Woofie

yep. Slicks are the way to go. The only good of having any tread on the road is to see how far your tyre has worn down. The tar offers far more grip from pressing into the rubber than tread will grabbing the tar. Bikes can not aqua plain so they dont need tread like car tyres to displace the water in front of it. Sheldon Brown has a nice article on the whole subject. BUT remember that you will still be able to slip the same as everybody else. And remember that your brakes will also suffer.

Yep PM you?

Asprin in turn will thin the blood. So for every ibruprofen taken join it with a disprin. Come on Woofie2009-11-12 06:56:52

I am waiting for a volunteer now. Ibruprofen anyone?

Cool. Your way is easier than mine. Thanks guys.

But I never normally take them anyway. So would it really be that bad to take one or two during a race?

Ok, there was another thread going around yesterday about how anti-inflams are bad for your kidneys while excercising etc. How bad are they? Would anti-inflams help to offset cramps at all? I have been doing a fair bit of reading here and scientificly it seams that no cramp block tablet of sorts should actually help. Cramp block has "seemed" to work for me, but I am wondering how much of a mental thing that is as well. Now doctors seem to think that the only reason you cramp is from the muscle getting over stimulated from electrical impulses through the nerves and as the muscle gets more tired so the impulses increase and that is why you cramp. (it is believed at least) Now what if you had to take some sort of medication to "control" the nerve impulses a bit better? Maybe a anti-inflam would help slightly. or else what about a muscle relaxant or something? Ideas anyone?

Norflex tablet - what is that? Painkiller?

Thanks for the input guys. I really appreciate it. Maybe it is time to change the cables, however they dont feel sticky and they are only a few months old. How long do cables normally last for on the road? (if I do, lets say maybe 8 hours a week) My chain is only a couple of hundred old (maybe 300) and my cassette is about a month old as well. JB, how do YOU set a RD? Is there like a golden rule on the order of what to do when? ie. Do you first put the rear trimmer into the middle and then attach the cable and adjust the tension so it is almost right. Then adjust the rear trimmer. Do you ever touch the front trimmer? The way that I have been doing it, is I hang my bike up and I turn the rear trimmer all the way until it wants to start hopping. Then I turn it the other way until it wants to jump the other way and I count the turns as I am going through. Then I think that surely half the amount of turns back should be in the middle and it will work well there. That seems to work ok for me, I then shift through the gears and do minor adjusting until it all sounds as quiet as it can be. That normally works quite well, but then sometimes I hit the road and need to start playing with the trimmer again. ACTUALLY it just dawned on me.......... I know what the answer is. God is obviously trying to tell me that I need the electric DA. I would never spend that much money.

We already have a gripe thread going Come join in there https://www.bikehub.co.za/forum_posts.asp?TID=65896

Ok, so basically If I hang my bike up and am able to shift through the gears properly and then find a different response on the road then it is probably the RD?

Is it possible to "stand up" on the rollers? I am quite keen on the rollers idea. Using my trainer at home is a shlep. -Change skewers -Clamp my bike -Adjust the bike and heavy trainer into a place to try to do something while on there, pc or tv -Get a fan setup -telephone book under front wheel -listen to this noisy thing -while thinking about my back wheel getting chewed up

Thanks. I get my gears adjusted so often at bike shops. 90% of the time though lately when I start riding I am not happy with the way it is preforming. So I do some minor tweaking with the barrel on the down tube and then it starts working way better. Is there any difference between adusting gears on a bike stand and adjusting them on the road? What I am trying to ask is does maybe the torque of you cycling or the parts working under stress make your shifting any different compared to when you are on the road? (I am not talking about shifting under heavy load either where you often have issues) ?

I have been told that my RD is on its way out because there is a bit of play on it. My question is. What causes this play? Is it just the movement over time that wears down the linking points until there is a bit of play? Is it not possible to service it at all? ie. Take it appart and put in some super heavy locktight or grease or something to help stiffen up the moving parts? Lately I have been struggling quite a bit with my gears so as I ride I adjust the fine tune screw on the downtube as I ride. I get it all smooth and changing nicely, sounds smooth, no skipping. And then like the very next day I might have problems with a few gears sounding noisy again. Do you think that this is the RD that is just too worn and now the adjustments I am doing are not working as they should because of that? My cables arent that old so I dont think that it would be those. And I dont think it would be my shifters either. I am led to believe that shifters dont really "break" gradually, they will just stop working when they are "worn out". Is that true? Thanks guys!

Another story. Was riding at majic, going down the hill towards the power station and suddenly my rear derailer went into the spokes. Well it broke into many pieces, tore 2 few spokes straight out of the rim and destroyed a few more. Chain was soooo mangled up and I think I messed up a few sprockets as well. I ended up getting another bike at the end of the day!! Oh yes, of course I had to carry it back to the car.

I havent had any "major" things go wrong on races. But the last mtb race I did we had some bad luck. The guy I was riding with fell and bent his saddle rails so badly that he had to ride the next 50km on a very very skew saddle. 2 km later his FD stopped working. Only 20 min later after trying to work it out we found a small stone stuck in it from the bottom. 2 km later my chain comes off and gets stuck between my rear swing arm and BB housing. So deflate my rear shock and pry my slightly bent chain out. Inflate shock and off we go. 20km later, chain comes off again and this time it mangles the chain totally. So same procedure, deflate, get out chain. try to use my chain tool which sucks. My friend eventually came to look for me, used his tool. Took off about 5 links. Eventually carried on. Finished about a hour AFTER the mats were gone. Oh well.

Ive had a couple of flat tyres.......

haha, I dont believe that drugs do anything....... But I actually do agree with the guy though. Let go of the reigns let the people do what they want. Sure, they are going to die early or grow boobs, but that is their own choice. Its the same choice as smoking, it is going to kill you oneday so are you sure you want to do it?

Complete with the "Racing Stripes"

ok, I was just going to test it. I nominate Wayne to call the ppa for the seeding. I am sick in bed, so im "Nicky not on" (tapping my head)

What do you mean? Was it 16.5 for you last year and now its 19.5?

Since there is a backyard conversion where you can make your MTB tubeless. What about road bikes? Slime does work in road bikes (I have tried), even under the pressure. I know because I have pulled thorns out at 8 bar and the holes are sealed. So why cant we install a rim sealing strip and a bit of slime and get it going? We wont need much slime in road wheels to do the job and the weight saved by not having a tube would balance it out. Any ideas? Volunteers?

Ive done about 3000km without puctures on my roadie without slime. Before that though, I went through a stage of always getting puctures. So out of desperation I put liquid latex into my tubes. But after a while I realised that something was very wrong when I tried to inflate my one tire. Eventually I saw that the valve was so blocked up that I managed to break it off the tube and the latex had managed to cover the hole where the valve used to be. Amazing. But not so amazing, because I couldnt pump up my tire so I had to make multiple puntures through my sidewalls to get the tire to deflate. I havent gone that route again. BUT I have another question. I will create a new post for it though