If you’re that worried you probably don’t want to be keeping a mobile phone in your trouser pocket.

Shearwater and Longleat are my local trails and there is some good singletrack which when put together make for a good ride. If you start by the cafe by the lake and ride with the lake on your left, keep going past the sailing club hut and follow the sweeping left turn. Go up the track with a barrier on it and go up the hill. You’ll see tracks the go off into the woods on both sides, towards the top on the right is where some of the better ones are.
If you stay on the main track up from the lake there is a short track on the right, still going uphill and another barrier at the end. This leads you to a road and you come out on a bend, effectively at the back end of Centre Parcs. Over the road is another wood, again with singletrack sections that can be strung together.

Hope that helps.

I have a set of Onza HO canti brakes on my Kilauea still going strong, I think they’re from about ’93 or 94. They don’t get a huge amount of use now though.

I cant help but feel that if people from ethnic minorities feel that a career in the military is not for them in this day of diversity and inclusion policies with endless advertising on TV and social media then all the positive discrimination in the world probably won’t help. Is it a cultural thing?

@DanW as requested…

I’m a little biased but this is my bike’s paint job. Fittingly called Milk Tray.

Beaker Jr has recently gone from 24 inch wheels to 27.5 with no real issue that I can see. Although he’s only ridden light trails he seemed to get on fine. He completed Bikeability last week, one day of which was pretty much all day in the saddle. I think Sweaman jr will be fine on 27.5.

Mrs Beaker is a year 5/6 primary teacher, I couldn’t do what she does. She is paid from 9:00 until 3:30 but gets into work every morning for 7:45 and gets home for around 5:30 most nights. She goes in early to prepare her lessons and print whatever is needed for the day. After school she has to mark the pupils books, which for a class 28 doing four lessons in a day is potentially over 100 books, there is a weekly staff meeting, emails from parents, special needs meetings, professional training courses and subject leader (Maths in her case) work where she is the SME who the other teachers come to improve their teaching.
She has just done a three day residential for the class, three days where she and three others are responsible for the kids 24-7 but only paid for the standard school day and no time in lieu.
She has a half day non teaching time to plan once a week, she is able to come home and most of the time that is a mental break that allows her to get through the rest of the week. Most evenings the laptop comes out for an hour, most weekends its comes out for several hours. Not because her time management is poor, far from it, all teaching has to be evidenced and that means planning for the next week, medium and long term planning. There is no other time to do it, if it isn’t done she’ll be picked up for it.
Her pay is performance related, she has objectives and targets. She isn’t paid over the holidays but her pay is pro-rata over 12 months. I’ve not even mentioned dealing with some of the parents….

I went in 2019 and said never again… There were lots of nice bikes on display but the rest of it was poor. Totally agree with how much for parking!

I’m gluten free as I go into anaphylaxis when I eat wheat. It started with bread but sadly also happened when drinking beer and lager. As mentioned above there seems to be lots more GF beer on the market now, more than I ever remember (I’ve been GF over 10 years now) but out of them all Estrella is my absolute fave. Although not offically GF, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord is practically GF and I can drink it without issue.

My bikes that date digital photography are in photo albums somewhere… here a few since about 2003

Just watched episodes 1 and 2. By the end of no.2 I was thinking that this was The Mandalorian rerun, substituting Baby Yoda for a 10 year old girl.

Mrs Beaker is a primary school teacher and we’d talked about going overseas for her to teach once our kids had left home. We initially thought America would be a great place to go but then remembered Sandy Hook. We won’t be going to the States.

There are more guns than people in the USA, you’ll never disarm the population and this will happen again.

Really enjoyed that, I was in a 12 hour pairs team and we managed 11 laps between us. The weather was amazing, I can’t think of anything better than riding a bike on a sunny day. The course was excellent, to the most technical but the singletrack was such good fun. Totally agree with it being great to be doing large scale events and crowds, I’ve missed it.

I thought I was the only one using tubes. I’ve tried tubeless but gone back to tubes. I didn’t see the benefit of tubeless really. I’m a light rider, don’t really jump and rarely puncture.

See the GP! I developed a wheat allergy in my late teens that got worse and wasn’t properly diagnosed until my mid to late twenties. Also get some anti histamine tablets and stash them everywhere, if you feel something beginning take one.

Just remember, flies love two things, dead bodies and s**t! I don’t think there is much you can do sadly.

How much does it weigh? I don’t imagine it’s much fun to carry!

This shows how out of touch I am… I thought the EBay Cree lights were where its at for cheap bike lights. Thanks for your replies so far keep them coming.

Fairly recent convert to flats and 5:10 shoes after first riding with clipless pedals in 1996 (Onza HO pedals no less!). I’ve not mashed my shins yet but it’s only a matter of time. I’ve found the change easy enough but one thing I don’t like is how occasionally I put my foot wrong on the pedal and its difficult to adjust my foot position quickly if I’m on a technical section. Not sure I could go back to SPDs now…

Sounds like a breach of GDPR info?

Park tool one inch headset spanner. Won’t get rid of it, I brought with my paper round money…

I reckon he’s out – and him trying to poke NATO to have a swing may mean he has a rapid, terminal “medical emergency”.

A nine millimeter brain hemorrhage?

I have a pair of the MTB boots but use them on my road bike only. I think they’re pretty good, I still get cold feet in them but only on the coldest days and I think that’s my feet rather than the boots. I found insulating the spd attachment stuff inside the shoe with an old bit of inner tube kept my feet warmer as the spd bolts were a heat sink. I’m a 10.5 in Salomon boots and the NW 11 is a touch too large.

Can you throw a leg over them? The right bike is the one that fits and handles nicely.

I’ve had a few SS bikes over the years. Too old now though, I like gears and an FS frame too much! Here are a few of mine from over the years. The Dekerf was my favourite out of all.

The manual override/emergency jettison/manual arm is located in an extremely inconvenient location and is a time consuming procedure.

New bib shorts, winter socks and mini pump. Not bad this year!

Does a bike need snowfoam as part of its cleaning routine? Seems a bit much to me.

I loved my ML7 and I shouldn’t have sold it. I only sold it as I was worried about spares with Maverick folding.

There is a chap on Retrobike that sells replacement elastomers, although I think it’s actually MCU. That said, stick them on eBay, you may get a bot of dosh for them.

Friend of mine had similar. He waited a long time for his order. Date was rescheduled twice and he cancelled. TBF their comms were pretty good.

A Merlin XLM. I used to spend ages with the M and P catalogue that came with MBUK (’93/94 time) kitting one out. Still want one but can’t justify it.

Another Garmin Instinct solar user here. I got mine as a birthday gift and didn’t know if I should go for it or an iWatch. Glad I got the Garmin though! I get about 25 days out of a charge but I don’t use it for Blood oxygenation or sleep tracking which brings it down to 12 days. Syncs with Strava with no problems, in fact I stopped using my Wahoo Bolt for that and only use the Bolt as a speedo and map. I really rate the Instinct.

Salsa Horsethief, the non DW version. My first 29er full sus. Good in a straight line but that was it. I sold an Independent Fabrication Steel Deluxe (straight steerer, 26 inch wheels) to pay for the Salsa and wish I hadn’t.

Was that it?

I had an ATC flight in the back of a Herc. Flew from Lyneham up to god knows where and picked up a load Para’s. Watched them jump out of the side doors from the back ramp. Awesome experience.

I used to work under the control tower in Ground Radio at Lyneham. It was funny seeing it on telly. They aren’t the only ones to have raced around the airfield (allegedly).

Love my Tower Pros. They’re old now but they’re a great fork.

Have a look on Youtube or Google it. I changed the the freehub easily enough on my Racing 55 wheel. I think I had to remove the nut on the FH side of the axle and then slide something off and get an Allen key in there. Cut and past this into your browser. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MWhnqtOCSE