The Saint

Must have been

Seeing as I have moved areas I need to get myself a new LBS. Walk into recommended LBS today looking for a Fizik Areone saddle. Price 2K See a second hand one there and ask for the price, Gimme 1K and you have a deal. Nope 1K too much for a second hand saddle I say. Well it's not so second hand says shop owner. Besdies the fact that I didn't know that there was a difference between second hand and not so second hand the same saddle is available from Chain Reaction at 60Pounds. New one even with conversion and landed cost is still cheaper than the "Not so second hand" one. This type of stuff just irritates the living cr@p out of me when 6 months ago they were R950, how is a 100% price increase justified in 6 months? Well F it I will get the thing from Chain reaction and not local and besides I have previously said that I will not support the local market anymore and this type of thing just confirms my sentiments.

Well I am having a day where even if I sat down and shat out a golden egg my boss would find something wrong with it.

Been away for a bit and got back to find 70 pages of some interesting reading. Firstly let me say that not many solutions to the problems were expressed by anyone within the 70 pages. However having said that I will make it very clear that as of now NO LBS will see one cent of my money until THEY approach me and inform me that they were no way involved in the proceedings which took place. I will leave it at that as I do not want this topic to be based on my reasons for my standpoint. Now it seems as if everyone from Wholesalers to Retailers to the Consumer all seem to agree that the cycle industry is in trouble. Not many of us would like to see our LBS close down due to low margins or economic pressure and there is the question of this 15% floating around which as it looks would sort out most of the current problems for the retailers. As for the retailers who got together to up prices you all do things a little ass about face don't you? What you need to realize is that the consumer can be your biggest friend or your worst enemy. Currently it looks as if you have made more enemies than friends. You need to ask yourselves how do you get that 15%? You think pass it onto the consumer - incorrect that just pisses us off. Do the following. It is not your problem to approach government to pass legislation. Make it the problem of the wholesaler. You have all stated that you do not know the profit margins of the wholesalers so put the squeeze on them. This is achieved by boycotting their products. In other words do not stock them unless the wholesaler starts giving YOU a 15% reduction in price as of 1st October 2008. You carry no stock, you do not sell the products in your shop, you return all consignment stock and inform consumers via notices in your shops or here on the Hub that various items will not be available until the wholesaler comes to the party so to speak. See how quickly THEY approach government to get their 15% back. Your business as well as the consumer might suffer a bit in the short term but your business is already suffering and so is the consumer. I can guarantee you one thing that the consumer will support you 100% throught the transition period as you are trying to help them and not screw them over. Now this is a very broadbased nutshell posting so please don't over analyse it and YOU retailers are welcome to contact me should you need any further assistance but I am sure you get the gist of it. Try this and let's see how quickly Steven tells us all to go ride our bicycles which are equiped with Campag and not Shimano.

Yawn...... more emotion I see it took you 3 days to think of this comeback. Well done Forest. Now let's see if you can string more than three words together within the next 2 days.

I was watching that Click program on the BBC news channel and they were talking about the new blue ray that is capable of dowloading stuff from the internet. is that the one? Yes profile 2 will have internet and recording capabilities.

What a load of crap. I only got a DVD player 2 years ago when my CD player packed up and I could not get a stand alone unit anymore. I've got 10 DVD of wich 2 are cycling' date=' 2 are cartoons for when my sister's children come over. [/quote'] HUH Mampara you have me confused. Your DVD player is a normal SD. Blu Ray is a disk that plays HD. 2 cycling DVD's and 2 Cartoon DVD makes 4 DVDs so you are missing 6 out of your 10.

Ok then for those of you wanting to rush out and get yourself a Blu Ray DVD Player - remember there is also a catch. Get a profile 2 player and nothing less. You got profile 1 or profile 1.1 you are going to pick up problems later on.

It's the only time my wife ever keeps quiet for at least 5 minutes. Costs me 500 bucks a month for 2 hours of peace and quiet divided up into segments of 5 minutes.

No dude. You will find the correct info on their website in small italic black letters but the Ad is very misleading. Also be aware that when the Extra View for linking a single view decoder comes in (currently only avail with SDPVR decoder)it will only be compatible with the DSD1110 Single View. If you have any other model decoder you can take it and throw it in the dustbin. It is useless when it comes to linking it to a HDPVR. If you want to keep it be prepared for a double subscription come month end.

You know what my bigeest problem with this whole thing is and I think DSTV should be taken to task for misleading the public. I can guarantee you that there are many people out there like chunky who went out and bought a HDPVR at R2500 thinking that they could link it to their current decoder as advertised by DSTV only to find out that they can't. Had DSTV explained the actual FACTS to the public I really believe that DSTV would have hardley sold any HDPVR decoders and the ones sold would have only been to current subscribers with the SDPVR - which is not all that many. This whole thing has been a con right from the start and many many households have now found out that they wasted R2500 plus all the other costs involved for something that does not deliver what the broadcaster claims it does.

Icasa charge an annual license fee to all broadcasters. So anything that uses a radio frequency gets charged a license fee by that bunch. Who knows what they do but they get paid for it.

Ja E Tv get nothing. In fact they are the thorn in the governments side. A few years ago government wanted to close them down based on that they did not broadcast the News. Now a 24 hour News channel that does everything to expose governments continuous blunderings.

A quick news flash for those of you who have bought Sony notebooks between May and July this year that they may be re-called due to faulty batteries which in some cases have caught fire. If you have one of these notebooks I would suggest getting it in to your dealer for a check up. Second time this has happened with Sony. I think they are in competition with Cervelo.

Yup it would be confusing talking to that guy. Eventually I would get to the stage where I would ask him. Scuse me detective "Are you talking to me or do you have an imaginary friend you would like to introduce me to?"

Particularly when one never watches SABC' date=' but you end up having to subsidize an ANC propaganda channel/gravy train. [/quote'] Exactly correct. SABC cannot go onto a decoder system with a monthly subscription because the 5% of the population who do pay TV Licenses would not incur the expense for the rubbish they broadcast.

HDPVR only allows you 1 View and 2 Record. Decoder cost R2500, plus multiswitch at R370 plus cabling plus installation plus labour (You do the math). Monthly subs is R468.99

Right just to set the record straight. DSTV is currently advertsing extra view in a segment on their network. In this segement they say for an extra R55 per month you can enable this option. However what they fail to tell you is that this option is currently NOT working with the 1110 Decoder but only with the SDPVR decoder and will only be available by the end of the year. So to get the HD decoder and your second channel on a 1110 Decoder will cost you a double subscription every month which is a "moderate" amount of R937.98 I would have thought these morons would have subsidised the second decoder to promote the purchase of HD decoders but hey what do you know, they don't. Then remember over and above the R2500 for the HDPVR you still need to purchase a multi switch at around R370-00 plus additional cable at around R8.50 per meter for the run and the labour and installation fee of the installer. Then over and above this if you would like to get yourself a nice little Blue Ray DVD player the cheapest I can find on the market is R4000-00. No cables either which need to be purchased seperately and range from around R350-00 to R1200-00. Nice little costly excercise hey. I for one will be giving this a miss until about the year 2030.

Looks like he specially had his asshole stretched for jail time. Talk about going in prepared - real forward thinker this guy is.

All this is very funny to me. You are all talking of investing and programmes and so on but you are all to far ahead of the game so to speak. See the Olympic Organising Committee could not even organize a proper fairwell function for the athletes nevermind plan as far ahead as what you are all suggesting. The function was an utter disgrace to any Olympian and at the function there was already tension between the athletes and the "Management" Some inside info for you. Just before Ryk's event the Organizing committee were having a fat argument with each other behind the screens at the pool. When Ryk dived in they were still having a go at each other - so much for support. Natalie had to wake up at 4am to get to her events because she stayed so far away. Clothing was an utter balls up but let's not get into too much detail about that. In fact some athletes from other countries refused to swap clothes with our guys cause they were so Fugly and made from completely the wrong material for athletes in 90% humidity. Wonder who is getting the kick back from this deal? Our esteemed Sivel Medalist, Khotso Mokoena's welcoming back to the country was organized 1 hour before he arrived. The wankers didn't even know what flight he was on!! And now tell me about planning ahead. It's a pipe dream.

Hey Ben Yes I am fine thanks Just had a rough few last weeks but all is ok, will try to get out your way soon to come for a ride and a chat.