fork issue resolved as well. The lockout switch is on the fork and moves under force about 30 degrees to the unlocked position but returns to its original state and refuses to unlock. I don't have access to the bike but I forgot to see if the underside of the fork is open or not. I'm thinking maybe some Q20 in from the bottom end to unjam whatever is going on in there? Would that help? Any suggestions?

Ya man, a full red route there (which according to my garmin is +-38.5km) earns me about 320m.

Lol, sorry man! I didn't mean to imply that you okes are a bunch of rebellious ten year olds or anything. I've seen some of your scout hall/DHL session pics so I know a bunch of you are at least twice that age! I thought maybe you'd recruited some fresh meat for initiation. "Benny, see you Thursday hey? You've got talent, kid. But you have a lot of work to do so don't forget that spade! Oh, and bring the music!"

Hey spruit rats, I saw something quite comical on Thursday and I was wondering if this is someone you guys know - I was introducing a mate of mine to the spruit for his first ride there. We were on our return leg north from Emmerentia to just before the N3 near Cowley road. I hear this muffled gangsta music ahead like it's coming out of a suped-up low rider cruising towards me. I look around but there's nothing. Then I notice this youngster on a bike coming towards me on the trail from the opposite direction. White rims, seat as low as it can go...just cruisin'. At this point the "music" is pumping out as he rides past me and I realise that it's coming from his backpack. Whatever was in there was outputting some serious watts, brah! I thought he was quite a brave dude for advertising his system on the spruit like that. Definitely looked like he was more geared up for some aerial-type manoeuvres as opposed to anything xc enduro.

Interesting, thanks! Well as you can tell I'm no expert on chains but I do tend to keep it lubed etc. The method you're talking about - I must be having a blonde moment but I don't see where he talks about measuring the chain - as in a unit of measurement? He links to http://bicycletutor.com/calculate-chain-length/ but it's subscribe-to-watch. This is the tool I got here: http://www.birzman.com/products.php?src=tech&prod_sn=93&tech_sn=48

I realise this could be like asking how long is a piece of string due to there being a ton of variables like elevation gain/distance ratio, power output etc. but on average, how many kilometres should the average common or garden chain last? I fear my noobness may have cost me dearly on this one. When I got my bike, someone told me that it was around 1500km. Yesterday I realised that my chain has done over 2000km so today I rushed out and bought one of them chain checker tool thingy mabobs. I would have bought a new chain as well but the LBS was out of stock. Turns out the tool is slotting into the 1% wear mark. I know this is not good but what now? Do I just get a new chain ASAP and hope for the best or am I likely looking at a damaged cassette/rings now as well? The thing that boggles my mind is that I checked my friend's chain too and she has done a total of about 1100km and her chain is slotting the 1% wear mark too. Is this normal?

They thought they were scoring a 26er. Little did they know that later they'd be getting @#&$ed by one.

Yoh, dude. Hectic! It's one thing if your mate is broken yet conscious but if he/she is KO or worse, I imagine the urge to panic could be quite hard to suppress - especially if it's just the two of you. Also, because of "spruit marshalls" and such, I'd be hesitant to leave them alone for any time whatsoever trying to get help. I'm guessing it's best to stay with the person at all times. Glad you got him out of there ok and hope he makes a full recovery. I'm assuming he took the left line out of the bomb hole? I don't ever hit the left side - still looks like suicide to me. My thing is making sure I'm on the anchors quick enough after the bomb hole to negotiate the rocks before the bridge as I tend to shoot out of the straight/right line with a very low, flat trajectory but enough to make braking totally ineffectual for that instant.

Nope!

That sucks and will really put a serious damper on the spruit for me. I wonder if it would also apply to the paddler dudes? Can't see them being happy about it either. Such a great feeling arriving there early in the morning and seeing the guys riding, paddling and generally just escaping the rat race for a bit. As far as the dogs without leashes go, yeah, seen this as well but thankfully haven't had any negative encounters to date. I just let the dogs do their thing, say morning to the owner/s and pedal on my way.

Noob question but how do you guys check the pressure? Do you use a compressor or do you have pumps with gauges or what? If so, I obviously need to get one because mine doesn't have one and I just pomp until it "feels" right.

Excuse my complete ignorance here but handlebar height? I asked the "cagey" spot I got my bike at about this and I was told it's not adjustable. (yes, I'm relatively new to all this) Reason I asked was because sometimes the palms of my hands get numb while riding and I felt like it was because my bars were too low and so I was putting excess weight on my bars.

That's a bonus! Mine is the Velo Wireless Plus.

Ah ok, so my 222cm is in the neighbourhood after all. Pity I can't input mm - it's limited to cm. Thanks

When I bought my bike in late August last year, I wasn't even aware of Garmins or any of the other fancy gadgets cycling had on offer. I wanted a basic speedometer/odometer and so opted for a Cateye Velo wireless. In the instructions, there is a list of wheel sizes to make calibration possible, unfortunately my exact tyre size was not there for whatever reason (my bike is a MTB 29er with Rocket Rons) so I had to input the outer circumference manually. The number I came up with after measuring was 232cm. It seemed correct since one of the other listed sizes in 29er was 233cm - 1cm difference. Anyway, I soon noticed that the cateye was not calibrated that accurately since I started Strava-ing my rides with a handheld Garmin e-trex 10 I keep in my pack. The cateye over-read by about 1km per 25km. I didn't bother with re-calibrating it until now, after it was somehow reset this past weekend. I now have it dialled in very accurately after some painstaking measurements using GPS tracks. On a ride of exactly 32.5km, the cateye now reads 32.52km - good enough for me. The weird thing is the measurement I used to get it there...222cm. According to the instruction manual in the box, if 222cm is used as a manual input, it would mean my wheel is: 42-622 28 x 1.60 (700 x 42C) whereas in actual fact, it's: 57-622 29 x 2.25 I know it's accurate now. Speeds and avg. speed etc. as well as distance are spot on. How they get their numbers however, totally eludes me.

Hope they rot in hell! Sorry to hear, glad you're ok.

Did spruit today for the first time in ages. Seems a lot of the hazardous stuff has been made safer. Big up to the folks involved. The slippery rock I mentioned is still wet at the moment but has a stepping stone cemented in the ridge now. The place I call Pipe Creek (dip through the tributary with pipe running alongside near field and study) has been smoothed out and is far less rutted. Enjoyed the bombhole today too, albeit on the right-hand line. I see that left-hand side is looking pretty pointy for the airborne stuff - nice!

Should be on the southbound section from Grosvenor at about 10:45am tomorrow - myself and two others.

Congrats!

Thanks guys. I don't have a bike rack right now so have to go on the bike the whole way. Thinking of going a bit later in the morning on Thurs. Crossing Nicol will suck no doubt as well as at the bottom near the Terrace but I guess it's just a matter of waiting for a gap. If it's on I'll post a time here closer to Thurs if any of you guys would like to join up.

Hi all, Apologies if this is a stupid question but is the spruit a decent option to ride during week days? I have a friend whose brother-in-law is out from UK for a week and is keen to do some trails while here. I've only ever done spruit on weekends and my concern is the traffic on the road crossings and possible lack of other riders around from a safety point of view. We would be looking at entering the trail at the bottom of Grosvenor, heading south to the back of Emmerentia, back north and then exit up Cowley. I would have preferred to take him to Northern Farm but I don't think it's open during the week? Any other options for JHB north area? I'm a bit clueless and my usual weekday riding consists of road rides in the local 'burbs. I think he's up for something more adventurous.

For overall ride stats just ditch that Garmin and use your phone for some vastly improved results!

Holy sh...twenty seven thous... Ok, I see the door. Headed there now.

My 29er's back tyre is starting to look hella bald. Is the general trend to buy tyres in pairs or do you buy singles as needed? I'm thinking my ride will look a bit odd with mismatched rounds but then what do I do with my unscathed front tyre? Should I have been rotating them like on a car? I'm still running tjoops. What's a good tyre to go for if I'm mostly riding the trails of Gunteng as well as a bit of suburban jungle during the week? Question posed in my most noobish way possible and yet I'm actually quite serious.

Sheesh. Well it looks like I have an eternity of spamming to do before I'm considered part of the "g-unit"! Prepare yourselves for a salvo of noob questions coming to a thread near you!