A house in Muswell Hill (much like anywhere in NW London ending in “Hill”) will be worth well over CAD $1m. But I agree with the four months/year gardening thing.

Sell the London place and buy a 6-bed with annex etc. somewhere like Pandy in Wales, I would, and live there as a group. Selfishly, this will also ease your move back to the UK which is ridiculously expensive.

Alberta has been hit fairly hard by the drop in oil prices. Lots of people laid off at the moment.

I (luckily still) work for a Canadian oil company and I can confirm that!

Could you bolt one to the bottom of my Volvo XC90 please? Cash waiting.

Love the posh farm owner kid in the 2nd video.

If you are a wealthy landowner in the Meonstoke / Corhampton / Exton area and want to let me build jumps on your land, please get in touch.

Running will help you appreciate cycling.

Processing service orders on a Sunday will help you appreciate running.

Works for me.

Apologies for the ambiguity. I mean the standard Krampus i.e. 29+ rides perfectly. Not sure what the motivation would be for setting it up as 27.5+ unless you already had a spare set of 27.5+ wheels hanging about, which is unlikely given how new the whole concept is.

It’s awesome as it is. What’s with the 27.5″ concerns? You have a set of wheels already?

Do it.

Air Astana, one minute into every flight:

“ladies and gentlemen, our aircraft has taken off.”

You don’t say

A few more here, but not great detail.

Would love one of the south downs if anyone finds a link?

Cheers for the suggestions.

Big dog is currently out of the question as we have three young kids (1, 3, 5) and right now we cannot afford to feed/insure a dog. Next year though maybe.

Asking him to use the front door instead: Nice idea and one I’ve thought about but probably too close in nature to “I think you are a d***head, please leave”.

I had thought about aimlessly walking into his back garden every other week – would probably send the message.

He probably thinks he’s just being friendly.

I wish you could meet this guy. He’s like the steroid-infused lovechild of Basil Fawlty and Mitt Romney.

Bit of a thread hijack here but the above seems to be resolved and I have a similar problem to the OP:

We share a driveway with a retired, ex-navy, yellow couduroy trouser wearing toff who feels that he can walk into our back garden and knock on the back door whenever he damn well feels like it. It is highly, highly annoying.

Our house was vacant/derelict for two years before we moved in hence why he probably feels the right to roam.

Much like the OP I don’t really have a verbal setting between ‘miffed’ and full apoplexy hence I would prefer a less confrontational deterrent as opposed to saying something that I might later regret. Been there a few times.

Considering padlocks on the gates but this is a PITA. All suggestions welcome.

39th work day in a row here. Six more to go.

Brian Foster documentary

Anyone got a link for this? Or DVD only?

Doing a few chores to see if the pink ticket will be forthcoming!!

Blimey 8O What do you get if you clean the oven?

I like a good battle over a KOM, I had a chap come and take several off me, so I deliberately targeted his for a couple of weeks taking them all back and then some.

Bit of banter “challenge accepted” type stuff. Follow each other now, and comment / kudos on rides when they are particularly good. All virtual, never met the guy.

Sounds like that turned out well.

Conversely: I moved to a new area, took a KOM on a local hill, tried to join the local cycling club on Strava and found out that they’d all blocked me! Best part is seeing some of them during the school run and they STILL won’t speak to me two years on!

It’s like Mean Girls on EPO

As well as the notification informing that you have lost a KOM or CR, I think it would also be good to receive one when relegated out of the top ten for a segment.

Agreed. Plus another for when you have the KOM and someone is repeatedly trying to pinch it.

No time to race due to work/family but find Strava very motivating as a next best option.

mainly climbing in the South Downs

Good luck with that, there are some hellishly fast people around! Including one guy who I swear must be on a jet bike.

Running also very competitive around where I live, including many of the lycra mums at the primary school who are scarily competitive. If the lycra mums can’t motivate you, what can?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/21-second-rule-mammal-urination/

That can’t be right. 21 seconds is out of my abilities. Wife on the other hand sounds like the Isle of Wight hovercraft gearing up for launch and I doubt she could wee for longer than five seconds if she tried. Truly disturbing.

Have you tried Meon Valley MTB club?

Same as: The Meonstoke gentleman’s mountain bike club?
https://www.strava.com/clubs/mgmtbc

I’m not part of it but maybe someone else on here could help you out.

Didn’t go too smoothly when I tried to join (long story) but you may have better luck.

I’ve always done lots of exercise myself

I think those closest you will tend to end up disliking things that you are “too” into. This applies not only to kids. The more outdoor sporty stuff I do, the more my wife hates this kind of stuff.

As much as I would like to start a thread entitled “How to encourage a reluctant wife to exercise?” I fear the crushing weight of Mumsnet angst would obliterate me in a fiery ball of “fattist sexist bastard”.

Kids are perhaps easier to manipulate. I don’t like to use the ‘M’ word but that is essentially what you are trying to do. I would just ignore the problem for now so long as he’s happy. He’ll come around if you are not putting any pressure on him. He will probably surprise you, actually.

A friend of ours who is frankly incredible on a bmx has just had a video released by Fox with a Foals soundtrack (What Went Down).

Worth a couple of your minutes:

Winchester, Hants:
– Haircut: £35.
– Pint: £5.40
– Horse: For riding on if privately educated

Aktobe, Kazakhstan:
– Haircut: £1
– Pint: 50p
– Horse: Dinner

Spend half the year in each place. Kazakhstan wins on all forms of purchasing activity.

as said above though don’t look back

Amen to that.

Edit – Well, not stupidity, I didn’t know the bike or the sales would happen

Sure, don’t blame yourself.

Family & health are more important.

Four years ago, pre kids I had a chance to buy this:

18,000 miles. For £30k. Probably twice that now.

I bought some Trinity Exploration shares instead. Currently worth about £200.

Nevermind eh

Come on then:

September 11
Bin Laden involvement
Mecca

makes you think, eh?

Further irony courtesy of Huffpost this morning:

The current mosque expansion is being carried out by the Saudi Binladin Group, a company founded by the father of Osama bin Laden.

Attractive Kazakh girl in my group at work. Her name is Kamshat, which is quite common here.

No prizes for guessing what the Americans call her (not to her face, obv.).

???????????

Meonstoke to Almaty tomorrow, 3500 miles, five time zones. Which tyres?

Weather does look better from tomorrow onwards. I would take the mtb though.

I would use the Warnford route anyway (grass descent, road climb) as the Old Winchester hill off road climb is probably the wettest part of the sdw right now. Horrible here today

Pictonroad – genuine rofl despite wet underfoot conditions.

I am sitting outside Thomas Land with my three. I owe £400,000 to the bank. Touch my bum this is life!

Ha

Ro5ey who do you work for?

I’d like to apologise for setting off a worldwide financial meltdown by planning on cashing my Isa this week to pay for building work. F*****g b******s!

Does anyone want a broken Nintendo DS lite?

Cater Allen are meant to be the best, but as soon as I said ‘Kazakhstan’ they couldn’t hang up the phone quick enough. You may have better luck and although I’d never heard of them they are meant to be good value.

I use Barclays for my ltd and it’s ok, though transferring USD from an account in Winchester to an account in London is considered “international” and costs £22. Funny, I never need my passport on the M3.

Just “upgraded”

Anyone else got no sound?
For the benefit of anyone else who encounters this problem – a few extra restarts does the trick.

Hope things are improving.

when you’re feeling shit, listen to the music that you love, loud.

My day was going badly and now my laptop speakers are not working.

Just “upgraded”

Anyone else got no sound?

Handy video on Youtube explaining how to fix the problem. Only you can’t, er, hear it.

I’ve got a large one. Arf.

Awesome all-round bike though not seeing enough use. If you’re anywhere near Winchester / Southampton / Petersfield and fancy a spin on it then let me know. Currently away for work but back from 7th Aug.

I’ll probably be giving it to my wife. And letting her have this bike. Again, arf.

Forgive me I am very, very bored.

Insulate, Sherman. Insulate!

Cheers all, sounds like 6’2″ = XL for sure. Shame as not so many used ones about. Will get saving.

Like you I like to ride everything. Work all the time, time is limited, bikes must fit the limited opportunities plus I enjoy it all:

22″ wheeled S&M ATF BMX as I’m 6’2″ and had lower back issues but love riding trails on a BMX.

Alloy SC tallboy 100mm. Great bike but starting to gather dust due to below.

Surly Krampus. Cannot get enough of it. So much faster than I thought it would be, rolls over everything. Good for school runs also with clip on seat.

Dirty Disco CX. Starting to hate it. The Krampus is somehow quicker on anything but pure road.

I think if I sold #1 and #3 and bought something like a Nomad then I’d be sorted. Anyone willing lend money at low interest?

The main reason I don’t ride it any more is it was a bit on the small side for me. I’d read about them being bigger than older SC’s, but it still wasn’t big enough – should have gone for an XL in hindsight.

Hob Nob – what height are you?

I went for a medium but wish I had gone for a large.

Rick Draper – same question, what’s your height?

i am 5.10 and the medium was too cramped so large for me.

Stevemuzzy thank you so much for mentioning both key bits of info in your post! Context is everything and all that.

I’m 6’2″ and wondering whether to go for one of the many Large-size Nomads that Granary Cycles seem to have in stock. No doubt they would tell me to go for a large.

Greatly appreciate any feedback and apologies as this has probably been done to death on Pinkbike.