I found the grinder struggled with supermarket, dark roast type beans – Lavazza I think was the one I had. I could never get a decent pressure out of it using those beans.

Changed to various coffees from Rave and never looked back.

Hunger bonks are bad but dehydration bonks are absolutely horrendous. Sitting there in a complete daze – floating on air sensations with no ability to think why you feel like this  😂

I recently went though this and ended up with a cheap Chinese DAC from Amazon / AliExpress:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0C1Y7C9HH?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Plus a secondhand WiiM Mini streamer from eBay. Sounds pretty good and very easy to use – recommended.

For extra info if useful:

My resting HR is around 53 just now. Used to be in the mid 40s when I was fit.

108 average, 132 max on a 50 minute stroll around the local park yesterday.

Max used to be 209 a couple years back before covid. I’m going no where near that just now to test…

<p>Doris – I’ve also got long covid and having a HR sensor on all the time has really helped me pace well. I also find the sleep monitor useful so something to look into. I believe the LC pacing advice is to keep within 55% of your max heart rate. For me, I knew my historical max is 209 from various FTP tests over the years. So I’m working within 55% of 209 = 115 bmp. This does seem to work quite well as I’ve not been crashing when sticking to this. </p><p>Unfortunately, it’s very easy to exceed 55% of your max – walking uphill, aggressive cleaning of pots, cleaning etc so you’ve got to be careful. </p><p>There isn’t much point comparing between two people as it varies so much – some people will have a naturally low HR – say max of 150 and, therefore, lower numbers all the time. Where as, you sound more like a humming bird like myself… (The 220 minus age thing thing is a lot of crap.)</p><p>One thing I’ve noticed is that the temperature can have a massive effect. Hotter = higher bmp. Quite confusing if you can do a certain walk route successfully one day when it’s cooler but then the next day your HR is way over the 55% on the same route.</p>

I’ve just had it for the third time. This latest bout has absolutely been the worst yet. Was in my bed 24/7 for 4 weeks when it first landed. Finally tested positive with a lateral flow after 2 weeks of negatives. I’ve had all my vaccines.

I’ve now been off work for 18 weeks with post / long covid symptoms and feel absolutely awful even still . Extreme fatigue, brain fog, swollen glands, reflux and a tight chest are the symptoms. The best I’ve had is 2-3 days where i feel decent but then back to a week of misery after any sort of minor exertion. A horrendous, life changing experience.

Got some brakes from them last week. Very quick delivery through FedEx. Got hit with import duty though but still cheaper than buying in the UK.

I just chucked caffeine due to long covid. Felt pretty awful for 9 days – headaches, anxiety, increased HR etc.

When working, would normally have 3 coffees a day so not exactly hardcore but I guess 3 a day for 15 years fair adds up…

I also have no interest in e bikes but this is a super cool development. The rear suspension must be buttery and one less thing to smash off of a rock. You would imagine much less servicing required, especially with a belt.

One step closer to a motorcross bikes…

You can still use tensioner for a belt system.

Geometron / Nicolai used this on their pinion gearbox  G16. Someone local to me had one and I’m told the belt lasts ages and requires no looking after.

Rim brake for road bikes for me. Discs for mtb and gravel.

Shimano road disks and pads are absolutely extortionate. I genuinely think wearing out rims might be cheaper in the long run.

It’s also pretty easy to cook road discs on a long descent.

Don’t get me wrong – there is huge potential there but there were many, many bugs/ issues that got quite annoying. If they can sort it out it’ll be great:

I had a few drop outs watching on Eurosport. They kept cutting away to people in the crowd or interviews in the middle of the race. The video quality seemed much worse than red bull. It felt like the commentators couldn’t see the race – not picking up on the live timing splits. The live timing screens were unreliable. Cedric isn’t a good commentator.

Great racing but the new coverage is absolutely awful.

Great fun bouldering there!

One here! I’m on the other coast so far from an expert but have enjoyed Hawkcrag and Limekilns in that neck of the woods.

You’ve also got Rosyth Quarry but I’ve never been there. Have a look on UKC for pictures.

Pie,

Scrapa Crux are absolutely brilliant for scrambling! I’ve climbed VS in mine.. You can crank down the laces a bit for the more technical sections. The only thing they’re not great on is wet grass but what climbing shoe is…

Boots are good if it’s pishing down or in the winter. Otherwise I’m in my Crux.

I don’t think I’d like to run too far in them though.

My dog is small and black and she doesn’t like large or white dogs.

I put it down to jealously of their glorious, white, flowing locks.

I’m on a 48/32 FSA gravel crank with an 11-34 cassette and find it’s excellent on 700 wheels. I’d want a lower gears if I was loaded, off road touring but been great for loaded road touring and more general, under biked, gravel fun.

I guess it’ll really depend what gravel riding is to you – it must vary so much over the country. I tent to average around 22kph on the gravel bike over a mixture of terrain and don’t have any issues with cross chaining. Mostly riding on fast cycle paths to escape the city and then hilly gravel tracks with some MTB terrain thrown in.

Unsure where you are in the country but it was minus 10C couple of days here last week – plus it was a very cold week in general. That absolutely eats petrol – especially if you have to sit stationary for 15 minutes whilst the windscreen defrosts.

Maybe do some practise hammering to develop your technique. Otherwise bike shop haha

Get yourself some of these plus a hammer:

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/tools/hope-pro-2-evo-rear-bearing-support-bush-htt182-pair/

And watch this:

I done it recently – very easy. Smear of grease around the bearing so it slides in nice.

(You don’ need the hub support they talk about in the video if it’s built into a wheel.)

It really depends on your frame, stem length, flexibility and intended use.

Some gravel bikes are basically road frames with larger tyres – AKA long and low for aero. This would be more suited to a road width bar – 420mm for example. If you stuck super wide bars on this type of frame, I would imagine, it would be extremely uncomfortable.

Other gravel frames have more of a MTB style geometry; with a much shorter reach and high front end. These would maybe suit some of the wider gravel bars you are talking about – especially with a shorter stem.

I’ve got a Topstone – the geo isn’t too far removed from my Giant TCR – slightly higher and shorter. I have fitted Pro Discover 42cm bars with a 20 degree flare – I think they suit the bike really well and wouldn’t go any wider. Moving to these bars really helped when riding technical MTB type stuff as the drop is so much less than the stock bars – therefore, my back isn’t under so much pressure when riding in the drops for an extended period.

I’ve got 105 2×11 on my Topstone – I fully expected it to be noisy and annoying off road (due to the lack of a clutch) but it’s excellent. A lot of my gravel riding is pushing the limits of the bike on mtb territory so it’s been a solid test.

I’ve got a FSA chain set @ 46/32 and 105 11-34 cassette for a nice easy gear.

I think I’d just go with whatever I could get cheaper at the time.

I always assumed they used the aluminium bolts there deliberately so that they would break in a crash rather than snapping the expensive levers / bars.

I’ve mooshed / broke one over the years; I find it best to just nip them up rather than torque them to the suggested rate. This may be caused by my cheap torque wrench…

It’s a terrible bit of design from Shimano. They actually recommend their own anti seize paste on the pad retaining pin… I ended up cutting the pads off of the pin using a dremel, cutting through the pin then drilling it out. Absolute ball ache but saved buying a new caliper.

I live in a tenement in Glasgow city centre. I was as surprised as anyone to see a Peregrine falcon swoop down and wipe out a pigeon in my shared back garden!

On further research, it seems there are a few that have taken up residence in some high towers across the city.

Another Avensis here – this time a 2011 plate tourer with a 1.8 petrol engine. Picked it up for the princely sum of £1000. Needed a real good clean but otherwise fine.

It’s not very exciting but it’s a fantastic car – excellent cruiser, plenty big for swallowing kit, just manages 40mpg with the bike on the roof.

Sitting at 132k and you wouldn’t know it – I can see why all the taxi drivers use them. Unbelievably reliable!

Crucially for me – I can fire straight through the zero emissions zones without any bother!

For someone fluent in Maxxis – how do these compare model to model?

Comrie is good fun and packs a punch into short loop. Very rocky trails and a fun wee bike park thing at the bottom (good for practising your jumping). Good cafe!

Don’t discount Balqhidder – it’s excellent and not super technical so would likely suit you. Although not a trail centre if that’s what your after. I’ve not been recently so unsure how the vegetation situation is. You can park in the church carpark or down by the community centre.

Light roasts are better – bumper stickers should be issued!

I also prefer the taste of a V60 to a Aeropress but the later is much less faff. You’ll want a cheap set of coffee scales and some sort of timer to do things right.

Grinder wise – I’ve got one of these I use for brews and it’s very good for the money. Takes about 30 seconds to grind enough for an Aeropress:

Timemore Chestnut C2 Hand Coffee Grinder

(The above grinder is no use for espresso – pour over / aeropress type brewing only.)

Union Coffee on Amazon is nice and is available in 1kg bags for okay value. I do also sometimes go to my local roaster for a treat but it’s nearly 4 times the price of the Union stuff.

Don’t be tempted by the Presto stuff on Amazon – it’s cheap for a reason…

Cheers chaps, thanks for the advice.

I find lowering the stem helps quite a bit on a hardtail. Moves your weight forward and lets you “ride the fork” and take some of the hits away from your legs. Give it a shot if you’ve got some spacers under that stem!

One Hundreth Idiot:

What did you ride? How were the conditions? I might head up tomorrow…

Golden owl is class as well! Agree that Aberfoyle is way harder than the Tweed IMO.

I’m on a antique from 2018 – 505mm on a MEDIUM 😂

I’ve got an old Rab Event shell – it’s absolutely bomb proof but really isn’t very breathable. You build up a serious sweat on the inside quite easily. This is my dog walking jacket for winter – normally the pace is low due to my dog being a keen sniffer…

I also have a North Face Gore active shell jacket which I use for hillwalking, winter MTB and climbing. MUCH more breathable but maybe not quite as protective or durable.

I do wonder if a Gore proshell jacket would be the holy grail but I’ve yet to find the £400 to try it…

I put together a bergs and cobbles tour of Glasgow city centre. Was actually fairly good fun but some of them cobbles were fairly savage on 25mm road tyres…

For anyone who fancies a go:

https://www.strava.com/routes/25442903

Open to suggestions for missing Arenbergs in the Southside I don’t know about!

Is anyone else in the same boat as me?

I’ve been feeling pretty poor for the last 3-4 weeks – started off with a temperature, cough, sore chest, achy limbs, sore head etc. Sounds like textbook Covid yet I’ve done about 20000 lateral flow test and been constantly negative. I’ve had all three vaccines and don’t think I’ve had Covid before now.

I seem to go through waves of thinking I’m feeling better, doing some minor activity and then being completely floored again the next day – same symptoms as always. I went out for a slow bike ride on Saturday and my lungs were burning so badly I turned back after 1km.

If I go for a stroll with the dog, the next day my legs feel like I’ve run a marathon the previous day. It feels like I’m unable to recover properly. Even carrying some food shopping up the stairs meant my arms felt like I’d been to the gym the next day.

Within my office of 4 – all of us are feeling the exact same way and all testing negative.

It’s not that niche – I’m in the exact same position! So frustrating to use this forum on iPhone 7 that I don’t bother now…