ThePilot, funny you say that. We’re currently at my mum’s in Northumberland building this exact thing from scratch! We’re making ourselves an XLWB Ducato camper that we can travel about in.

After a pair of riding trousers. I like trying to buy second hand before buying new so.. Anyone got a size medium they’re unhappy with or unable to return that they’d like to sell on to me?

Some great suggestions to look in to, thanks! I’ll do some research.

The location doesn’t need to allow us to offer guiding in the UK in the winter. More of an investment for the future and somewhere to stay when we are here in the winter (if we continue to spend much of the winters here). I think we’ll eventually live here later in life anyway.

Although, the temptation to go for a place around Mediterranean…Cote D’Azur, Liguria or Croatia is certainly big and I think I wouldn’t need much persuading but. It does worry me a little about the unknown of moving to a foreign country and buying a house in a place I don’t know too much about. I’ve visited various locations around Liguria, Cote D’Azur, Slovenia, Croatia and they’re great places when I’ve visited and on paper but what if we move there and invest a load of time, money and work into a project and it turns out we don’t like it? Plus it’s far from either family but I don’t think that bothers me too much, my girlfriend would like to be closer to family though.

This kind of question seems a lot less of an issue to me in the UK as there’s a lot more things we know or are used to.

If only it was easy enough to keep a place in Norway, a place in the UK and a place somewhere in the mediterranean…

Welll we have been looking into offering trips to Croatia during the winter, that was supposed to start this winter we’re in now until the pandemic came around. So maybe that’ll come once the pandemic dies down and people can travel again.

Thing with going to France, Italy, Croatia is that it is all a bit of an unknown and neither of us have family there. We’ve visited but don’t know what it would be like to live there.

This could maybe work if we were to turn our season around in a couple of years to be winter based trips rather than summer. That would still mean buying a place in the UK as a base then run Norway trips for several more years and slowly transition to Croatia trips during the winter and spend the summer in the UK. It’s an option.

Done. What an awful, devisive survey.

Have we seen this?

Could this apply to your problem?

What happened to embedding Instagram posts?

Heck! Some strong opinions there. You’re right though, Norway is certainly a different place to the UK, you might swap the coffee/tea importance around and Crikey’s poncey coffee options would likely be comparable to having too many English tea options here ;). Good coffee and simple/cheaper filter coffee is a staple drink.

Still, good input from a lot of folk and it is very interesting to hear what people would like from a cafe, even if it seems to stretch to every end of the spectrum.

We might have to have a doggo friendly cafe though since we have our own trail hound!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDR4dMjHqU_
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAz6jGHljOQ/

@morecashthandash – We’ll be in the UK from Jan-March so could well visit the place you mention!

I think the place we’re in is similar to Innerleithen in infrastructure/location. Small town with various facilities and trails just outside the town, some even arriving almost in the town. There are two buildings with most café facilities already installed which you could almost open tomorrow therefore the investment in setting up is greatly reduced. One of which is this nice little old building. (if anyone knows how to embed a Streetview image into a post then be my guest) :)

How the f is Tyson Fury in there with some of the derogatory he’s made in the past?

Some examples might include…

“a woman’s best place is in the kitchen and on her back”
Claiming ‘that he would hang his sister if he deemed her to be promiscuous’
Likening ‘homosexuality to peadophilia’
Compared ‘the existence of transgender people to the practice of bestiality, claiming sexual relations with animals would be legalised within 10 years’

to note just a few.

Fond memories of those flapjacks at Glentress! Grew up riding there as a teenager, still go back for a trip every time I’m in the UK. The area I live in now feels very Tweed Valley-esque, just 10yrs behind in development.

Somewhere to hang wet clothing. I heard that it can rain a bit in that old there Norway.

Got that one covered ;). Used to live in pretty much the wettest place in Norway, got sick of that so only gone and moved myself to the ‘warmest place in Norway‘.

‘crikey’ Crikey.

ah Edzell, memories… Me and my mum came up from Northumberland and stayed in a campsite just near Edzell when we went to Robert Gordon uni open day (which I ended up going to) some years back. The autumn days up there are something special.

Where do you put your bike when you’re putting the bike stand back in the car before riding?

This is why it needs to fit in his backpack, so it can be whipped out and placed under the bike whilst everyone stops for a their energy bar

Those suggesting not having guests at all, I’ve already written about that if you read back through the posts.

Thanks for the alternative fuel suggestions, certainly going to look into those properly. I wonder if we can get a large scale delivery to be stored at my house, otherwise I wonder if we could lobby the local kommune to get one of the local fuel stations to sell HVO or flame or something…

@wbo – Hello from Nesbyen *waves*! All the things you mention sound great and make sense if you compare a new diesel vs. a new electric. Having driven a couple of electric cars I agree they are so much nicer to drive, much cheaper and plenty practical these days.

The question is still whether it is more environmentally friendly to buy a brand new EV over keeping my dirty old VW T5 going for as long as it will. I’m still unsure however this thread has provided a lot of good info to consider both sides. I definitely like the idea of finding an alternative fuel that I could run the diesel car on to produce less emissions.

Then I’m wondering if there are some kind of exhaust of filter you can retrofit to the exhaust to reduce the NoX fumes.

@howsyourdad1 – cheers for that, looks like some useful info on there, i’ll give it a read

@sui – Thanks for that, will also read some of those reports. Currently trying to find some kind of map for places I could buy such fuel.

@Duncancallum – Yes I realise that, I’m quite conscious of it all and think about it a lot. I go back and forward about it. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t do it at all and then I get into a massive wormhole about what I should and shouldn’t do. Should I work with mountain biking? Should we go out and build trails? Maybe it is good to get people on bikes, maybe it is bad? Maybe being able to ride a bike at all is just a luxury? Should we encourage people to buy bikes, is it just more consumption, using more resource? Where does it stop, what we really really really should do it all just stop and think about how to do things in a ‘good’ way before we continue building. Ahhhh! then I go mad a bit and try to rationalise it all, sometimes I think the world is f*kd and there’s nothing we can do, sometimes I realise we can’t just all stop living and we are making moves in the right direction. But I’m just one guy after all.

What I think in the end is mostly that I can’t change everything within the travel industry, rail/aviation/driving, and I don’t think it is my responsibility to change that either*. People will still travel, which I think is one of the things in life that is most worthwhile, so I think it is best to give people the possibility to do it in a sustainable and responsible way where they are able to travel, ride and enjoy another culture/environment with a minimal impact. Also, we don’t just host international guests. This year we welcomed a lot of Norwegian guests because they couldn’t travel abroad because of Covid, made me think we should do more to welcome Norwegian guests as well.

*I try to influence what I can on a personal level and even a local level and I would like to do more on a larger scale if it is possible but at some point it is also the travellers and the airlines responsibility. To some extent I can’t tell people how to travel but I can offer small ‘carrots’, for example – trying to get people to take the train from the airport to our place instead of driving to the airport?

Thoughts welcome on this subject if we’re you’d like to tangent off into it…. I’m often pondering it myself….

I’ll give you a message about the fuel options, sounds very interesting. I looked into the possibilities of buying an older diesel car and setting up my own vegetable fat refinery to run it off… seemed a little excessive for the amount I would get out of it unfortunately plus there was not enough restaurants locally with excess veg oil, too remote haha. So it is great that is going more commercial.

Good point @molgrips

Why does this site log me out all the time? I just wrote response to most of these comments but by the time I clicked post it had logged me out :(.

@trimix – If you have a link to the article, I would be interested to read that. But even so, I still believe in reducing our consumption and impact on the environment because why not? If we are able to live more efficiently and use less then I think we should.

I don’t really agree with the kicking the can down the road point. We might still produce some electricity from fossil fuels not but making cars electric at least gives us the possibility to create the energy from renewable sources.. which is slowly happening now. If we continue using combustion engines there’s not possibility to make them renewable.

@trimix, @stevextc, @duncancallum – If the vans coming out next year live up to the numbers that they are advertising then they will be plenty for what we need. Peugeot, Citroen and Vauxhall have all announced 9 seaters that will run over 300km arriving in the next few months. We tested a Maxxus earlier this year that almost did a full day of uplifts as well as drive from the test location 50km away, along with the ability to fast charge locally whilst waiting for guests it should work out. I don’t mean this dismissively or sarcastically in any way but an anecdotal story of Your friend almost doing a 210km journey in an i3 doesn’t help. We all have those kind of stories both electric and fossil fuelled cars.

@stevextc – in general we’ll use the car mostly for guests in the summer when all electricity will be produced by hydro. We’ll still use it in the winter but we drive a lot less then, then some electricity is provided from Germany (coal) and Sweden (nuclear) but still it is mostly hydro unless too many lakes are frozen over I believe. I need to research that further so if you’ve got any info on that I would be interested to read it :)

Is the amount of fumes/particles we produce from brakes/tyres comparable to the exhaust emissions? Doesn’t seem to be an issue that gets talked about so much? Not really sure how I could reduce that apart from to drive less, we don’t use piggdekk tyres at least.

@simon_semtex – Thanks for the link, looks very useful. I wonder if there is much difference in numbers/research now we are 10yr down the line from that?

I share your view about buying less, we generally keep buying new things to a minimum, repair/reuse stuff and always try to buy 2nd hand before buying new. So now this thinking has transferred on to the question about cars..

@duncancallum – As mentioned above I think an electric could do a full day no problem, even with a full car and a trailer. Especially with the possibility of fast recharging between runs.

Thanks for the fuel recommendations, this the kind of thing I was looking for, don’t understand why this kind of thing isn’t growing right now?! Looks promising.

Yes I now Claire! We used to live in the same place in Voss but now live about 3hrs east from her. Such a random meeting, especially since she ended up working for Jon in Slovenia who I used to work for!

//

I’m not really convinced with the idea of selling the old van on and it still being used or something. It just feels like I move the problem on rather than fixing it, don’t you think?

Anyone got any info about making the existing diesel car cleaner to drive? Is there any kind of aftermarket devices you can use to reduce the emissions?

A few small points to add in response to @leffeboy ‘s post.

– 99% of electricity comes from hydro production
– Usage is typically for whe we have groups of guests. That means airport/train station pick ups which are 2hrs away, then each day we would ride with 3-6 lifts up the hills locally or drive to a location maybe 30-60mins away followed by 2-4 lifts up the hill*.
– We needa 9 seater
– For our personal use, if we were to keep the diesel car then we might look at some smaller vehicle to supplement (moped, e-cargobike etc). But most shops/facilities are located in walking distance anyway.
– We live in a small town so yes NoX emissions are less of a concern than a city but given that pretty much every brand is advertising much lower emission numbers than real time use and using ‘defeat’ devices in testing even in 2020 then I’d like to reduce it if possible.

*In general we’re trying to change our routes so that they are more of a – long lift up the hill in the morning followed by a trip on the hilltops and a big descent as a pose to pure uplift, smash back down the hill to reduce van use.

Not much detail in the description but a friend was watching something like this on Norwegian TV, is the guy Danish? If so then I guess it is the same thing and I can watch this version :D

I can beat that by a long way.

I’ve got a Norwegian car but was back visiting my parents last winter in the UK. Also visited some friends in London for a couple of weeks. We drove in to Muswell Hill and left the car there.

Apparently you’re supposed to know that when you pass an green sign with LEZ written in the middle somewhere near the M25 you are supposed to log in to a section of the TFL site and register your car when you have a foreign vehicle. Surprisingly I didn’t know so on return to Norway… Plus a few weeks later as we had moved house and EPCPLC (who issue the fine for TFL) sent the letter to my old address… I received a fine for £1000, plus some more for being late in replying to a fine I didn’t know I had.

Still ongoing trying to sort this out because it’s only possible to contact EPC by letter and they say you have to allow up to 48 days for them to reply each time.

Bloody nightmare!

This turned into a longer thread than I expected.

I’ve gone under and drilled them into various bits with self tapping screws and some big spacers.

Also this month have;
– Removed, serviced and replaced the boot latch
– Fixed the rear number plate lights
– Replaced ball joints
– Replaced a caliper
– Serviced the remaining calipers
– Replaced track rod ends
– Replaced drop links
– Replaced anti-roll bar bushings
– Fixed the bonnet opener lever
– Replaced the parking light bulbs
– Replaced rear shock absorbers
– Replaced hand brake cable

Quite proud of myself as I know sweet FA about mechanics and just learning as I go, it is very satisfying learning it all and the fact that is costs ridiculous money to take it to a garage here in Norway so saving some big dollars!

Only job left before the test on monday is replacing an inner CV boot, that one is scary as it means removing driveshaft,eek.

Norwegian EU test Terry

I’ve cable tied what I can but plenty bits where there’s no hole for a cable tie, same for jubilee clip idea

If you can, I would recommend going for the LWB for less faff and more robustness. We have an LWB T5 minibus (nowt fancy as it’s 2004). We guide groups with it if they’re 4 or less and it is ideal with the back row of seats out. We can fit 4 bikes in just nicely without taking any wheels off, this involves turning the front wheel a bit in each bike, with the length of modern bikes they are jusssst the right length to close the boot. You could probably fit a 5th in there without taking wheels off but it would he a bit more faff.

Another bonus is it is just the right length the sleep in the back with just the rear (3rd) row of seats out (I’m 5’11”).

We really don’t find it a big car, I think it’s 5.5m and standard parking bays are 5m long but I’ve never had any trouble with it in town or in tight spaces.

Looking at this myself for a Ducato XLWB camper build so comments are from my own thoughts so far..

Not sure what you’re headroom is like but to avoid adding height with a shower tray installed you could use thick abrasive vinyl type stuff on the floor and just install your own plug/drain straight through the floor (this means direct air hole out your van though). You would lap the vinyl up the walls about 150mm or so. Then either vinyl or some kind of wet room wall material on the walls and ceiling, seal with silicon. those seals are the most important part of the build unless you put some kind of secondary waterproofing behind. I feel like you could get some vinyl for pretty cheap for this, size wise it must be about ‘offcut’ size so you could probably make it from bits out the bin or leftover from someone’s house fit?

Ha, same here! That DVO mudguard is almost an insult to us wet weather dwellers. They’re based in California or something aren’t they so I guessed that was the explanation for the measly provision. That thing winds me up, why even bother include it!

I’ve got a pretty standard zip tie on one now which works great, never had a problem with clearance even with some mega Maxxis wide trail tyres. I have the one which extends forward out the front of the fork a bit too.

On one hand, as another mentioned, it is hard to really know what it going on without knowing a lot more context but from that one small encounter…

It feels like B is mentally abusive towards A which leads to controlling A’s behaviour, in this case it to an extreme extent is A is considering suicide, something needs to be done ASAP. Ideally both need therapy and need to talk to professional people outside of the relationship to fix it, for different reasons. A to help them feel better and to build their confidence in themselves back. B to understand why they are mentally abusing this person and to try change that behaviour. I say this because I recognised exactly this behaviour (on a much less extreme level for both A and B in my case) in myself with my partner, I guess it can be quite risky or difficult to admit that on a public forum but I am happy to because we’re dealing with it and things are so much better because of communication, talking things through and the willingness to admit to problems/mistakes.

I’ve learned through this that usually the hardest thing is getting B to admit there’s a problem, that they are mentally abusive. Especially when B probably doesn’t even realise they are doing it most of the time as it usually isn’t intentional.

I could go on pointing out all the details in that conversation that I recognise were problems with my own relationship and what it means but I think it would be too much speculation without knowing more. From a general point of view though it seems like B is controlling A and is mentally abusive, probably doesn’t know it and has a problem with empathy/compassion that needs dealt with. A needs support, so if you’re a good friend then do what you can to help them.

Ride Slovenia Alps2Sea tour?

Surely if you organise the bits yourself it could easily be a lot cheaper to go to Finale. Book a big accommodation, book with any of the numerous guide/uplift companies, book your flights to Nice, hire a van or two and you’re done. Food and drink is cheap enough to eat out every night.

To Live and Die in LA

Think we listened to all these for free on Acast

Two incredibly good ones for you!
– The Teacher’s Pet. Really interesting as they uncover a lot of new evidence during the podcast and make some pretty big developments in the case.
– Shittown (think it is called S-Town and part of the Serial series or by the same guys or something). I think a guy contacts the serial makers about a crime in their village but the series turns towards a really interesting story about the guy who originally contacts the producers.

I’ve got a few others but can’t remember the names, will ask my girlfriend when she comes home as she’s obsessed with listening to them.

I will be keeping an eye on this thread for some to add to our list for any future road trips

Over 6 acres of paddocks and woodland located 2 miles north of Innerleithen and 4 miles south of Peebles

……but how?

Following this thread, almost bizarre how similar this is to us. Although we currently live in Norway I grew up in Hexham area (Barrasford) and we’re trying to think of where in the UK we would like buy a house as a base. Tweed valley + surroundings are the current thoughts so it is very interesting to read these comments. Currently thinking Innerleithen would be the best spot as you’ve got the trails right there and there’s just a great buzz around the town with a lot based around the riding scene, plus you’re more likely to get mates visiting since they would come for the riding ;).

I have a little bit similar experience to alexxx though, lived in Alps, Slovenia, Norway previous to this so not sure rural borders will feel as exciting for riding but also not sure where in the UK would be as good for riding that we could afford either.

Where in Hexham area are you now?

Removability – we did something similar with our VW T5. We use it as an uplift van for our guiding business in the summer then campervan in the winter. Making it all removable means it’s much harder to insulate, we didn’t insulate but we have a proper mattress and thick down duvets in. All we did was unscrew the luggage straps out and bought bolts that fit the same threads. We then bolted small section batons between the luggage strap points which were only 5*2.5cm thick. The. You can create on the floor to cover with plywood which you can build off in any way you want. It is very easy to remove and can be done in an hour or two.

Power – it sounds like you’ve got very simple power requirements which means you won’t need to install anything substantial. We put in a split relay linked to a 110ah GEL battery which lasts us ages! GEL batteries can be discharged almost 100% safely whereas a lot of other leisure batteries (can’t remember the type I’m talking about, wet acid?) Can only be discharged about 50% without damaging them. So let’s say you need 30-40ah, you’ll ideally buy a battery that is 60-80ah. The set up of a split charge system, leisure battery and some outputs is actually really simple. We knew nothing before we started but learned all online. As long as you out the correct fuses in the correct places in your system you’ll be safe, that way nothing can catch on fire! Earthing is simple too, earth in the car is just connecting back to an unpainted surface of the metal bodywork.

Happy to answer questions and show you what we did on specific things if you want to send a message. Not really got any photos but can find wiring diagrams and show you what we purchased online.

As lots of others have said, insulate before you upgrade any heating system. It’s like if you had a leaky pipe, you would find the leak and fix that first instead of increasing the flow of water.

The other thing is you will all get some good general info and anecdotal stories on here but every house has a different context. Almost every house will require a different specific insulation and heating system which is best for that house. The best way to do that is to get a consultant to do a survey on the house. I really think the best advice you’ll get here is where you can look to find the right information about your house.

Regarding the external insulation and using timber cladding. I’ve really never understood why so many people are adverse to using timber in the UK. I guess it is just less common throughout history so people are more untrusting of it. But head to Scandinavia and you’ll find the majority of houses built from wood. They aren’t all burning down every week, nobody is worried about their house going up in flames. Yes wood is flammable (as are many other things like all your belongings inside your house) but there are standards in place to reduce the risk of fire spread.

Trailrat – the part I would be interested to see the detail for on your timber clad external insulation is where the walls meet the roof. Often there’s not much overhand on the roof so, usually none on the gable end meeting the roof, so how are they accounting for covering the new thicker wall at the top?

Someone asked about the construction of that. It could be as simple as: timber studs fixed into external wall, insulation between studs, breather membrane (which is essentially a Giant Gore-Tex, might explain the cost Trailrat ;) ), then vetical or horizontal batons to fix your cladding on, cladding. The main thing is stopping moisture building up in the wall so that means speccing the right materials and thicknesses to stop the dew point being inside the wall and allowing any moisture that does build up inside to breathe (hence breather membrane).

Quite interested in this kind of thing so thought I would give some random points I thought after reading all of it. Hopefully some small things are useful to someone :).

Give @macramsay a follow on Instagram, him and a few mates have built a brilliant one out the back of the flats in Glasgow during the lockdown.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAFxJYDHGTy/

cheers big-bud!

It was completely detached but surely regardless of that your fork shouldn’t rattle about as it works?

I did need a pin spanner but didn’t fancy paying top dollar for the DVO one so I made my own.

Wait until tomorrow and I can take some pics of one of ours. Use it for guiding and it’s just a small flatbed with a wooden frame built in. Basically you just need to build yourself something that you can carry bikes like people do off the back of a pickup. H-frame with some padding and inner tubes to strap bikes in. Then some slots to out back wheels in on the floor to stop them sliding side to side.

That does look like a very good price! You got any pics of yours mounted on your arse full of kit for reference?

Some cool little project on here. Maybe we should start a thread a bit like the ‘last thing you made’ one for people to show off all their home construction/self build projects, from laying some decking all the way to self building your own house? Or does one already exit?

Nick – 2 sketchup tips which I can bet will help make it less frustrating you if you’ve literally just started.
1. Use a proper mouse (trackpad is crap for SKP) then you can ‘orbit’ by clicking the mouse wheel and you can ‘pan’ by clicking mouse wheel and holding shift at the same time.
2. It probably seems like everything is ‘stuck’ together so if you build one element on another it is super hard to detach it and if you ‘move’ it all the geometry probably goes into a billion triangles. Solution – use components. Make a cube, select all the pieces (triple click it) then press ‘G’ (=make component), ignore all the options and just click ‘create’. Now you can stick and unstick this component to anything. If you want to edit that component you just double click it and you go into a mode where you can only select stuff in that component, press ‘esc’ to exit the component. Basically you’re model should be made of loads of little components.