kamikaze

have you ever ridden with a backpack big enough to carry food, water, clothing etc? get panniers or a trailer. http://www.bicycletouringpro.com/photos/various/bob-trailer-2.jpg https://sites.google.com/site/bicyclehangar/bobtrailermissoula

i ride from douglasdale (i live next to the pick&pay) most afternoons, starting at around 5pm. all the routes i do are strictly offroad.at the moment i usually end up on the braamfontein spruit at some point, but i have other routes out in the dainfern/ lonehill/ broadacres direction too. my routes are between 18 and 27km. i average 17 - 19km/h.

here's a tip, the prevailing wind in south africa is FROM THE WEST and can get very strong in the wide open expanses, so if i were you i'd think about starting in alexander bay instead, unless you like to ride into wind for 6-8 hours a day.

good point! my neighbours' kid works at cycle lab in fourways. his mom is a a single parent without a car, they share a one bedroom flat that's barely big enough for one person. her son is working is his arse off to save up enough money to buy a car by his 18th birthday so he can drive his mom around. his keenness to work makes up for his perceived lack of knowledge.

surfrat, they way i see it is you have three options: 1. get a full-face helmet/neckbrace combo 2. fall less 3. slow down

cajees sold my friend some mtb shoes and then fitted the cleats for him. he asked me to have a look because he had trouble disengaging. to my utter shock they had fitted the cleats upside down, which made it extremely hard to disengage (if not really dangerous). then, fast forward a couple of weeks. riding on the spruit i come across a guy lying on his back like a tortoise, still clipped into his bike. i help him up and take a look at his cleats which he says engage really difficultly, and disengage even harder. i immediately notice that the cleats are back-to-front. when asked who's "handywork" this was, i knew the answer before the reply came....you guessed it, cajees.

geez people are touchy! i give an honest observation and it gets deleted. obviously everyone who was offended by my post are women (or gay), in which case i will kindly donate a box of tampons for the first 10 replies to this post, because it is clearly "that time of the month" i stand by my observation - in twenty years of cycling, no one has been able to give me a consistent reason as to why they shave their legs! just admit that you like the feel of smooth legs and that it has nothing to do with cycling....

in all fairness, the idiots at cajees recently tried to sell me a used 2007 LX rear derailer for R950. i could see it was OLD and used, so i thought it might be up for a bargain so i enquired about the price, but then they tried to take me for a ride. when i said that it looked used they denied it, despite it having scratches all down the side. cycle lab on the other hand have made adjustments to my bike twice before without charging me a cent. they also once helped me out with a spare tube when i pushed my bike in there with a flat tyre. i didnt have money on me but they trusted me enough to let me come back a few days later to pay for the tube without taking down my details.

its a scientific FACT that the head is excellent for absorbing those "big hits" the skull is layered with a thin layer of fat that acts as a cushion. this natural layer of fat has 10 times the energy absorption of polystyrene foam which is commonly used for helmet construction. helmets tend to transfer shock-waves into the base of the neck and skull causing severe injury and or paralysis. the whole point of a neck-brace is to counteract the effects of wearing a helmet. rather ride without a helmet, and try and land on your head whenever possible to prevent injury to the rest of the body!

is there an LED light system that i can use as a replacement on my motorbike which has a pretty poor if not dangerously weak light?

hahaha, just kidding...nice bike!

BMW driver.....it all adds up now

i'm just curious, other than the recent carte blanche episode (which i never saw but keep hearing about from concerned relatives), have there been any bike-jackings in and around joburg lately? i'm particularly concerned about the braamfontein spruit as i seem to spend a lot of time there during the week.

screw the "community"! if they are too pathetic to get off their asses and change their plight in life, let them suffer. i lived in botswana for a whole year, and my experience is that these are the laziest people on earth. their government gives them everything for free, from land to cattle to education to healthcare. they have no incentive to work. the one thing they do excel at though is sitting on a cinder-block under a tree, drinking sorghum-beer ALL day long. i was based up in Maun, where the local economy is sustained by tourism. the locals there resent the foreigners for "making them work", the vast majority of people there do their work grudgingly with a sour expression on their faces, instead of doing it with a smile and being grateful for having work! i know one should be wary of generalising, but i guarantee that this is one place where you CAN generalise when it comes to work-ethic amongst the local inhabitants.

WRONG! this story is totally plausible. the wind in the cape is insanely strong! it could quite easily push a bike over an armco barrier (as found on chapmans peak). armco's are about knee height, much lower than your assumed 1m, so if you want to get scientific about it, more than half the bike is above the barrier, so it would be quite easy to push it over. clearly you have never been on the downwind side of a mountain in the cape when the wind is blowing at gale force! on chapmans the wind can quite easily reach "huricane force" speeds as it rushes down from 1km above. the wind doesnt have to "lift" a bike, it just needs to push it over the railing. but to answer your question, the wind in cape town CAN gust strong enough to lift a bike.

for starters, it's not my job to go to cajees and tell them what customer service is, how to price their stock competitively, and how to work on bikes. i DID however give them a chance to respond to my unhappiness, and also inform them in person and in no uncertain terms that their mechanic is ill qualified to work on bikes - they didn't seem to really care. read the post. no one is bitching like a girl. this serves as a warning to others who dont yet know that cajees; 1. should be avoided like the plague, 2. dont deserve a second chance because they will cock it up again and again if cajees did give a damn about improving their service and attitude, they deserved a kind word of encouragement and a heads-up about their bad reputation. but they dont give a damn. plus, time to wake up! this is the technological era, if you have a bike shop, perhaps you should monitor the major bike forums like this one from time to time and see what's happening in the cycling community. if you do that then you would see what your customers' needs are, and you would also pick up on threads like this one and be able to improve your service. but i doubt cajees gives a proverbial rats-ass about what the needs of the greater cycling community are. there are enough 1st time buyers out there to keep them going. i seriously doubt that they read this forum. if they did, this should serve as a huge sign of unhappy clientèle because i am clearly not the only one who feels that way. i can. i dont always feel like, or have the time to do it myself.

if hard pressed to work on my bike i am more than confident to do so, in fact i reckon i could do it way better than most shops, but not everyone has time to work on their own bike. that's half the reason why bike shops and workshops exist. big h....ja boet. read the first post, i went there as a last resort.

after haggling down the price of the cassette down from R850 to R450, i still feel like i got shafted as i see other shops sell it for less still. and had i not been brazen and haggled with them i would been ripped of for sure.

watch out! these guys are sharks, dont have a clue what they are doing when it comes to working on bikes, and the service is poor. incident no. 1 a while ago i took a wheel to them to get trued and have the cones tightened. not only did they take about 2 days longer than promised, but the wheel came apart within days of the repairs. the cones came loose and not long afterwards the spokes. upon confronting them they argued that the hub had to be replaced as it was apparently damaged ( which wouldn't have happened if they tightened it in the 1st place). i refused to buy a hub from them and ordered them to re-tighten everything. it is now months later the hub is still fine. incident no. 2 the other day i went in there to browse around. i saw a very old model LX rear derailieur and asked how much it was, thinking that seeing as it is very old and almost out-dated it might be discounted. ha ha ha! not so. they told me it was R950. i laughed at them and pointed out the fact that it was an old model. suddenly the calculators came out and magically the price dropped by R300. i entertained it for a second but then noticed the derailieur had scratches and oil on it, almost as if it was used. i told them that it looked used, but they flat out denied it. i then inspected it closer and noticed the mounting bracket was bent and some of the screws were bent as well. i noticed more scratches and worn pulley wheels. i left. incident no. 3 after the firs two incidents i vowed never to set foot in that amateur shop ever again. with cycle lab is just around the corner and fritz pienaar just down the road, i never have to go to cajees. both shops are cheaper than cajees and their service is WAY better. i'm building a bike, and unfortunately the above two shops didnt have the part i was looking for so out of of pure desperation i was forced to use the clowns at cajees again. i reluctantly left my bike there to have a casette and chain fitted, and also to have shifter cables fitted and the gears set. they promised to have the work done by 2:30 the next day (friday). on friday, before driving out there, i phoned to make sure that the work had been done. i was surprised when they told me at 11;30 that they had not even started yet, and weren't going to either as apparently they close "for prayer" on fridays between 12 and two. i was then promised that i could fetch it at 2:45. at 2:30 i phoned again to avoid driving out there and having to wait. again, they STILL had not started on my bike yet and i was told that the mechanic was "still eating lunch". they told me that i could fetch it at 4:30. i freaked and told them to have it done by 2:45 as i was on my way and not prepared to wait any longer. i got there at 3:00 and surprise surprise.... they were not done yet! after waiting around for 15 minutes they brought the bike out and told me that the front derailieur was the wrong model and that i must buy a different model in order to get it to work. ofcourse they didnt have the cheaper model i needed, but only had the more expensive one which they would be willing sell to me. i didnt fall for their trap, and decided to go home and fiddle with it myself. once at home i got the front derailieur to work by adjusting ONE screw....ONE srew!!! whilst test riding the bike in my complex the casette came loose after 5 minutes of slow riding!! so then i was faced with getting back in my car and driving back there again, which i then did! their reaction to my complaint was extremely mediocre. no "sorry for having to drive back out here" or "may we refund the labour? seeing as YOU ended up doing the work on the derailier yourself, and the rest of the work that WE did came apart" nothing. zip. nada. just a blank stare, as if to say - "and the problem is what??? poor service!!!! clearly whoever works in the workshop at cajees has NO clue how to work on bikes. the sales staff are ill trained, and the management have a "couldn't care" attitude. i forgot to add that the cables are routed the wrong way, but i'll do that myself as i am NOT letting those clowns touch my ride ever again! this is a warning, use cajees fourways at your own peril!

should be easy to build jumps. the sand is not rock hard, but still solid enough to ply into shapes the pics dont do it justice and represent maybe 5% of the entire area, there are some sick drop offs to be had. kamikaze2010-05-08 13:44:50

no hard feelings

who cares about possible "radiation"? when the westerlies blow in winter the whole of joburg gets covered by a layer of sand off the mine dumps whether they like it or not. so if you are worried about radiation, dont live in joburg, because you're breathing that sh*t in unknowingly

Since no one seems to be interested to ride there, I decided to go there by myself and get some photo?s - Maybe THAT will convince the downhillers of joburg?.. Where?s there? The minedumps that can be found strung all the way from industria in joburg all the way through to randfontein. Why the mine dumps? Well, if you like drop offs, steep cliffs with sick lines, sand dunes that tower 5 stories high with jumps at the bottom, and SO many possible new lines that you don?t know where to start, the mine dumps might excite you! I?ll let the pics speak for themselves. http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01052.jpg well ridden out by mx?ers, these lines pose a nice challenge for a DH bike. http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01053.jpg At a different dump, this dune is a favourite for mx?ers. But why should they have all the fun? http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01059.jpg it?s steep!.... http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01055.jpg ?..very steep! http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01056.jpg some small drop-offs with a nice 45degree roll out beneath them. http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01062.jpg View from the top http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01057.jpg doing 45km/h + is fun on the windblown sand. http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01066.jpg just one of the MANY nooks & crannies to be explored. http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/DSC01067.jpg http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g77/krazy-eyes/google.jpg this particular mine dump steps up in terraces ranging between 3 and 5 stories high. Each terrace has a steep dune flanked by more technical lines on either side. Some areas have a ?safe? soft landing on sand, others are hard-packed with consequences for a mistake. You decide how much danger you want to mix in. There are SO many possibilities one honestly doesn?t know where to start riding (and filming)!

that person in the photo seems VERY aware of what is happening - looking directly at the camera and smiling. had they not explained to her what it was to be used for, she should have immediately asked. i say - dont act dumb and try and pretend like you didnt know they were taking a photo for publicity puprposes. seems like her ego got the better of her in the moment, so she posed, and afterwards she realized how dumb she was to pose for a photo that she could have made a few rand off. things turned ugly and now she's suing. sue god for giving you a face like that.....kamikaze2010-05-06 05:18:30

show us the ad! let the people decide if it was unflattering. just another thought - if the picture was unflattering and damaged her image to such an extent that she suffered a finacial loss of around R750 000, why then would she approach cycle lab and ask them to donate the money to charity? if i suffer a fiancial loss i dont ask for the money to be given to someon else? this chick is on a power trip, trying to force CL to suffer a financal blow just because SHE said so (by donating to charity), but her bluff didnt work. now to save face she's claiming damages.kamikaze2010-05-06 05:08:10