I am off to Almeria to ride this on track for 5 days tomorrow.

Grr I can never get image links to work from google photos on here :-(

I have a Noco Boost 40 and its really good, used for jumping motorbikes mainly but has been used on diesel van and mates 3.5L diesel straight six. Span all of them faster than the fast thing and started easily.

Motorbike trackdays, just like car trackdays but are actually fun :-) and not a procession of cars behind a really bad driver who does not look in his rear view mirror and has 2000BHP to use down the straight bits :-)

I started off with a Sprint Triathlon thinking I could handle it, before I knew it I was on the start line for Ironman Austria :-)

Its a great sport and most clubs are really friendly a lot have loads of beginners and even people who don’t compete but like a bit of swim, bike run.

If you can do a length of a pool you would have been welcome at my clubs swim sessions.

I would say if you are reasonably fit at your age you could probably bash out a sprint Tri with a pool based swim tomorrow.

British tri seem to favour swim smooth over total immersion as a training framework.

I stopped due to the fact I never had time to do anything else when Ironman training, probably fittest I have ever been though.

Inbetweeners, mainly because it’s like a documentary of teenage boys :-)

I think the majority of people in the world are nice. We all have an off day or off 5 minutes though. If you are looking for the bad then you will see those off days or off 5mins.

Accept we are all different and try and embrace it rather than judge.

I think I am still the same person now I have an E-bike though not ridden it much yet so maybe I will turn :-) I am still tolerant of others on the trail. I don’t harass people to get by etc In fact I think if they are pedaling they have the right of way when trying to clean a techy climb.

I was at Cwmcarn yesterday and the car park was rammed, out on the trails though it was really not that busy, lots of E-bikes as you say. Bizarely Afan the day before not rammed and hardly any e-bikes.

I just rode my own ride at both places chilled out enjoying the autumn colours tried to help my friend develop some confidence descending and pretty much everyone I met was nice.

Cheers Adam for putting it together again I think I am in. However I am at my dads for is 90th birthday today, then I fly to Spain on Friday to ride my motorbike around a track (its a hard life)

So will have to pull my finger out.

I love it as its nothing like I would normally write/play :-)

The thing I find incredible (I only found out the other day) is that Bruce has never had a number 1 either here or on the other side of the pond.

For an artist with such a huge fan base I fine that a little mad.

How does the Relay compare driving wise to a a Trafic ?

I have a 2015 Trafic Sport DCi140 thats got a little over 100K on it now. I am going to replace it sometimes soon. I have had it from new and its a great drive. Would like something slightly bigger. Though concerned about living with something bigger day to day as currently its my daily driver.

I’m more concerned with having a fairer society, than the fortunes of any party. I’m not a Labour member or voter. So go ahead; blame me. It’s all my fault.

This in spades :-)

Anyone who is using this moment to attack Labour rather than the Tories are part of the problem.

Typical labour, victim blaming :-)

. Anyone who spends their disposable income on ‘space travel’

Its all relative how about people who spend their disposable income on driving to BPW to ride their E-Bike while people South Sudan are struggling to eat. Or even owning an iPhone while they starve, It’s the same, just does not fit the narrative, the narrative is its always the fault of the government and the rich.

We had 13 years of a Labour government and by and large, it was a pretty reasonable showing. However when faced with actually running the country they realised it was not as easy as just taxing the rich and giving it to the poor. In fact you might say they behaved exactly like the previous government. Shame they took us into a illegal war at the end, deffo cast a shadow over that whole time.

I am up for another jam really enjoyed the last one :-) It was so interesting to see what people had done.

I am too crap to do the backing track it would be pretty simplistic and not as funky as AdamT :-)

I think its extremely interesting that the left blame everything but themselves for their poor performance at the polls

Its the system
Its the voters that don’t understand
Its the media
etc, etc

The UK public want an aspirational government not one that talks down the country, the whole image is wrong.

They seem to be obsessed by making rich people poorer, does not matter what happens to the poor as long as long as Starbucks are poorer. They would be so happy if we all had nothing, because the rich people have lost.

The current government seem to be running a popularity contest, we have a chancellor who is out spending a Labour chancellor. I can only assume this is to take everyone’s eye off the cluster **** that is brexit. Johnson is the luckiest PM in history, he could not have wished for something better than COVID to distract people from the current shit storm in Europe.

I have always been of the opinion that if you don’t vote you can’t moan sort of thing. In the last two election I went into the voting booth and just stared at the voting slip and thought what the hell do I do here.

I use a Helix USB straight into Logic Pro, but kind of like the idea of not using a DAW at all if you know what I mean.

I am probably just being lazy :-)

Has anyone played with a Tascam model 12,16,24 mixer/multitrack ?

I fancy not having to fire the computer up to record stuff

I’d like to think it will open up peoples eyes to just how corrupt the present tory party is, but I won’t hold my breath

Great this is the right and on the left we have useless and ineffectual, we are doomed :-)

I am not one of those people who thinks all politicians are useless or corrupt far from it. I do really think some do want what’s best for the people. I also think these exist on both sides. However the current flavour of politics makes it almost impossible for them to actually make any difference.

I neither know nor care. He isn’t even a Labour MP anyway. Johnson is embedding corruption in parliament and government, and with his thumping majority he can. Going ‘ooo look at the opposition’ when every opposition MP present (except a DUP one) voted against this incredibly cheeky circumventing/removal of rules put in place to put MPs off being corrupt, is pointing the wrong way.

If there was a genuine reason why the ones who didn’t vote, didn’t turn up I am all ears. At the moment as a tax payer who pays MP’s wages I feel a little bit let down that they were not there to stop something as important as this.

It was an easy win for the opposition, all they needed to do was turn up.

If you want to defend the Labour party in this instance then you are going to have to tell me why they didn’t vote against it. If not I can only assume they didn’t deem it important enough.

Does he pair with an opposition MP who had said he wouldn’t be there?

As far as I am aware pairing goes out the window with a 3 line whip.

@kelvin Again why didn’t Corbyn vote ?

@kelvin

“Tell us which opposition MPs “couldn’t be bothered”?”

How about you give me an excuse everyone who didn’t turn up?

I also didn’t say they are the same, I said its a pathetic opposition.

The very time when we need a good opposition.

Edited to add What was Jeremy Corbyn’s excuse for not turning up ?

So where were the opposition !!!!! They won by 18 votes FFS there were enough Tory abstentions for it to be defeated.

The opposition are just as bad, they can’t even be bothered to turn up to vote against the very stuff they claim to be against. I am so disillusioned with British politics. How can I vote for the Labour party when they can’t even be bothered to turn up to stop stuff like this happening, they are totally hopeless. At least the Tory party are effectual at carrying out their mandate.

Basically what we need to do is destroy cash we earn. As it does not matter what you spend it on it will eventually get into the hands of someone who is going to spend it on something that needs carbon burning.

Even if you spend it with a company that has green credentials they will pay some of it to their employees, they are going to buy stuff with it.

Someone on R4 just now hit the nail on the head “Politicians know exactly what to do, they just don’t know how to get re-elected after doing it”

This is the problem we are not ready for a reduction in our standard of living. In order to stop climate change there is going to have to be a massive change in our lives.

China is often berated but their 1 child policy probably did more to slow climate change than any other policy from any other government.

What is it about that amazing young woman, that you feel threatened by?

Because she points out peoples failings, easier to ridicule than to face up to those failings.

@olddog

Very eloquently put.

Firstly, The Govt has a moral responsibility to do this. The change needs to happen now but the negative consequences of no action are future. The negative consequences of no action are catastrophic – it’s the government’s job to protect us against that whatever we think.

I would argue its the job of the government to do the will of the people who elected them. However it is their job to provide the people with the information for the people to decide and inform of the consequences if their advice is ignored.

@kelvin

The only reason I concede the rented sector should be mandated is because there is currently no market. The shortage of housing means its impossible for a lot of people to pick and choose if they rent a place that they feel is up to a reasonable standard. If there was then the people who were offering a better product would get the business. Sadly that’s not the case, though I suspect insulation is probably down the list of improvements most tenants would ask their landlord to carry out in most cases.

However if its about mandating everyone has to insulate their home at their cost then best not mandate it in an election year :-)

@Kelvin

New builds are insulated so not sure why you think buyers or renters of new builds would need to do it?

The majority of the existing stock are lived in by their owners and they are clearly not bothered enough to do it.

So we have new build covered and we have majority of existing stock covered.

I would concede that mandating that if a property is rented to someone else then meeting a standard could be a good thing. A bit like having a gas and electrical certificate, it would need an insulation cert. The rest is the will of the people.

mandate it in new builds

You mean mandate more? There are already building regulation that detail the minimum U values for walls and roofing.

What if landlords say no, you can’t come onto our properties and make changes to them?

If the proposition was attractive enough why would they? You seem obsessed with thinking people would not want something that is beneficial to them. Also so what if a small proportion of them did say no, we would still end up with most doing it and the county would be in a better place. Perfection is the enemy of the good.

Yes but that’s not going to happen as explained earlier. The government could mandate this tomorrow, it’d take 20 years to change attitudes if it were possible to change them enough to make a difference.

Do you mean mandate it in rented accommodation or across all housing in the UK?

And if the contractor doesn’t exist at all in five years time, when a problem occurs with the refit, and needs ripping out? Across all your housing stock?

How do you think they manage that with contractors now?, usually it involves company having to be fully insured to be allowed to carry out the work. I think you are the naïve one not me.

It needs to be government led, everything else is just wishful thinking.

That is ideology talking not reality, it could be done by government or by a non government organisation if enough people were prepared to make it happen. There is no reason why it couldn’t, all of your arguments are surmountable with the right will.

Edited to add

It needs to be government led, everything else is just wishful thinking.

You are right but only because 90% of the people in the UK don’t give a damn. So we have come full circle and its democracy in action.

But remember most of us ( in the RNLI) are volunteers …

Exactly and you get on with it, you give up your time and money to make it happen. You are not celotaping yourself to railing protesting for the government to do it.

There could be an arms length not for profit organisation or two involved in funding and regulation etc, but it would need to be backed up by a legal framework, AND A PLAN, from the government.

It really doesn’t!! Other organisations manage to operate massively complex logistical operations without government.

Without government involvement, who takes on the liability for the insulation measures that this “charity” installs in social housing?

Err the contractors they engage to carry out the work, the exact same people who would take on the liability if the government engaged them. Its not rocket science is it.

I am not expecting the old retired doctor that got ink sprayed in his face to climb into a loft with a roll of insulation. He can stand on the corner of a street with a pot to raise the money.

That would be leaving people in social housing at the mercy of ever rising energy bill because the properties they live in, and can’t insulate themselves, are poorly insulated. Which is the top, first, and foremost thing that IB are requesting: that the government has a plan to insulate those properties in the next few years. Properties that are inhabited by some of the poorest in society who can not afford what not insulating their homes is about to do to their household finances.

You are pushing against an open door with that it would make a lot of sense to insulate those homes. I would also be quite happy to support an organisation that made it happen. More so than pouring my money into the black hole that is the treasury.

£5 million households don’t have “their own houses”… that is what IB’s first “demand” is that the government steps up to the plate to get social housing sorted first, and then privately rented accommodation. This isn’t about each home owner doing their little bit to insulate their own property (and save themselves heating costs in the process)… this is primarily all about updating the home that people rent. They are not stopping you addressing your own home (if you own it)… by all means crack on and do that yourself.

It still does not mean that IB can’t raise the money and offer the service to landlords. It just comes down to doing rather than moaning.

If the government are not interested in taking action then take action yourself and make it useful rather than supergluing yourself to the road.

The RNLA and the Air Ambulance are great examples of non government organisations providing a service that most would probably think should be provided by government. In these cases people actually did something useful and made it happen rather than moaning.

People aren’t funding it for their own houses, because they don’t have to. How many do you think would pay to do other peoples?

So this is the real reason that its not done then, the people of the country don’t value it enough to do it. So the government are doing what the people want, that sounds like democracy to me.

Edited to add :-
Mandating it and not funding it sounds like a really regressive measure that would impact the poor more than everyone else.

Are you suggesting that they trespass and forcibly update the existing housing stock? What if a landlord isn’t interested? What if housing associations don’t want to take on the liability for the work done? How do they make changes to new developments?

No but you seem to be suggesting that they would not want the work done if it was free of charge and would potentially increase the value of their property.

Also its a case of perfect is the enemy of the good, if they got a 80%-90% take up we would be in a better position than we are now.

It just seems to me people want to blame the government then they can feel comfortable that is not their fault.

Also if you were giving to a charity organisation that that’s sole purpose was to insulate Britain then the money would be by its very nature ring fenced unlike the taxation that would be the alternative way of paying for it.

They don’t need to compel anyone, they can raise money and pay for it to be done, for existing buildings and new build.

It really does not need to be done by government, thats just the usual cop out from people who think its someone else’s job to put in place stuff they want.

No, but in a situation where capitalism rules, unless it is mandated by government/law, it is never going to happen.

Again if its what people want they will pay for it. Bottom line is this is just like taxation people always want OTHER people to be taxed more and not them. There are plenty of ways where an organisation could work in a capitalist framework to make this work.

Change starts with you, no one else.

We live in a world where even people who actually care to some extent do nothing personally. What needed is a change in people not a change in law.

Am I detecting you have burnt yourself out mentally training a lot riding and you are feeling the mental fatigue as well as physical. I was similar after 5years of Ironman training. I just didn’t want to do it and fancied doing something else.

If not keep going with the riding and work on your mobility etc, possibly like you say with some advice from a good sports physio.

If they feel that strongly about it why don’t they set up and organisation/charity to raise money and make it happen. Everything does not have to be done by the goverment.