My one and only foray into FB Marketplace and I fell for a scam. Thought I was buying an Exposure light from a fellow mountain biker, sent the money via bank transfer, ( idiot I know), he replied with an apology for the delay in posting, then nothing.

I went through all the reporting procedures on Marketplace but months later the same advert from the same, what I now realize was a cloned account, (idiot I know), was still popping up on Marketplace.

There’s no security and no redress on Marketplace. I certainly wont touch it again.

C.

Found a little spot in the sun on Sunday afternoon where I could enjoy listening to a local folk group. It managed to take my mind off the truly awful climb back up towards Carron reservoir….for a little while at least.

I do try and avoid it as much as I can.

30+ years of Type 1 Diabetes does provide the incentive though.

;-)

Happy to help with any questions as well. 30+ years a Type 1 and have been wearing Libre sensors since 2019. Fantastic things.

To appease some of the grumpy Scots on here, Callendar Park in Falkirk just opened a new pump track / jump park that was partly funded by Cycling Scotland as a legacy from last year’s UCI World Championships. We’ve also got a fabulous wee pump track that opened this year in Herbertshire Park, Dunipace, although I think that might have been funded by the local council. It’s about two minutes away from my house and I pass it everyday on my commute. It’s a genuine pleasure to see how packed it is with kids on bikes and scooters. Actually just thought of a third track local to us at Larbert High School. I think that opened quite recently as well.

So that’s three new bits of cycling infrastructure, that I’m aware of, that have opened recently within a 10 radius. Not too shabby when you consider how strapped for cash the country is at the moment.

….and now I have the theme music for Rent-A-Ghost lodged in my head. Thanks for that.

Ked / Deer fly? They’re kind of greenish and it’s the right time of year for them.

I’ve ridden with a Lumicycle setup on my bar since I started night riding well over 20 years ago. They’ve evolved from NiCad powered halogen lamps to my current setup of a Li ion powered LED. All of which is modular and backwards compatible. I tried a night ride with the old halogens plugged into my new battery a couple of winters ago. The battery didn’t last very long, but then neither did I as I couldn’t see where I was going! How did we ride with Halogens? I don’t want to think about my lead acid powered Cateyes before them, or the Ever Ready battery lights before that!!!

Super reliable and well constructed lights. I’ve never, in all that time had reason to regret buying Lumicycle, or seen anything that’s made me want to swap over to something new.

Over the last few years, I’ve tried various cheap Chinese manufactured helmet mounted lights and torches, all of which have been subjected to a fair amount of weather and branch abuse during the long Scottish winters. The failure rate was always high enough to make it feel like a bit of a false economy, so I finally settled on a set of Moon 1600lm wired lamps that were on half price offer in Halfords for around £80 at the time. This light rivalled my bar mounted Lumi for power and spread, but the big battery in my bag and the dinner plate helmet mount didn’t really work for me.  I persevered with this light for 4-5 years until this year when I got my hands on an Exposure Diablo.

I’m really liking this combo, enough power for me to confidently descend through the trails at speed, but also quickly adjustable so that I’m not blinded by glare as I pick my way through the trees. I really like the quick button press, or simple tap to change the Diablo’s setting. Worth the money in my opinion, especially as a fairly significant part of my annual mountain bike riding is done in the dark.

C.

Found it! I’m on Level 2 with 53 pts and a mere 7 pts to go till I’m uplifted to Level 3. Be prepared murdooverthehill I’ve set my sights and I’m coming for your crown!

I’m roughly the same weight as you and ride a 2021 Levo with a 500w battery. I’ve extended the range of my bike by a good 25% by dialling down the Eco and Trail modes. My last biggish ride covered 50km with 800m of climbing and was pretty much a 50/50 split between Eco and Trail modes ( I use Trail mode predominantly on the long ride home from the trail), and I got home with 15% battery to spare.

Like others have said, I think tyre choice / pressure makes a bit of a range difference, but by far the biggest boost I’ve given to my e-bike’s range has been by significantly reducing the assist and making my chubby wee legs take up the difference.

It’s not Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 3rd edition rules. So I suppose I’ll just keep staring at the ceiling in the dark, listing to the voices in my head whispering, “Kill……kill them all” :-(

I use a glass with a couple cm of cider vinegar at the bottom and a drop or two of washing up liquid to break the surface tension. I then put a layer of clingfilm over the top of the glass and punch a few holes in the film. Keeps the wee buggers from getting back out again.

We never had a problem with them until our council started collecting food waste. The fruit fly hooligans started hanging out in our kitchen once we got a wee kitchen food waste bin that’s filled and transferred to the outside one a couple of times a week.

Ahem, I wouldn’t be relying on Dr Google for a self diagnosis. I think you can trust me on that one.

Phone the NHS helpline in the first instance and then get an appointment with your GP, just to be on the safe side.

Then you can let your mates know that your okay.

C.

This is ace news. Judy Murray dressing up her exclusive housing development with its 9 hole golf course and a token tennis court as some sort of ‘sporting legacy’ was disgusting in my opinion. I’m glad that this area of beautiful, mature woodland has been saved, but, like Ally, I don’t think I’ll be riding there tonight. A bit soggy, methinks!

It was way too hot for me to try anything strenuous on my mountain bike yesterday. So instead, we tootled along the canal to see the horsies and have ice-cream. It was lovely.

I’m heading down to the Lakes for a few days at the end of next week. I’d greatly appreciate it if you could usher her up that way.  Even just for the weekend?

This is my favourite work mug.

Nope still won’t let me add photos :-(

I used to ride with a fairly bulky Fuji Finepix bridge camera stuffed into a padded camera bag I got out of Jessops and clipped to the front of my camelback with a pair of carabiner. It meant it was super quick and easy to access on the odd occasions when I got ahead of my riding buddies and wanted to grab the camera for an action shot of them.

Didn’t die, and sternum still the same although my pouchy bits are probably getting on for a C-cup in size nowadays.

C.

Don’t you listen to them Jeremy, that’s a truly magnificent hair-do you’re sporting there. I think you look great!

“…But Strava says my fitness is 47 somethings now…”

Strava says my fitness has recently increased from 8 to 12. At least I’m in double figures now. How high does it go? Please tell me that 47 puts you up there with the likes of Pogacar :-(

Scotland’s 2nd best city?

I’m not sure about that. Okay, Dundee and Aberdeen are nice enough places, but better than Edinburgh? Really?

I’m up at 4.45am every workday for my public transport commute into Glasgow. I’m ready for bed around 9pm in the evening though!

A friend and I lost the entire rack and bars when the roof mounts failed on the Edinburgh bypass during a very busy Sunday afternoon. No-one hurt and nothing but a bit of damage to our bikes which were still attached to the racks.

I also knew a guy years back who lost his bike off his boot mounted rack. He hadn’t secured the bike properly and not only was done for carrying an unsecured load, but also had around 10-12 insurance claims against him as multiple cars ran over his bike and were damaged. I don’t think the bike came out well from that one either.

I’m another who got an original Instinct Solar 1 after the mad Xmas rush a couple of years ago. It’s been really great, especially after I swapped the plastic strap, which seems to give me mild skin irritation, for a fabric one. Recently the solar charge function packed in. Even so, I’m still getting nearly 2 weeks between charges.

Like many others, I headed out for a spin earlier in the week before the rain started coming down! North Third reservoir, looking over towards the Trossachs.

I just checked and squared my bar up properly. Thanks everyone and @bensales for the win. It is indeed a cover to hide the bolts and increase the aerodynamics of the bike. It’s all about those marginal gains you know. Especially when you’re north of 50yrs and 100kg of wibbly bits.

😏

I swap between my 29er Spesh Levo e-bike for longer rides and my 27.5er Orange Four for local spins. The Four always brings a smile to my face, it’s so quick off the mark and nimble.

Pffft!

Manual is useless, but it does come in a really lovely embossed folder. 🤷

Had another look at the stem when I was in the garage. Could it be some sort of semi integrated headset and stem? All the cables seem to go into it.

Ahem, it did come with a manual. I even admired the lovely embossed folder it came in, before I chucked it into a corner of the garage. Thank you. I genuinely hadn’t thought of that. 😳

I’m just going to nip out to the garage now. 😁

Singletrack, Private Eye, The Sky at Night, Play (Playstation5 games mag), 2000AD and the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine.

Mrs B subscribes to a couple of home decoration mags, so there’s a fair few good reads dropping on the doormat each month.

Whoosh!

I made my first purchase from Facebook Marketplace last October and the guy said that because he didn’t have Paypal would I be willing to pay via bank transfer. It was for a 2nd hand Exposure Joystick, so not a huge amount of money ~£70 and I thought the guy sounded like a mountain biker, hence obvious ‘good guy’ in the messages we exchanged.

Won’t be falling for that one again. Once I realised I’d been scammed, I tried reporting the guy’s profile to Facebook. They weren’t interested in the slightest.

Congratulations!

From someone who’s been in a similar situation ( I’ll be celebrating 3 yrs in full remission next month), could I offer one wee bit of advice?

Don’t get frustrated like I did by mistaking being better, for fully recovered. Your body’s taken a good kicking over the last couple of years and it’ll take time to properly recover. So don’t be giving yourself a hard time if you can’t make that climb you used to breeze up!

Drop me a line anytime if you want a blether about any of the other blindingly obvious mistakes I’ve made on the road to recovery. 😏

Oh, and very nice bike by the way.

Anything promised by Maggie Philbin on Tomorrow’s world in the 70s. I’m still waiting for my commuter flying car or jetpack Maggie!

Aaah, that explains my complete lack of skills Hannah. I started on a Raleigh Tomahawk before moving up to a Chopper. I have the bike handling skills of a dairy cow.

Welcome Radioactive kid, what other superpowers do you have?

I have the awesome power to fall off my bike whenever everyone is watching.

Interestingly. If, after downloading my images from google photos, I then open them up in a picture editor and re-save them…. they upload to the site fine.

Am I just going about the image embedding thing in a very awkward manner? In my luddite understanding of the world, I have to download the images onto my device then upload the image from that device to the Singletrack post. Am I over complicating the process?

I’ve had a great deal of fun with this Atreides Royal Ornithopter build. I reckon that around 80% of it was the internal mechanisms that control the extending landing gear / loading bay. The mechanism to retract and deploy the wings and finally the flappy wings lever that makes them go just like in the movie…although maybe not quite so fast. I haven’t achieved any lift…..yet

All I have to do now is pluck up the courage to start partially disassembling it so I can fit the lighting set!

Yep, I’m getting the same issue again when trying to upload images. A box pops up claiming that my image isn’t a valid jpeg or is more than 10mb. This is on Android / PC chrome and I even tried Firefox and MS Edge with the same result.

Mrs Beagleboy and I saw, Moby Dick the Musical at the Minack theatre in Cornwall about 14yrs ago. It was brilliant fun, way better than Bat Out Of Hell the musical that we saw in that there London place more recently.

Just sit back and let the absurdity wash over you.

Dry trails and blue skies in Stirlingshire Shocker!

So looking forward to the weekend…