funnily enough I was having a similar discussion earlier today.

it’s not that I don’t want to use public transportation/ car share, it’s that outside the Centre of the big cities, it’s way too consuming of time my life doesn’t allow to use it.

I can either drive to work And back (10mins) , cycle each way (30 mins)” on average

pr catch a bus one way once a week and hitchhike? Back / every other day?!!

until it’s as quick / quicker to use public transport everywhere as it is to use the tube to get around London, people will want / need their own cars to Service their lives / keep all their “balls in the air”

Meanwhile where I live there is (& I am

not exaggerating) one (1!) bus a week past my house (on a Wednesday lunchtime..)

funnily enough I rely on my car not public transport……

Its the hardest, most amazing pastime. Go for it!

Lessons help but in reality the only thing that really helps is going in the water A LOT!

Also, remember that just like bike parks have “ettiquette” so do surf breaks. Learn the rules and don’t get in the way. Surf schools dont always clue people in to this.

This is a good starting point……

A Beginners Guide To Surf Etiquette: The ‘Unwritten’ Rules Of Surfing (houseofsurf.co)

Orange rocker 15 is a sound choice. The clean channel has shades of vox chime and takes pedals well. It has a bluesy crunch as the volume knob gets turned up but the switchable wattage lets you keep a decent amou t of clean headroom up to small venue levels. it does the proper 70’s rock orange sound on the dirty channel. Best of all, it retains all this character on all the wattage settings unlike other switchable valve amps i’ve had.

It’s “tv volume” on the lower settings but the full 15watt is proper loud. Ive been happily playing pub gigs with mine on the 7watt setting.

Vox ac10 is worth a look too if you want some vox flavor at house volume

This……

It can be! Saunton is just as bad tbh if you spend the day there  least you can pay hourly though

Puts varies depending on the weather and what day it is (& what time you arrive)

Marine Drive is cheaper ( same beach just approached from woolie end )

Downemd and national trust croyde are probably the cheapest car parks but not so dog friendly this time of year.

if it helps I’m currently in Italy where it’s £25-30 / day parking!

Another top tip,

Park at putsborough, walk towards woolacombe along the beach as far as the porthole cafe ( about 3/4 of the way to woolacombe)

stop for excellent coffee and lunch, https://www.theportholewoolacombe.co.uk

walk back along marine drive / bridleway to puts.

Thanks all. I’ve taken a risk and ordered one. I think I’ll probably like it a lot.

TJ makes great points.

Also in medicine generally there is an increasing risk of being sued ( in my area for example only Israel has higher rates of attempted negligence claims ) . The consequences of even undeserved criticism and investigation in the form of stress or career / life affecting sanctions don’t really predispose to a culture of openly flagging up personal mistakes. Particularly when from a medical point of view, staffing / time/ financial constraints that are openly acknowledged in real time as added difficulties are often not deemed to be suitable mitigation in hindsight. The level of personal responsibility/ jeopardy that clinicians live with on a daily basis is commonly greater than it is for those working in other industries.

That said, it is staggering how much effort went into ignoring the (7?!) consultants concerns in this Case?

I reckon the aero press makes great coffee on the move.

i “think” the point of the aeropress over a cafetière is that it allows you to make espresso since you can use pressure with the aeropress plunger in the same way an espresso machine uses pressure to force the water through the coffee. You can’t burn the coffee either which I always think is the drawback of a stove top espresso machine

must admit I tend to use a bog standard filter machine in the mornings. Experienced guesstimating with amounts of Freshly ground “good beans” and fresh water and removing the coffee as soon as it’s brewed so it can’t sit on the hot plate seems to give a quick hassle free breakfast method. Not as “cool” as a v60 some digital scales and a swan neck kettle but I’m bad at getting out of bed until the last possible moment….

Well congrats to JrT too!

Been telling Miss Ceepers that no one cares about your grades once you’ve got onto the course you want anyway & Bristol isn’t an easy place to get into. Think it’s helping!

Should add that lots of daughters friends have had disappointed mornings, especially on the atrs rather than science side

My daughter “just” got her first choice place at Bristol but with lower grades than expected. She is feeling pretty ripped off with the grade “realignment” and feels ( i think quite rightly given her teachers reaction) that if she had taken the exams in 2019 she would have “the right”grades.

Very mixed emotions but trying to reassure her that now she has her place, the actual grades don’t matter!

thats lovely!!

Yep…honourable mention for their corduroy caps and wooly jumpers as well

yeah think all of that stuff has been built in the last 6 years or so. It’s all local kids but its quite well established so the landowner must be cool, with it. Its a pretty knackering push back up unless you’ve got an e-bike though.

There’s an organised building group halfway through some trails in Knowle woods near braunton who are putting “official” trails in another area that had “unofficial” trails for years. Supposed to be open this summer sometime i think.

literally nothing here…….

( to be fair apart from stuff like that which is the trails in Lee woods I mentioned – (they’re parked in the car park off tarka trail halfway up from Ilfracombe. ) Most of the stuff involves footpaths and or linking bits of trail via the lanes.

Also, the woods south of Lee have proper “locals” mtb trails accessible off the main fire road. Quite easy to find if you look at the strava segments. Usually friendy local kids riding there at weekends

Also this is a mellow xc style ride. We rode from Braunton but you could start from Ilfracombe up the tarka trail and descend ( carefully ignoring the no bikes signs !) along the “donkey track “ from twitches farm campsite above mortehoe

https://strava.app.link/gXYpSmjaKBb

Plenty of hills, plenty of country lane riding that you can add a bit  of gravel into with an os map

some great “proper” mtb on exmoor

some mellow loops that you can ride on mtb or gravel if you dont mind being cheeky on foot paths ( generally ok as long as you aren’t hooning around )

Try leaving ilfracombe on the tarka trail. At the main woolacombe road at the top, turn right towards mortehoe. follow the bridleway ( green broken line) on the OS map through damage barton campsite to higher warcombe. Follow the road down into Lee bay. Go through lee bay and first left after the ruined hotel up a steep road ( green diamonds on OS map) This becomes the coast path eventually and takes you with lovely view to langleigh lane and back into ilfracombe ( or for more views follow the paths aoround the cliff down towards torrs park)

doable on a gravel bike

@masterdabber it is now……

(sorry i just had to)

Also, didnt see 1’38 coming, thought Jonas was stronger but only by a little but he’s just destroyed Pojacar

@squirrelking i don’t know. I just remember reading that it was one of the factors cited in the British cycling ruling on the trans cyclist Emily something.

I know the swimming ruling body cited increased foot / hand size after male puberty as a factor in their trans ruling which is a similar thing that isn’t reversed by hormone treatment

I think what he means is that if you have experienced male puberty, you have advantages that hormone treatment afterwards does not reverse

worth adding to @tired post above that its not just about “strength”. In cycling specifically, one of the issues that’s been highlighted is the potential advantage a males narrower pelvis gives for pedalling mechanics ( in the sense that the upper bone of the leg operates closer to vertical) . Reducing testosterone levels does not change that after puberty, hence the puberty aspect of the ruling

I decided I wanted a candy apple red jaguar instead of a white one so I bought a body off eBay, stripped and refinished it in nitro, polished it then ported all the bits over.

learnt a lot about spraying things and soldering! It’s not perfect but I’m pretty pleased with it!

I think Jon has posted some really thought provoking and informed stuff, clearly from a position of more experience than most of us. Thank you for staying in the thread Jon.

I also agree there is no win win here. I am going to pose another question.

the vast majority of us debating here are men. Have we considered what the majority of women truly think about it ( when they feel safe from castigation on social media)

obviously I live in a middle class bubble but whenever this subject comes up amongst women I know at work / socially, they have pretty universally expressed a sense that it’s unfair to them to have transgender inclusion in their competitive sport. It’s not a very representative sample but these are generally educated women who would generally be very pro inclusion of LGBTQ+ in other areas of life

“ taking a role away from another boy, actually reducing their involvement in the production.“

yes but in a theatre group, the best actors will consistently get the best roles and that will lessen the participation of the lesser actors. That’s life.

The key point is that it’s harder to argue that genetic make up confers an advantage in acting skill so it’s harder for the genetic males missing out on roles to argue it’s unfair

Or is it because it’s hard to argue that your son’s new gender has conferred an advantage for acting compared to the genetic male actors whereas there is an argument that experiencing male puberty does confer an athletic advantage to transitioned females? So there’s less potential for disgruntlement?

Many many sports have competition as a fundamental part of their make up – even a “ footy knock around in the park” has “sides” and scoring. “Free. Sports” like skateboarding  MTB etc maybe less so.

“Cultural” pastimes like performing music / acting etc do not have the same underlying competitive element.

( genuine question not trying to be difficult)

ps I get what your saying about “social sport” not being quite the same as elite level professional sport but some kind of “winner and loser” dynamic is the basis of many of the sports that operate on a social as well as elite level.

Main reason is that I fancy trying a 29er

quite a lot of stuff on the morf is a bit knackered- I need a new wheelset for it amongst other stuff & just thought now might be a good time to explore a change in wheel size.

the morf has been really fun for most of the riding I do  it maybe feels a little short seated and I’ve been running it with a 50mm stem as the 35mm it was designed to have felt too short so a slightly longer frame with a shorter stem is attractive but otherwise I’ve loved it.

that’s why something similar but 29er is what I think I want!

The Ragley looks interesting! Nice colour too!

Gravel bikes are ace for any ride that includes a decent amount of road / country lane and/or gravel fire road, hard packed smooth dirt or sand singletrack that isn’t too steep. They’re great for rides with plenty of “up and along” with mellow downs.

as soon as a trail gets even slightly rocky or steep you can still ride stuff but you need to pick your way down and it all becomes a lot less comfortable.

so depends what you’re going to be riding. I’m lucky to have both and most of the really local trails can be ridden on either ( at different speeds) so depending on mood I ride the more technical stuff fast or ride bigger country lane loops linking up the mellower off-road sections and avoiding the rockier ones…

i’m darkest devon so not very close but cheers for the offer!

168cm with short legs so not far off you i guess. what travel are you running at?

According to the size chart im a small on the BFEmax ( im on a small cotic rocket which is def the right size) so if i went with the BFE the small is probably the right one. Having said that, the hardtail party review guy is the same size and he tested a small but said he would buy a medium so dunno!

will have a look at the pipe dreams!

ps the Stif Squatch doesn’t come in a small enough size as far as i can work out otherwise that would be a tempting option

@swdan my daughter got tickets for Murrayfield on Monday – cue much excitement! She had a presale code via the midnights cd

worth noting that she logged on a couple of hours after the initial sale time for Edinburgh ( having failed to get London tickets in the morning ). She’d heard that sometimes they release the tickets in batches and also sometimes people don’t complete purchases in time or their bank refuses payment and the tickets go back into the sale. So might be worth keeping trying even if it seems they’re sold out straight away.

good luck!

The other thing that can help you stay straight is to have a tiny bit more weight on the foot that’s the same side as the paddle. That will steer the board gently in the opposite direction to the effect of the paddle stroke

That’s all very reassuring everyone, thanks for the replies

was watching the xc highlights at the weekend and it struck me that plenty of the girls are smaller than me on 29ers.

Been thinking about the Bird Forge as a replacement for my morf since most of the local riding is more fun on a hardtail and i dont tend to ride my FS unless its a trip somewhere.

“Ah but, a vest underneath feels more comfortable than the neoprene” not in my experience but whatever works for you I guess.

Just saying that I live and surf in an area well known for the quality of its surf and i don’t know of a single local that still wears a rashie under a suit. Maybe our skin is so brined it’s resistant to it now! 😂

@reign_man has good advice. Some Modern foamies surf great. Learning to surf is hard, especially if you don’t live by a decent break so make each step as easy as possible.

Also modern wetsuits wont give you a rash from surfing. Between me and my friends we have literally thousands of hours of rash vest free surfing in all brands of wetsuits with no problems over the last 15 years.

Modern neoprene is so soft and stretchy and seams are mostly taped or glued now so the days of flat lock stitched seams rubbing are long gone.

Played our 18th gig to a packed out Red Barn in Woolacombe on Saturday.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsQnATMPnZK/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

It was a blast, great crowd, we played well and we helped raise 3 grand for the surf lifesaving club!

Top night out….