EigerSA

i've learnt to do my own bike maintenance simply because the prices shops charge in my opinion are outrageous. the thing is though, if you've paid for a service to be done, you kinda expect it to be done properly, not a half arsed job. I waited 3/4 weeks for cycle concepts in Waterfall to phone me about whether they could get a specific color of bar tape for me (for which I've already paid I might add), i've been in twice since i asked and twice they said they'll phone the rep and get back to me. today i went in and they said they couldn't get the color... i'll repeat that... i went in,... i'll vote with my wallet... crc will get my money from here on in.

I came across this site yesterday, thought others might be interested in looking at it. It's a community led project to assist with identifying stolen bikes... perhaps we need something similar here? http://www.myassettag.com/Bike/

that's what critical mass is all about... just go and join the joberg critical mass rides.

I know everybody diarised the date already... but for those that missed it, Durban Critical Mass tomorrow @ 5:30pm. Meet at MM Stadium (at the bust)... all welcome!

@Tommy: That first pic of the palm is brilliant! *Hijack @DaLoCo: a 5-string bass? You do the necks as well or just body? And where you get the hardware? Hijack-off*

This White Rhino was playing "battle of the wills" for about half an hour, before deciding to move on and allowing us to continue on the drive

In Hluhluwe this past weekend... playing around in GIMP and Picasa I had some other what I thought were really fantastic pics, but on downloading them noticed there was a dust spot slap dab in the middle! Guess will teach me to keep lenses clean.

it totally depends on the sandblaster medium they use. as mentioned above, can come back very pitted. maybe phone some bike shops in the area and ask if they can recommend someone

it was wet apparently there was a quick shower ten minutes before hand which did keep the majority of the punters away, we had about 10 I think. the next one on the 27th this month, I'll keep reminding people regularly so no excuses

i'm not going to get there, got a tour on. but we've had anywhere from 25 people to 6 it's on the last Friday of every month at 5:30pm. The tour takes us along the beachfront again and then we head into town. it's really good fun. if you can't make it then just put a reminder in your diary now for next month

The next Durban Critical Mass is tomorrow at 5:30pm. Meet at the bust of Moses Mabhida outside the stadium. Remember it's getting darker sooner so please consider bringing some bike lights. And helmets are required

Not sure if this has been posted already... if so then ignore. But if not... next on the list of considerations is limiting training so no one rider has any advantage by training more than the next rider this sport is becoming farcical! http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/03/bikes-and-tech/uci-to-require-lawyer-tabs-dictate-camelbak-placement-and-sock-length_209958

I see Picasa just released 3.9 (just updated). They've got a some new effects going. I know the pro's wouldn't be caught dead with Picasa, but I reckon it's one of the friendliest photo software I've ever used. Anyone else use it?

you'll have to import the chromoly. look at "henry james", they have complete kits available for mtb and road. you could build from carbon fibre, but the cost of the material is quite high in South Africa and I don't think you could build it less than what a no-name brand would cost, there are suppliers out there though. look at the lugged kits and then do a youtube search, not difficult to build up at all. http://www.henryjames.com/index.html keep us posted please

Taken this morning on a short ride with Nokia E5... Was taken just off Old Main Road by the old station houses overlooking 1000 Hills.

I read your post wrong originally. If you're looking for chromoly for a bike build, forget it, can't be found in South Africa, you have to import it. Which is not too much of a problem since you'll have to import the headtubes and bb anyway. Look at Nova or Henry James, they supply complete kit you can weld up if you're handy with a tig welder, or butted frames. plenty of youtube videos showing the process.

for chromoly tubing, take a drive to an airfield, there's usually a couple of guys building kit plans and they use chromoly tubing. Or maybe speak to the car racers, they must use chromoly tubing to brace their cars?

We don't seem to have much of a frame building fraternity here in South Africa compared to the rest of the world. Not sure why, though I imagine it's got something to do with the cost of bringing the right steel into the country - ironic since we mine and export it, and also maybe South African's prefer to buy something as opposed to making something. One guy I've been following for ages is Brano Meres, an engineer who's into bikes and has built a bamboo bike as well as a carbon bike, just proving that it's totally within the grasp of the hobby builder. His newest build at first didn't look too great (at least I didn't think so), but it's grown on me. http://bmeres.com/images/nighthawk04.jpg And this is the actual build, not a computer render. Check his site out here... http://bmeres.com/nighthawk.htm I also came across this on Kickstarter... http://www.mixedmediaeng.com/files/7613/2944/3473/Frame_and_hardware_and_Jig_small.jpg It's a complete hobbiest/home builder frame kit, including the frame jig made of MDF - pretty awesome. More here... http://www.kickstart...ame-building-to

It's theft of property pure and simple. If they cropped out the watermarks and stuff then it's even worse since it shows they knew exactly what they were doing. Write a letter, claim some money and see what happens.

I'm wondering, how many people shooting RAW and how many jpg? I've started shooting RAW but find it's taking too long to save between images, and it's pretty big image file. But is RAW any better than jpg really (I prefer converting to png myself)?

@Dangle: how did you do the HDR effect? using HDR software or Photoshop (GIMP)? I'm keen to try it but have no idea how to go about it except shooting 3 shots with big exposure differences.

I snapped this and a few other pics of these Rhino in the very late afternoon sun, at first I didn't like the pic so much, felt it was a little underexposed and washed out, but it's slowly begun to grow on me, I think it's my favorite of this group. This one I also like... I like how the underexposed effect has captured the lateness of the day. The pics are tilted because I was facing the other direction and shooting over my shoulder. I actually think it improved the pics a bit as opposed to them being framed all square like.

Had to share this... http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/car_problems.png

Was a good ride, we had about 10 cyclists and perfect weather. Started at MM, rode right down to the point, then towards the city, past city hall to Wilsons Wharf then back again. I think it ended up being 25km's or thereabouts and we finished about 7:30'ish. Some pics on my cell phone... Next ride is on the 24th.

only way is to import the steel. look at getting a kit from http://www.henryjames.com/ you may may to build a lugged frame (nothing wrong with this at all, plenty mtb's built with lugs) unless of course you got a tig welder.