BMWGSADV

ARSEsos is the best but more than triple the price of any other. How much is true and how much is marketing BS is anyone’s guess. Over over 25 years I’ve ridden them all. ARSEsos excluded currently the best is Bioracer. Just done a 260k prep ride for Munga and ..... it works. R1495 ex compared to > R4500 for ARSEsos.......

I have plates in both shoulders. One from 2015 and one older. Decided to keep them in for my confidence. Have had big falls since, shoulders so good ribs keep breaking .... point is the plate has nothing to do with rotator cuff. This is the supraspinatus muscle that runs under the clavicle and ‘pulls’ the head of the humerus into the the shoulder. A tear in this muscle or injury to the tendon is know as a rotator cuff injury. It has various degrees of classification. But the pain is not always a reference to a supraspinatus tear, it can be an acute injury that causes inflammation in the bursa that sits between the tendon and the bone above it. This is this is known as bursitis. It can be Acute or chronic. See a Orthopod to confirm but my advice is to try rehab via Physio before surgery. Not only is the recovery process long ( 4-6 months) but you have to complete your rehab if you ever want full mobility of the shoulder and strength. The other reason to avoid surgery is that the shoulder is the most complicated joint in the body.... you need a great surgeon and a great Physio. On the issue of pain. Paracetamol is a very low end anti-inflammatory and will not provide relief for intense rotator cuff pain or post op surgery. You need to prevent ‘break through’ pain from surgery and Paracetamol cannot do this. At a minimum you need a Schedule 2 or 3 anti-inflammatory such as Coxleon or Tramadol. PS! How do I know this? Three broken shoulders and a chronic rotator cuff injury.

In a manner of speaking !

If you are in the prizes..... don’t leave prize giving without the envelope!!!!

Where does the arrogance of CL stem from? Without McLean “ CL” .... CL!!! would just be another cycling club with no deity to bow down to. This has been going on for years.... just become worse with with time. Sense of entitlement...... Not going to change no matter who sends out what communique.

ASG and ASG Events is falling a part and has been for some time. They talk themselves up well but cannot walk the talk at all. The issue of unanswered calls and mails is true....factually correct. Take TransCape 2018.... one month after the race the prize money is still not paid. How is this even possible? The pre- race hype suggested they were in the A League with likes of Epic () and Pioneer and J2C!!!!! Having just done TC ... I can say with no hesitation; they are nowhere near to the others. But that is not the point. Poor planning, poor communication, poor most everything delivered a below par event. In my first hand and opinion there are three problems: - The event organizer ( Daryl or Daryn or Dan....? ) couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery....and has the conflict resolution skills of a porcupine quill. - The so called event Co-ordinator ( Ilse ???) couldn’t co-ordinate a stamp collection.... - And a fish always rots at the head. The prize giving was a monumental cock- up with the trophies and prize money going to the UCI teams instead of the Individual and Team winners!!! Go figure. The real winners os of the race walked away empty handed. Nowhere in the pre- race communications or in the race bible was there any mention of a Vets or Masters categories. Imagine our surprise when at prize giving the Overall Team and Individual winners were given a Rudy Project back pack instead of an envelope with a Cheque in it. In any normal corporate business with a customer service ethic; the only way to best rectify the egregious error would have been to pay the prize money the Monday .... 1st thing. That way the unhappiness and frustration would be ameliorated but this was lost on the people involved whose egos are bigger than the industry itself..... but the very people they purport to serve..... us the the dumb rider who spends their good money on these events.... got suckered. I don’t know whether they are clever and the rider is plain stupid for falling into their honey trap. The truth be told, they have charged more and have added little to no value to the races. I know because I have race them all. All the stage races in SA are expensive... all of them, but the back end works and works well. Allow me to share one last point - in past years Epic entries it’s were like Oakley’s.... unobtainable . This year there must have been 8 - 10 entries available on The Hub! The point? Sign of the times. Event numbers will stabilize and the start to decline.... normal economics but for Organisers such as ASG , the end is just going to come faster. Imagine if the entry entry money was still not paid a month after the race ended... what a wobble they would be having. I can attest to a number of unanswered SMS’s and undelivered promises. Here is the message- if you can withhold yourself..... do not enter ASG events. Vote with your money.

Just look at the range of comments in just 11 posts! Tells you everything you need to know. With such STRONG opinions from both ends of the continuum, if you are able to be objective, you can understand how difficult it is for the organisers to please everybody all of the time. Thinking objectively - sponsorships come and go. That’s business..... ..... commerce, not even the Springboks can get a title sponsorship. If the course is not hard enough, a minuscule, irrelevant number of racing snakes complain, posting their vitriol on social media. If the course is ‘hard enough’ then the mommies and daddies with their sprogs stay away because it’s just to difficult or dangerous...... taking the future of MTB with them. If you think I am missing the point, go and read the SM comments on the Advendurance website and draw your own conclusion(s). If there is a Race and there is a serious accident and no Paramedics, then the Organisers are castigated and open to civil liability..... ... but here is the conundrum.... emergency medical services, Marshall’s, water points, land permits, route maintenance (need I carry on).....are not for free! So we have a choice to make - a Hobson’s Choice: a 70km MTB Race with no water tables, medics, goodie bag, timing system, start line rah rah.... and all on public gravel roads with no road closures ( sorry - but the Traffic Police have jumped on the opportunity to charge extortionist prices for road closures to supplement the gratuitous waste of taxpayers money) as the Landowners will not permit access to their trails ( it cost money to drive to all the Landowners and negotiate access / permits).....all this for the pricely sum of say R75 ( to cover admin costs) and a tin medal. Whose in? Too much perhaps?? Here are my personal (non-objective) observations ( I don’t particularly care one way or the other whether you agree or not): - How many of you pay the ‘exorbitant’ entry fee for 94.7.... a 2h30 ride and ditto for Argus? No Race village for the family to gather around, just dusty parking areas. - Those that complain about the Sponsor’s tent are just jealous because they have never been inside or are ever likely to be invited inside. Neither have I. - To cut costs the Organisers give you an option to not take a medal... how many took up the option? More importantly, what have you done with ‘all’ these medals ( mine lie in drawers all over the house). - But just let them dare to cancel medals all together! - I am a racing snake that has supported ALL the Nissans and Ashburtons, traveling to Ballito, Clarens, and Dullstroom ( excluding W Cape)....each one being the highlight of a family weekend..... gone! - I have bitched about routes and route markings but, I have never posted it on SM, I shared it directly with the organisers so, believe it or not, they can do something to make it better for ALL of us...... not just me! - I am not one of the organisers! - Advendurance is a business and like any business constantly needs to work on their value proposition, improve their product offering and service. - On the balance of things I think they have got it right BUT can and should do better... Regardless of whether you are a perennial ‘moaner’ or just sharing your constructive thoughts, the BROADER MTB community has lost a great initiative.....it’s not about the race per se, it’s about the sum of the parts of the whole experience! We are without a National Series and four Nissan races in Gauteng. There are no winners! So bike parks filled with Weekend Warriors holding up the trail awaits us. Cheers

Buy it online. I did. I run a XX1 1 x 11 chainring on the original Sworks cranks. Works like a dream.

A much more accurate 'rule of thumb' to estimate Max HR .... If you cannot afford a scientific test.... Is 220-(n*0.64) where n= your age. This method lowered my max HR to a much more realistic level that I could actually get to. Read it in a local bike Sept 2014...

You could use an iBike Newton PM with PowerStroke. Costs 50% less than anything currently available ( around R5500 with HRM and second bike mount kit). It does not use strain gauges but applies Newton's Third Law of every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Cadence and air movement through the front sensor is calculated using complex logarithms to determine watts. The beauty of the solution is that it is transferable between bikes as easy as moving a Garmin from bike to bike. The head unit is the size of a Garmin 800. PowerStroke measues the wasted watts in terms of left and right bike movement (lean) and forward and aft wasted movement and then plots this on a graph against an ideal shape. It also plots your cadence (pedal stroke) against an ideal stroke. This helps you improve your pedal stroke by knowing exactly where you are 'flattening' out in your stroke. The only draw back is that it does not fit on Spez 29ers with a narrow Q factor. The cadence magnet (which is a key part of the power calculation) sits on the pedal and touches the frame with a narrow Q. I tested it on a MTB with a Powertap and the numbers were insignificant in their difference. It does lag slightly (micro seconds ) when the watts change but you will have that when no strain gauges are present. If you can ride on rough technical terrain looking down for more than a second... then you are a very good rider. The only time I look down is usually just before I fall and I am looking for the softest landing place. The kicker for me was two things: 1) the Isaac software that comes with the unit is WOW and you can export files to Training Peaks and 2) you can get it with software that is used on an Indoor Trainer ....as if you were on the road. That means three solutions in one unit. you just need to check the website for the list of supported IDT's - I use a Tacx. I agree that the readings are not always accurate on a MTB but you will always have variability on a MTB because of the terrain... Wheel in the air, slipping back wheel ....etc etc but overall, if you use it to train with it is more than accurate enough. Statistically the difference between IBike and all the others is less than 2%. The issues here are affordability and functionality. It has many other features. My personal negative is that it does not have a built in GPS but has the usual cycle computer features...speed, distance, averages etc etc Check out www.ibikesports.com for more technical detail and testimonials. I brought in a couple for myself and local riding buddies and they are happy for what it provides at the price it provides it.

Cape Pioneer is a must.

I am busy with the second one. This will be a pure Ferrari branded bike. Based the paint job on the 1970's F1 of Niki Lauda. The only thing I left out is any reference to the colour blue (logos etc). Frame is almost done with the same wheel rims as the previous one. Handlebar grips , saddle and bars will be different but the same colour as the inside of the cockpit....tan leather. Need to find suitable cranks (want older, track type cranks). The final touch will be small detail Ferrari logos in key places ...... That white frame is really beautiful and the juxtaposition of the bike against the wall mural is stunning. Well done.

Here is my Fixie. Running a 48:19. Has a flip/flop hub. Saddle and bars covered in red ostrich leather.

Hi Lava girl I have just agreed in principle to obtain the license and distribution rights with Velocomp LLC (the manufacturers of iBike Newton) for Sub-Saharan Africa. The first units of iBike Newton Plus with PowerStroke arrived last Monday. How can I assist you? You can email me directly on wayne640925@icloud.com for now. Regards Wayne

Hi Guys This is my first time commenting on a thread, so if I cross any protocols, forgive me. I have been racing for over 20 years and have been through all the training fads from LSD to F.I.D to HRM and now I have arrived at a cross road: Do I enter into the realm of PM training? My question is predicated on the following: - I have multiple bikes, so building multiple wheels or fitting multiple cranks is not a clever investment, regardless of the gain(?) I may get (by equipping one bike and which bike to equip); - If you are going to do it, do it properly i.e. buy the best and build the best because you can't be half pregnant (It's like using your analogue watch and counting your pulse In your neck with your finger tip to measure HR (-: I have investigated all of them (yes I am ....!) from PowerTap to SRM cranks, Quark Cranks, P2, as well as PowerCal and the new Garmin system. In one way or another, they all do the job, but not everything I want in one unit for multiple bikes at a single purchase price. So therefore what I would like is a solution that gives me the best of every aspect of PM training (Training programmes built into a Head Unit, every single measurement (FTP, TSS, JKT, LPP, HRM, Cad, wasted watts) you could wish for instantly available...and more!!. PM readings, interchangeable between all bikes (like a Garmin mount) with no additional hardware (other than perhaps a speed or cadence sensor, MAC/Windows software to download rides - PC internet based software analysis already done) and...able to be used indoor on my IDT when it is raining or I am....lazy!! Does such technology/unit exist?