just spent three weeks van camping in the UK. No hassle on eurotunnel in and P&O out. But the motorways were utterly horrendous, Dover to N.Wales (360m) on a Sunday took a full day – about the same as it took to drive up to Calais from Spain (700m)

i never used ACC on uk roads until last week. it tends to keep 3 chevrons apart, which mean people pull into the gap again and again, so the ACC slows the car – taken to its logical conclusion you’d end up driving backwards I think

No idea if you can still get them – I’ve got a Cinelli Mash steel frame. Running 43mm gravel tyres and a Paul Minimoto on the front.

I was in Biarritz on Saturday, car was showing 44C. We headed to the woods, had a picnic in (literally in) the river and a sea fog blew in dropping temps by 20C in an instant, as is fairly usual here – hot winds from the south always lose to the Atlantic after a couple of days!

Those abandoned villages are mad. I was in Morcats on a 35km trail run last summer and ran out of water. The village spring was dry so I started hunting around and climbed a wall, dropping into what was the cemetary.

The fronts had fallen off the tombs and you could see piles of bones and plastic flowers inside, it was really weird and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough! They obviously didn’t hang around when they left in the 50s. When you see the generations of effort that went into scraping out a life up in those hills – olive terraces cut into the hillside, churches, miles of drystone walling – it’s all the more touching that they had to walk away (literally, as there was no road!)

There aren’t loads of bars to choose from in the old town but L’Abrevadero is always worth a visit (never liked the local beers on tap though) and the hostel/restaurant Mora de Nuei have a fairly good range.

I’m up there a lot – you need to download the ZTrails app if you haven’t already and you can filter from Green to Black difficulty.

TBH I use the ZZ- prefix routes for trail running not MTB, but I’d say that a Red route here is a fair bit harder than a UK trail centre Red. Eg, ZZ-001 would mean a fair bit of pushing both up and down if you’re not handy on a bike, and some of the ‘red+’ or blacks I’ve done have significant exposure on some sections.

2008 T5 (Caravelle) here, owned 8 years, 240k km, 1.9tdi, only vehicle but not used for work.

Really hasn’t been much to fault it. Biggest outlays have been all the wheel bearings, a stuck glowplug (front needs to come off the van to get the extractor tool in), leaking caliper. That’s it – not including cambelt/pump as that’s a service cost. Haven’t had the dreaded DMF problem yet, but you could also argue that’s a consumable on cars these days.

The side window leaks, of course (sealed it up with sikaflex, I never open it anyway) causing the seat bases to rust before I noticed. Aircon is long gone. Being an import from a cold bit of Germany, there a fair bit of surface rust underneath.

Will be sad to see it go next month to make way for a camper (another VW natch). It would’ve been a great base van for conversion, but it’s a nightmare to do that in Spain, every change needs to be inspected (i.e. €€€)

@spandex_bob could be! I’ve only ever seen the photos they sent me, so no idea of size or texture

Thanks @countzero that’s the soundest theory yet!

Re. the DSG going into neutral – I asked because AFAIK the 7 speed on the VW T6.1 does it, and doesn’t have driving modes, so I suppose it’s always on.

So with the ACC set to 70, cresting a hill and going down the other side – it must dab the brakes to keep the speed at 70? Sounds all kinds of weird, I’ve got a 6.1 on the way too…

I thought DSG boxes went into neutral on downhills ?

taking pushbike traffic into account obvs!

Always enjoyed how Aussie commentators pronounce the “maroon” team in the Origin games, “the muh rohns”.

I can’t pronounce Dalglish, never could. Comes out dangle eesh.

11 pro here. Used without a case, the rounded edges make it like holding a wet bar of soap, much prefer the square edges. Most of the things I like about it are hardware: Small(ish), rugged(ish), the camera is good, it’s drenched several times a week in sweat or rain and doesn’t die. I am not going to be able to tell the difference between chips. It’ll be kept til it dies, even though I really don’t like iOS and hate the keyboard with a passion.

There’s one I think is worth paying for (@distantpod) but I’m finding it harder and harder to get time to listen, I’m months behind now. Ironically they made the full length show available only to Patreon supporters, but the “free” version on Spotify is much easier to squeeze in while cleaning or whatever, so I listen to that.

Didn’t see a recc for Caledonian? Deuchars IPA being one of my favourite beers.

A lot of mates here are craft beer drinkers and have done local brewery tours to death. Visiting a Victorian red brick brewery would make a change, if they don’t do food there must be something nearby. A casual Google suggests they do organised tours.

maybe. Struck me as being manmade and rolled around on the shore for decades.

soz for hijack, saw these on twitter & wondered if anyone recognises them. Found on a beach in Scotland is all I know.

View post on imgur.com

Double-check the cassette, not all of the later formula wheel’d bikes had GX cassettes with XD drivers, later ones had NX cassettes and a HG freehub.

Cheers. Haven’t seen the bike for months, it’s stashed in a lockup somewhere so I’ll dig her out and have a look. Come to think of it, it may have the basic Fulcrum wheels, it’d be a late 2019 bike

Who’s upgraded the wheels on theirs? What did you go for?

I haven’t ridden for a year or so, but remember the Formula hubbed wheels being pretty duff.

Struggling with the specs, AFAICS it’s 6 bolt, 110×15 Boost F, 148×12 Boost R, XD hub body?
Mine is the GX Eagle bike with RS 35 Gold.

I’ve read, no idea if true, that the proliferation of craft gin distilleries in the UK these days will lead to craft whisky coming out of the same places. The equipment is essentially the same, but gin can be sold immediately while your whisky/rum/etc sits in barrels for 8 years and gives you more return on your investment.

Having not lived there for a decade and a half, one of my only insights into life in Britain comes from these pages. Given that people come to forums to moan rather than spread happiness, it’s not surprising that it leaves me a bit concerned for the future of the UK…

However, the people I still know who live there seem pretty happy going about their lives.

I’d be tempted to ride that almost as is, what a lovely memory. i ride two of my late dad’s bikes (admittedly more modern).

New cables, grease the bearings, borrow some 700c wheels to see if that’s a goer (looks like it would be) – but the first thing I’d do it check the seat post isn’t seized solid – unless you’re the same height as Grandad!

how do you cheat?

You could look for an online crossword solver, set it to find all 5-letter words, with the letter(s) you have in the correct place and it will give you a list of possible words. Not much help if you haven’t established a letter though.

I did it, although when I was 30. top tip: Visit Fuengirola for plenty of examples of how not to retire to the sun. Learn the language, meet the locals.

I’ve never particularly regretted the decision…

The most British photo ever taken. pic.twitter.com/U96cWXpYxv

— No Context Brits (@NoContextBrits) January 16, 2022

Lives in the van to make a brew after a walk run or ride – if its just me I’ll use a wee wood gas stove though

I remember dropping down past that old tower in Summer to the campsite below, which was hosting a Wim Hof convention :/

Yep, recognise all of that! Passed thru on a motorbike trip on NYD en route to Girona – went the scenic way – but didn’t stop.

How do you fly to UK from there? Seems a long slog (4hrs?) to Bilbao, do you go from Pau?

Best record of last year (the one I want to post is probably too sweary for the mods)

I’m on twitter naughty step because I tweeted the answer. It was my first one and I got it in 3, gushed about it on twitter without realising everyone gets the same word, thought they were all different. Lesson learned: nobody needs to be tweeting about wordle

Yep, no issue with learning Latam Spanish. Occasionally someone from there will address me in Usted and I wonder who they’re talking about for a second haha but after that it’s just a question of adjusting to accent.

Pron is key in Spanish. So many daily interactions are with people not used to talking to non-natives and gaps in your grammatical lexis will be understood but if you can’t make the right sounds or your syllable stress is wrong, you will not be understood!

Also, 50 hours to B1 is optimistic to say the least. I’d expect a very keen learner to go B2 to C1 in 50 but more likely 70 hours. That’s what I do every day, guide students to C1 English.

Duolingo is quite clever in some ways. I expected to be underwhelmed by it like audio CD courses, but it’s fun and I’m learning a fair bit of Welsh. After learning Spanish and Basque more traditionally I’ve got a fair idea of where I’ll need extra resources but for a free app (might sign up but the free version keeps pressure on to be accurate) I’m surprised how good it actually is

There were 43 people in ICU with covid yesterday in Scotland, isn’t this a success? Considering the NHS needs to fill over 90K positions.

UK, you can’t go to a bar or restaurant in Spain at the moment if you are unvaccinated

You can’t consume *inside* a bar or restaurant but you can consume on the terrace which is most people’s preference anyway. You could argue that nobody should be inside a bar in large groups in this situation, given – anecdotally – the number of people off work after Xmas party infections. I think they’re getting it massively wrong with this passport idea.

The real fight now is keeping the British pub alive. There’s three left of about a dozen in my Sis’ town

My cousin figured it out when I was too young to have my own round – she’d get 25 quid a week, and pay me a fiver to do her round.

I suspect France is handling the uptick in customs processing better than Spain. Madrid seems to have a huge backlog of UK post.

Had two things turn up on the same day here, ordered weeks apart. Total value, around 30 quid. Duty, fees etc came to over 20 euros even though I’d already paid UK VAT.

My main problem with the Porlex was the handle flying off the spigot – this seems to have been addressed on newer ones. They also claim it fits in an aeropress which technically it does but I often struggled to get the grind receptacle to come back out. Not totally convinced about ceramic burrs either.

It still gives sterling service at home grinding cumin and coriander seeds for curry!

If you’re not grinding for machine espresso then you likely don’t need to be spending too much as you don’t need that ultra repeatable fine adjustment.

Porlex are rated – tbh I didn’t like mine. The Timemore grinders are good, 38mm steel conical burr works well for Aeropress and will grind plenty fast enough while the kettle boils. They’re around 50 quid direct from Aliexpress, bit more from Cremashop etc.

That’s the thing, you wouldn’t know if he was vaccinated as it’s not the kind of thing that comes up in conversation with someone you don’t know that well. Of the 20% (or whatever it is) currently not jabbed, only a small minority of those are vocal right wing swivel-eyes. The rest probably never really mention it.

the Venn diagram of “people who refuse vaccination” and “people who don’t comply with covid social restrictions” has almost 100% overlap

Do you know anyone who has declined the vaccine? Whatever their reasons for doing so, the unvaccinated people I know IRL (admittedly not many) have used masks and complied with pretty much everything. There’s nothing rabid about them in the same way that people you meet who aren’t vaccinated against, say, flu aren’t particularly rabid about that.
Perhaps I’m wrong and they spend their evenings wearing a tinfoil hat and trolling forums!