Paris-Roubaix is on telly right now (SBS)

Re: the Paris-Roubaix, can someone explain what the star rating for the different stages means?

I think it's one star for every 15 minutes it takes for you to get that buzzing feeling out of your arse

SBS Roubaix highlights



first I think it was Tankink or Hulsmans, it did not look like Knaven to me, crosses some dudes wheel from Lotto and Ligget says it wasa Landouwkrediet rider

next, he gets Michaelson and Cancellara mixed up

next he gets PVP and Steegmans mixed up.



Sherwen and Liggett try to make the race into a hollywood script... ain't woking folks, let it be a bike race.

Highlights, Sherwen saying "there is Bradley Wiggins at the back of the group" at about the fourth group to enter the Arenberg.

Goussev's look back when Hincapie went down. Turned back around immediately, could just read what Hoste and Goose were saying to themselves "great, now we can ride for ourselves". Goussev does not even bother for a second look, clearly no sympathy for Hincapie, love it.

Ballan gets up in about 0.5 of a sceond after tubling head first, great exponent of tumble and roll. Like a gymnast who missed the vault landing.

Cancellara and Flecha and Goussev all putting the hurt on. Goussev very impressive. 23. Hard man. Russian style, even has a pre Berlin wall eastern bloc mullet.

Commentary was pretty sad .... could have done without it. Was the breaking up of the picture just us (we get our TV via satellite) or did everyone have it?

Missed the end 'coz I had to get the dog outside FAST (it had diarrhoea ) Would have loved to have seen the railway crossing bit - did they mention the DQs at the end?

Love how the 3 chasing riders get disqualified for running the train crossing, just as it goes down. I wonder what would have happened if a french rider was in the pack?

I got the break ups, I think it has something to do with the cameras on the bikes beaming the images to the helicopter, Im not sure.
Yeah the DQs were mentioned

FYI I just bought 4 of these along with a bunch of other stuff, Shipping is ONLY $19 for the lot. Gotta love it!

https://www.probikekit.com/display.ph...7dee1c3fc3e118

Thanks wattsy, that's where I was looking at them too. Hard to beat their prices.
How long did it take to get them from when you ordered?

PBK rock. low prices, flat rate insured delivery, and it turns up relatively quickly for 'best effort' freight

:ROFLMAO:

dumbass?!?? that's not strine, that's yank crank.

i could've accepted strine equivalents such as "ya drongo", "ya bloody drongo", or "ya ****en great dill". but dumbass? you've become americanised too quickly expat. i worry for you. soon you'll be voting republican,playing softball, and proudly drinking crap american beer

Yes I had the Stelvio's on the Orbea. They rode well I thought.
The Vitorias I have are; TT - 'Rubino Pro', GT - Diamonte.(sp) All pretty good rubber IMHO.

on the subject of tires
I just had my first wet road ride on a fixed gear
and I thought the vredestein fortezza on the front was a winner.

My latest ebay puchase came with a gp4000 on the rear but a gp3000 on the front, and I dont like the 3000, slides far too easy. Might swap them around and get back to you.

yeah, the GP3000s always seemed like hardish compound to me

Um, I declined an invitation to join the company softball team. They don't even go out for beer and pizza after a game.

Most overrated tyre ever.

What's next?

About 10 days door to door! BTW, included in the $19 delivery was a Triathlon Bar, 6 tubes, Knee warmers and a rain jacket.

yer i cant go past that, 40 odd bucks for GP4000's is fantastic, can get 2 deliverd for the price of 1 in a shop!

just remember not to go crazy with pooling or bulk purchases.


customs is obliged to collect tax on imported items, but generally don't chase tax amounts of less than (say) $50. seem to recallexpat having some more info on this sort of stuff from back in TAT 1 or 2

I think wholesalers here probably don't have much to worry about in the next few years as we've been very, very slow to embrace online purchasing or mail order, but the reality is that there are just too many people that have their hands in the cookie jar and I think it's just a matter of time before bike shops just become bike repair shops. Obviously this is something I think about a fair bit, but I also wonder just how much of the Aussie bike wholesale business is propped up by 'bro deals' and 'people with more money than brains'?

The other thing that concerns me, is my ability to offer complete bike packages. I have very few OEM accounts because I can't order the types of quantites most OEMs want, but even if I did, the prices on some of these mail order places are so low, that they're not far off the pricing I can get anyway.

I can always be competitive on Answer/Manitou stuff because they've been nothing short of fantastic and will sell me any quantity of any thing at OEM pricing, but most other companies just say "Buy from your local wholesaler".

What's the point when my local wholesaler of Brand X is more expensive than PBK or CRC!?!?!?!

Sure, there's this issue of warranty, but that last thing I had a warranty issue for was for some Stans rims, and he sent me a new pair within 7 days of me lodging the claim....from the US.

I'm not anti-retail at all. I still like a good window shop, but the stark reality is that one US mail order outlet sells as much stuff as the entire Aussie bike 'industry' and has/gets better pricing than the Aussie wholesalers. Over the next 10 years, I expect there'll be quite a shift in the way everything works here in terms of the whole retail/wholesale game.

From my experience anything over AUD750 (or is it AUD1000? I get the USD/AUD thing confused) automatically gets hoiked, anything under and it's subject to random checks and is generally pretty safe and will more often than not get through without being GSTed.
Thanks been my experience anyway, and I import a fair amount of schtuff.

This is for Tiger and you, Yoda. You can check the Customs website, but if I recall, there's two different forms for declaring your imports. You've got a short form for stuff under AU$1000, and the big ugly form for goods over that amount. Something like that, anyway. The thing is, if you have stuff sent over by USPS, then your best mate Lancey says "Hey, these are bike parts for those good Aussie blokes, don't tax them". Ok, that's not the way it works, but if it goes UPS, DHL, or FedEx, they pretty much always do a Customs entry, which is about AU$50, just for the filing. So USPS kind of slips under the radar. Something to keep in mind.

can't wait for that to happen

This is what I deciphered expat.
1) try and stay under the $1000
2) ship USPS