Eugene

Personally, I would not consider any of the Shimano options you mentioned as they are not much better than her current wheels. Check out www.buycycle.co.za They are selling Sram S27s (or is it AL) for just over R2 000. i don't think you will get a better wheel for the price and they will come in at 300g lighter than her current wheels.

Read Brandon Els's blog on www.probike.co.za Apparantly the Axis A90 was tested by Tread Magazine. Maybe you will find a review in the latest (or soon to be released issue). If you have a budget of R3 000, maybe consider one of the higher Axis bikes, I'm sure there will be one soon with a better spec, within your price range. I've heard good things about Serfas and Scott has always been a good option.

This guy clearly has no idea what he is talking about. Now days you get frames with different angles of top tubes (for want of a better word). Seven fingers on one brand of frame will give you a completely different height to another brand of frame.

Any crack on any part of a carbon frame is a no no. Give the whole frame a good once over.

Sportman's Warehouse sell Avalanche bikes. Also, if you check on their website, they are sure to have a dealer listing.

Shimano equipped bike on a Sram carpet?

In the last 10 years Shimano has been on the bikes of 8 Tour de France winners. A 80% success rate is not bad for a fishng reel.

There is nothing nicer than walking out of a bike shop with a brand new bike. The problem with buying second hand is that you need to know what you are doing. You have to get the size right, probably the most important factor of any bike purchase. if you go the 2nd hand route, take somebody along who knows what to look out for. Personally, I would buy new. For R10 000 you can pick up an aluminium framed bike with Tiagra components. If you shop wisely, you may even get one with 105 parts for that price. This is a good time to buy new as most places are clearing 2011 stock for the 2012 models. In most instances the difference between the new and older versions is nothing more than a paint job. If you can stretch your budget to R13 000, you may find a carbon framed bike. I saw a Scott CR1 carbon at a bike shop for R12 999.

Is there a big difference between Veloce and Centaur? If heard that Veloce has a "spongier" feel to it when shifting. Is this true?

Be different, get yourself Microshift. Somebody is selling the shifters, front and rear derailleurs for R3 500 brand new.

A groupset is groupset. They all do the same thing as well as each other. I would go Chorus purely for the looks. Not that it makes a difference, but Chorus is lighter than Ultegra To choose between the Tarmac or the Roubaix. I would go Tarmac. The SL4 is the 2012 version and looks nicer than the SL3 Roubaix. The Roubaix is a comfort orientated frame whilst the Tarmac has a racier geometry.

The Master and Ladies races start at 6am. www.masterspe.co.za Short but very hilly route this Saturday. Next Saturday is the famous Steak Race. 90kms of shear hell.

Choose the combination that looks nicest to you.

The Specialized Concept store had the 2011 Tarmac Pro SL3 for R10 500 on special

Wait for the new Axis bikes to launch, you won't get better value for money. They are basically the old Raleighs with a new name, new colour scheme at a better price.

Bicycling went through a bad patch some time ago, but has improved somewhat of late, however, got the December issue yesterday and realised they are obviously desperate for content. Am I being unreasonable to want to read about cycling in a cycling magazine. jeez, if I want to read about cars, I will buy a car magazine. Actually, I enjoyed the GT suppliment a lot more than the magazine. At least that was full of bicycles and not cars.

I bought a cheap airbrush from Makro and used those model paints. It worked like a dream on my bike. Unless the sun shone directly on the spot, you could not see where the scratch was. You must flat the scratch first before spraying and do not mask it off. That way the paint mists in and the colour tone difference is not so apparant.

I bought some other paint product from them. I basically gave R200 away, didn't come even close to their tv ad claims.

Some more training will definitely help, but if you are a novice rider, it will probably be a good idea to replace your rear cassette from the current 25:11 to a 27:12. It will make climbing so much easier for you. There are lots of experienced riders that use a 27 toothed cassette, so I doubt that you will out-grow it any time soon. There is nothing worse than riding up a hill and you feel as if there is a wall in front of you. I assume that your bike is equipped with Sora parts, so an equivalent cassette shouldn’t cost you more than R300. Another option would be to go the compact crank route. Compact cranks have smaller chainrings than the standard 52:39 that you have, but this is rather costly. Depending on your weight, most tyre manufacturers recommend that you run at 8bars. Have a look on the side wall of the tyres, it will tell you the recommended pressures. If you are light, 7 bars should suffice and will give you a slightly more comfortable ride. Let us know what you decide, it will be interesting to see your improvement.

You can change gear ratios by changing the cassette at the back, however, this depends on the ratios you currently have. You can also replace the crankset up front to what is called a "compact" crank set. Again, this dependes on what you currently have and can be expensive. Maybe, you just need more practise on the hills. Post your current gear ratios and then we can tell you whether you should be changing these parts. You do this by counting the number of teeth on the smallest and the largest cogs at the back and then count the number of the smallest and largest cogs on the front.

Cateye is probably the only computer on the market that has an option to manually start stop. Somewhere in the instruction manual, it will tell you how to set it up. Once set up, the computer won't switch itself off every time you stop and won't start up every time you move the bike. I had the wired version of your Velo and I had it set up for manual start/stop.

Another South African brand getting international exposure. http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-swift-carbon-aeronaut-frameset-12-45517

Kiwi, right here on the Hub was the agent. Not sure if he still does them though. This is his website www.planet-x-bikes.co.za

There won't be any issues, assuming of course that your Shimano is also 8 speed. My bike was bought new with Shimano gears and a Sram cassette.

You have to use it. TT bikes are technically not allowed in road events such as the 94.7 (however, organisers often seem to turn a blind eye)