Following on from the bike upgrades thread, what are your best general purchases and why. Best vfm, etc.

For me – I’ll go with two

1/ my Weber chimney starter. Add coals, start a fire with a rolled up bit of paper, put on top of fire, sit with beer for 20 mins. Turn out, start cooking. I believe a man *should* be able to start a charcoal BBQ from scratch, but then once you’ve proved you can do that then get a chimney and save faffing around.

2/ My chromebook. Wasn’t sure, umm’ed and ahh’ed, so bought one second hand on here for under £100 to see if I could get along with it. That was five years ago, it’s still going strong and faultless. Looked at upgrading several times, can’t honestly see the point. My wife’s just bought her third windows laptop in the same period.

My KTM 690 Duke (Now sold for a 790 i must admit).

Wonderful bike and did everything asked without question. Awesome.

My workbench. Ebay build at home pre-drilled etc…. Marvellous.

an ssd as the boot drive for the desktop

An Aeropress

An Aeropress

Didn’t take long…

Being made redundant 11 years ago. Best. Thing. Ever. The alarm clock soon saw the business end of a lump hammer 😆

Sold all my Yamaha motorbikes (and parts thereof) and bought an Aprilia RS125 race bike that was ready to go and just works when I want it to, no messing- ring-a-ding-diddly-ding-ding-ding-braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!

Getting back into cycling.

Epiphone SG and nice amp. Spurred me on to play and practice a bit more.

Walking further and more often. It takes ages but what else are you going to be doing, plus, it’s free.

Gaggia Classic, over 10 years old now, still rattling out sub standard coffee, according to that JP prestige bloke. 😉

I’m not a fanboi, having been a Blackberry user forever, and am on my first ever Apple phone, but I have to say that the Watch 3.0 that I bought end of line for £220 is a super device. I use it to record bike rides on Strava when commuting (rather than take one of the Garmins), as a wallet for contactless, as a handsfree phone and it even tells the time! For the money it is very good value. Of course there is a lot of price gouginging for more expensive models, but the base model is impressive.

Varifocals may be the next upgrade…

2nd Wife

The Kuhn Rikon can opener, gives me a smile every time I use it.

Getting it right.

Smart Telly! Just got one this weekend. Brilliant!

One dart. No dartboard. Just a dart.

CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS

Seat 62K

#InBeforeFlashy

Torque wrench -perfect for a ham-fisted bodger like me

You tube – to see how to bodge various tasks

2×12 Vintage 30s to 4×12 Greenbacks.

Seat 62K

Pfft, 64A FTW.

Last Laptop was 10 years old, bought a new i7 with an SSD and it’s so fast it’s freaky

Hmmm. Quite a few I reckon.

+1 on smart telly above. Held out for ages with our old Sony CRT until just over 2 years ago. Now got an LG smart TV & it’s brilliant.

Just got an Audio Pro T5 speaker for the bedroom with a Chromecast Audio plugged & am very impressed with the sound quality & punch it delivers. The fact I got it on offer for £115 down from around £190 was the icing on the cake.

My Lenovo P2 phone. Still only a budget phone, but my previous Sony Xperia T was really struggling after 4 years of ownership. The Lenovo was a real breath of fresh air – 3 days of battery life, no slowing down & having to wait for it to do things, Google Pay etc. & it only cost £200.

Going back a few yrs – the original Dirtworker. At the time we were doing at least one trip to Thetford a week in the evening after work & being able to stick a clean bike in the car after a few mins of cleaning was a real revelation & improvement in enjoyment of riding – removed that nagging feeling of ‘need to clean the bike at the weekeend’….

Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. After yrs of cursing my Edge 500, the Elemnt Bolt isn’t perfect but it’s a LOT better than the Garmin it replaced & I can’t see me going back any time soon.

Van. Never going back.

Last weekend I made a table that bolts onto the side of my log splitter (catches logs as they are split when in horizontal mode) and a single lever system to replace the [EU law dictated] twin lever system – speeds up splitting massively but you need to remember where your fingers are before Darwin comes calling.

Used steel I’ve had hanging around for 10 years and a couple of hours of my time. Shonky welding but works 🙂

Viewranger – the mapping/GPS app.

I guess I was a fairly early adopter of this and the app has come with me across a succession of mobile phone upgrades.

The app itself has always been brilliant but has been refined and improved over the years. I have 1:50000 maps for the whole UK and add European locations as and when I need them. Just a fantastic tool for the walker, mountaineer or general lover of the outdoors.

Agree 100% re. Viewranger

My old man bus, the Peugeot Partner Teepee. Work won’t allow a proper van but it’s practically the same and I love it. No more faff getting bikes in and out etc.

Electric chainsaws, no more faffing with two stroke and bloody oil.

Mac Air/iPhone/iPad combo, best by some margin as it all makes my life so much easier.

Duesenburg Paloma and Boss Nextone guitar/amp combo.. sublime tone from a simple tone master.

Boss GT1 amp, which means I can take my guitar to hotels, plug my earphones in and my iPhone and noodle away until I fall asleep.

My SUV which takes me everywhere I want to go, in comfort without fuss.

2nd a van.

Life’s easier with a van. And much cooler

Ex wife -> New girlfriend

The Gaggia Classic I was bought as a Christmas present about 10 years ago has saved me thousands by not buying a morning coffee.

Chromebook, bought 3-4 years ago for £230 and still perfect for sofa use, plus it always goes on holiday with me – cheap enough that I wouldn’t be too upset to lose it.

Little £30 Roku stick for various streaming services.

Plantronics Backbeat Fit bluetooth headphones, several years of sweaty service.

The home Hifi. Continuously since 1979.

Also, I once owned an Orange 5.

Had to sell it on. Almost broke my heart.

What’s this Orange 5 you speak of?

Decent work / laptop satchel – Lowepro. Had it nearly 20 years, still all good.
Brookes saddle.
Real Lego, not the naff clones.
Salomon trainers, just starting to fall apart at 10 years old.

What’s this Orange 5 of which you speak?

FTFY.

Van. Never going back.

Is the reverse gear broken?

Swiss Army Knife – Huntsman. Only got one a couple of years ago after becoming a parent, and now it is literally attached to me every day. I absolutely don’t know how I survived most of my adulthood thus far without it. So useful. And if you think you won’t use one, you’re wrong- you will.

Viewranger

Aye, it’s pretty good, I’ve moved to OS subscription, which I prefer really, just download maps as I need them the night before in 1:25k.

Macbook Air – does everything I want it to.
My old TVR S3c – couldn’t fail to make you grin. Sold it when the kids came along to get a bigger house 🙁

DAB radio
Van
Filter cone for coffee

Slow Cookers
Sat Nav

False grass….perfect lawn all year round

What’s this Orange 5 of which you speak?

FTFY.

In what sense do you believe you have accomplished this correctional task?

Charcoal chimney is great.
Instant read thermometer – never again do you have to go through the “is it cooked” question as you will know yes or no based on that.
Bike stand – never need to bend over working on a bike ever again. £50 and 10 years on it shows no real signs of use.
Decent headphones – get good sound and block out the masses on planes, trains and in the office if needed.
Surround sound – seeing your respective partner jump sky high when the rear triggers a sound effect in a scary movie is lots of fun.
Dogs – do not accept other sub-standard pets.
Mountains over fridges everytime, there is no substitute for a real mountain!