gogo@

Saw someone offering Rudy Project Zuma helmets for R600 - Think it was thesportsbasement co za... Not sure you'll get a better one at that price.

Mmmmm, nutrition??? Might be worth seeing a nutritionist who can look at your specific health and exercise needs. My kind of 'forum' advice though is to try moducare - capsules or as futurelife cereal. That plus high doses of garlic as a virus/infection strikes seems to work for me. Along with making sure basic vits etc. (esp vit b ) are always covered. Haven't got as far as the olive oil and beetroot yet... Hope you both come right... Edit: vitamin b turned into a smiley???!

There was also... melting Lego blocks against the heater, cousins who chewed them, cousins who stole the little turning bits only for you to find them next week at their house, the boy next door who insisted on making WHOLE HOUSES from a SINGLE colour, mouse holes where you just had to drop bits to see what happened, finding sharp blocks in your bed, pulling a baseplate out from a tower of pieces so that the whole lot crashes onto the floor and wakes your napping granny, and, of course, the dilemma of whether to mix the sets in the suitcase where you keep them... then trying to make sure your folks never threw out your LEGO when you left home to study!! Anybody out there still got any 'vintage' Lego??

See if you can get a copy of 'SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes'. By Sleamaker and Browning. Beats all those Carmichael 'LA did this' type stuff. It's got everything you need to figure out how to plan the off-season band base training etc phases.

And also... I know the standard reply is: ride more - but sometimes it's not practical, and as I found, running had it's own benefits. So, am keen to hear what the 'real' runners do for cross-training with a focus on improving biking power tho - keeping the focus on getting stronger on hills so no hijack intended!

Have to agree... Although there's no way I can call myself a 'runner' (yet?). I spent a fair bit of time 'bouncing' up and down on a treadmill last winter to great benefit. I lost some weight and the power definitely went up. Instead of counting broken bottles at the side of the road to get up a long steep hill, I now whistle and look at the view - or go much much faster. Also started summer with a higher level of general fitness. But the BIG benefit was that I solved a knee problem that I was getting desperate about... One mistake tho was not to cycle enough once the new season started. I then had a hard time getting the cycling muscles to catch up with where my fitness levels had got to. Because i tried to do it too fast and temptation was to run rather than cycle since i felt i could do more in less time. So watch the balance there. Slippery slope. Long short: include some running with hill work but do a hard ride before you do your (slower) run. Do both on the same day if possible or alternate but make sure you recover properly to be able to give it horns on the bike.

So he did. My mistake. I missed that - SA being referred to as ZAF.

This is a must-read, if you are at all vaguely interested... Andy Allsop's account from LEL 2009 which he completed on a recumbent. http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/seeya-arallsopp-does-the-lel.35203/page-4 And this is (more or less) how it starts... Sunday 1445hrs: Miles ridden: 0. Your time starts NOW. OK. Off the line. LongHairedScouser in tow, GPS working lovely, few too many speedhumps for my choice of route, but its drawing me out of town and towards Edinburgh. Suburbia drops somewhere behind us, and the countryside steps in to welcome us aboard. Everytime I glimpse at the GPS, I see we’re moving at 16+mph. The sun is shining. This is good. LongHairedScouser and I are in pleasant conversation about navigation (he admits to being utterly lost already, and is happy / requiring to follow me and the GPS to the first control). Now, a quick word about recumbents. They’re very comfortable. They can be very fast. They *all* have issues with chain management. In the RWD Furai, this role is supplied by a set of jockey wheels routing the chain line up and down, following the frame. One in particular (the foremost return idler) has the delightful job of keeping the chain out of the front wheel. So, 9.4 miles in, and my eye catches a wobble in the guide fixed to the foremost return idler. I can stop and sort that. Tiny bit of plastic. Probably just worked loose. PING! ****! Its come off. CRACK!! …and gone straight under a car. That’s bad. Ok jockey wheel still there. Never seen the chain mount the guide. Probably just there for aesthetics. Still, let’s stop and check. PING! ****. That was a retaining guide then. Jockey wheel gone now. Doing 20mph. Best throw on the anchors. SCHLLINGGG! Cr@p! chain is in the front wheel. Can’t steer. Can’t pedal. Unclip. Get ready for crash landing. SKKKCRRRANK! [Chain catches spoke and brings rider and bent to a very rapid halt]. Stop. Breathe. Relax. Ok. You’re alive. That was bad. Am I in traffic? No. Ok. Good. Where’s my longhairedscouser? Up ahead. Looping back. Ok. Good. Let’s check bike over. Hmmm.. In place of jockey wheel and two retaining guides, I seem to have a bare spindle. Damn. Can I balance the chain on it? No. Damn. Try again. Damn. No. Ok. Can I fix this? Erm. No. 10 minutes pass, whilst the longhairedscouser and I try to work out where on the route sheet we actually are. I momentarily consider loaning him my GPS, as it looks like I’m out of the running. Damn. On second thoughts, I’ll need it to find a station. ****. Not happy. Best ring wife and buddy. See if anyone is still in the area, or whether I’m lugging this thing back on the trains.

Went away to try do some work and then made the mistake of coming back to this thread... No no no no here we go again!! I also saw no SAns were finishers in LEL 2009 so what a great idea to have a whole team take it on in 2013! I think I prefer drinking meths shooters with beer to this feeling - finding a 2HR RIDE challenging enough right now! Time to start an LEL 2013 thread??

Thanks. I am neither...but will still do so. Might be able to hook up with them somewhere. Can't possibly see getting through training like that on your own. I have a 140-50km (solo) ride planned for next month and will see how that goes. These things sometimes go with the overwhelming urge to dispose of the bike, but I'm still here and in the meantime I will dream on! Plus there's all that crazy randoneurs' stuff here and on the web.

I'm also rooting for Nerds360 but no way would I wish any kind of bad luck on anyone in this, specially B&S... not saying s'what you're doing, but. It has become seriaaasly interesting though. Thanks to all keeping the updates going. And here goes for tomorrow!

!! Nuts! But LEL doesn't have to be like PBP -rather 280km a day for 5 days. So you could actually split it up a bit?? Ok, who am I fooling!

From the AudaxUK website, the suggested training plan for LEL 2013... Here is a suggested ‘training pattern’: January: 2x 100km events February: 1x 100km & 1x 200km March: 2x 200km April: 1x 300km, 1x 400km May: 1x200km 1x 600km June: 2x 200km, 1x600km July: 1x 200km + LEL 1400km It is not necessary to ride very long distances every weekend. It is wise to have an easier weekend from time to time, especially in the two weeks before LEL itself. If you follow a plan roughly like this outline, you should manage LEL without any problems. Who's keen??

Assuming you don't sleep for 5 days!! And do you know how much trouble there is in our house about getting in training rides that aren't enough really for ONE of those Arguses?? Oh well, like you said, it's a year away. Who knows what we can achieve in that much time! (divorce??? more subterfuge around 'stolen' rides?? BOTH of us riding???)

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no... now what... this is going to EAT at me, nibble nibble nibble away at every other excuse and drive me MAD.

Looks like EIGHT speed to me... No no no no! As was said above, get yourself a great hardtail for that, new! You'd spend about R3000 replacing the drive train alone in the not so distant future!

+1

*~P

He he! Try this: http://results.cycletour.co.za/results.aspx?sid=1

second Argus and only second road race... but whoohoo the bug has me. Was aiming for sub 4h30 but came in well under 5... Thought I was getting sick cos the engine just wasn't firing in the first 20km but I think that was nerves plus heat! Was disappointed at first with my time but I'm stoked to see I came 66 in my group. Probably sounds funny, but there's hope I won't be a back-of-the-packer for ever! And how great was it to do my bit pulling the train for a bit??!? So thanks to everyone who's kept encouraging me and answered my newbie questions! And BIG THANKS to the Hubber who sold me my bike... she's going good! Roll on next year...

Seems to still be down??

shnap!!

Don't know how you can get that right for those who participate in few racetec (seeding) races?? Work, time, money and the fact seeding races are spread out round the country (and bad luck in December) meant I couldn't get to one last year. So because of that and because they changed the seeding system I got dropped a group this year. Only my second road race but I made a better time and finished well up in my group (66) compared to last year... Then there are the guys who have done a gazzilion Arguses who were started an hour ahead of me but came in in 6+ hrs... I like your suggestion that they broaden the system to seed using more races - tracking form more consistently. But... I think you're still going to get bunch riding problems because some of what happens is just dumb, lack of thought, or from people who have few bunch riding skills, or got slaughtered by cramp and from others who just take a chance. I don't think the organizers can be held responsible for all of that. At the same time, though, you're asking for trouble with the bond groups if they're mixed in the fast groups but don't follow the seeding system. Needs to be some work done by those groups to keep their riders from wobbling across the whole road. But then, when they do stay on the left, you can't have a paceline coming up behind them and overtaking from their left... There were a lot of problems with accidents but my experience this year was actually of more gaps and overall more manageable traffic, especially on the last 10kms where I got held up by big bunches dawdling on their way to the finish last year. Great race and great experience again, but do hope some seeding issues can be dealt with...

THANX for the replies! Ok, it's vertical but twists slightly outwards - but what you're all saying is this is no big deal. I'll look at options suggested but it seems I am being a bit OTT? @covie - post above yours contradicts?? Thanx again!

Does a timing chip placed on a bike's fork have to be absolutely straight in the vertical? I've just put my chip on my bike and the plastic mount seems to be slightly bent, by just a few degrees, from being clamped by the QR. am I being neurotic thinking I need a new one? How much tolerance is there to these things reading properly?