walkerr

I was just about to post "Beer" but you beat me to it with a much more rigorous and structured regime

Nice to see CWC service was good for you. Ordered 3x Mavic Open Pro rims from them few weeks back and one arrived with tiny split, only noticeable when wheel was built up. Wayne at CWC was great - organised collection of duff rim from wheelbuilder (Williams Cycles) and delivery of replacement to them. No quibbles or hassle - quick and efficient.

Never now - gave them up. Too many spike induced side effects. Aim for steady nutrition now before, during and after.

Also ride that way a lot on club rides - will keep an eye out. Shame we can't Tazz them back, see those ******* head down the cliffs into the sea.

All good. Not wishing to start a flame war ... but they also make Chris King in red ... just not "Red". CK ones have the gadget factor too - you can change the lube in them to a thinner blend for races, just for that extra spin-faster factor

Seriously dude - the bottom bracket is a pretty vital piece of your bike

Yep - spot on. I think it's bolted to the Flange Bracket and wired in to the Furtle Node for extra speed.

Your crank shaft runs through it where all the tubes meet.

BB = Bottom Bracket Just having mine replaced with a shiny new Chris King one ... which of course is going to make me way faster, to justify the spend

I was also worried about this - got 3 sets of calcs done by independent sources just to be sure (incl my wheelbuilder in SA). Only when they all came back with same answer, I placed the order (George Halls Cycles in UK).

Nope - I hear they are also good, but have been a Garmin user to-date. I do sometimes wish I'd got the 800, but in truth the 500 does all I need

Agree to that - good price and the Edge 500 is a decent unit. Mine's a year old now, and very happy with it.

Check out the BB too - I know, they're also bearings ....

I gave up trying to get Sapim CX Ray's at a decent price locally - UK seller gave me a price of £1.83 a spoke - about half the price I saw elsewhere. Plus they would sell me the exact number I needed individually not just boxes of 20. Saved me a ton. No offense to DT Swiss - but from the research I did, they come out as a much better spoke too.

Sad that we can't ride safely - but you can't blame a whole community for the actions of a few bad individuals - at least I can't, anyway. Do hope the police catch these guys and get them off the streets

Sad and annoying - that stretch of road is such a useful link between Somerset West/Strand/Gordon's Bay and routes deeper into the winelands too. I've ridden it solo many times in the past to get to some nice cycling routes, but will have to avoid doing so now

Ah, cheers or that - sorry for posting in wrong thread

Folks, just a warning to still be very careful riding on the R304 near Kayamandi coming into to Stellenbosch. One of our club was hijacked there a few days back (full report in our club newsletter): http://wannabteam.co.za/w/buzz-253-september-17-2012/ This has been a black spot for hijackings in the past and it seems to still be a bad place to be riding solo or in small groups.

Great - thanks.

Agree on both counts - I started out enjoying Spin classes but in the end, they just produced sweat and no results and I hated the lack of stats. Just don't think Spinning and IDTs can be compared really I got lucky and managed to find a Tacx Bushido at a bargain price - it's not as good as their high end models, but more than enough for what I need.

Would be interested if you could drop me a PM with it in - at least it'll give me an idea of how far I have to go to get really fit

I must say first off - I have no affiliation to SufferFest or Trainer Road, since I'm conscious I've mentioned them a few times in recent posts. SufferFest I bought few vids and like them. TrainerRoad I signed up for the trial month, and so far so good. All details on TR are here: http://www.trainerroad.com/ I actually stumbled on TR because I wanted to a way to use the Sufferfest vids but in a structured program that gave me a graph of how hard I needed to be working. The vids give the usual x/10 RPE when playing, which you can approximate to a target HR but it's not as nice as seeing a power graph on screen. TR has a bunch of plans you can try, but they also have a fiull power profile for each Sufferfest vid, so you can load these up and work to the target TR has set out against the timings of the video. I like this part a lot - although I'm also thinking of trying some of the actual plans they provide as part of the subscription: http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/plans Most likely at this stage I'll try the Time Crunched ones at the end. You will need a Ant+ dongle - I got mine from www.nivo.co.za. Setup I found quite easy. I put a long USB cable into my PC, which let me get the Garmin ANT+ USB dongle nice and close to my speed/cadence sensor and me with HR strap. After that I just followed their instructions for installing the Garmin s/ware and then their application. Once that is done - you pick a plan and off you go. I did their 20 min FTP test. I'm embarrassed to say my FTP came out at a lowly 173. But hey, I guess that is why I'm training. I also think I need to do a few more calibration runs to make sure the resistance profile for my trainer matches theirs. In theory I was on a 1% slope, but it felt much steeper so maybe my FTP will come out a bit better when I iron the kinks out. If not, at least it gives me something to improve upon!.

I'd respectfully disagree. I am an extremely average rider (you have no idea how average). The IDT is actually my least-wasted-time on a bike in terms of helping me get fitter and stronger. Fun wise, give me a sunny day and pedalling past the vineyards. Training wise, the IDT gets me to the max in a third of the time. Edit - waste of money? That might be closer, depends on your perspective I guess. Certainly not as much fun as buying new bike/wheels/shades/cool gear

I prevaricated a ton before getting one - in the end it was time efficiency that swayed me. I get time to do 2 decent 100km training rides a week, but that's about it. The trainer is now setup permanently in spare room with my old road bike on it. I can easily now squeeze in 2 or more extra 45 - 60 min intensive workouts in a week either early AM or in the evenings. The entire time I'm training is effort - no getting there, stopping at lights etc etc. And little wasted time at end aside from quick shower. It's very early days for me using the IDT, so I haven't hit "too bored to bother" status yet. Stocked up on training vids though, and have plenty of pumping music to keep me going too. As others have said, I also like the stats I get out at the end. Currently using an ANT+ stick paired with my regular Garmin HR strap and Garmin speed/cadence sensor. Have been trialling the TrainerRoad site too. I like it a lot, but it's bit too soon to say whether it will be worth the $10/mth long term. May just fall back to watching videos and gathering own stats direct to PC. I'd say if you have the funds and believe you'll use it, go for it.

Something else that worried me at Atlantis, much as I enjoyed it, was sandboarding. You might be thinking I'm going to bang on about dune erosion, but what worried me was all the floor wax you put on the boards to make them slide. I've no idea of the toxicity of that stuff, but over time with a lot of boarding that has to build up in the ecosystem.