Agree with OP. What I like about bikes is their simplicity and efficiency. Something you can fix and fiddle with yourself.
It’s a cheap and affordable way to enjoy the countryside. Good for your physical and mental health.
That’s it.

As someone who is hard wired to put effort into riding a bike (been MTBing since the early 90’s), I sometimes have to tell myself even now to relax a bit more on my eBike,

What a legend. Love these threads in which a bunch of people who ride expensive engine-powered bikes convince each other that it’s great for fitness.

There’s a nice summary of Three-Wales theory here:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-law/sociology/contemporary-wales/content-section-2.1.2

Basically that Wales can be divided into three distinct voting identities/areas:
Y Fro Gymraeg – Welsh-speaking areas, mostly west/north-west. Plaid Cymru supporting
Welsh Wales – English-speaking areas but with a strong Welsh identity. South Wales valleys. Labour-supporting
British Wales – Other English-speaking areas with more of a British/Welsh identity. Support tends to flip/vary

There’s a map in that link to give a better idea.

Stories like these don’t really tell us anything about North Korea.
But they do a good job of showing just how thick, gullible and prone to propaganda we are.

Only he’s getting me as an enthusiastic worker at the same rate.

In capitalist terms, that person is a loser.
The employer’s motivation is to pay as little as possible while extracting as much work as possible.
The worker’s motivation is to be paid as much as possible for as little work as possible.

They’re both doing the same thing.
They’re trying to negotiate the best deal for themselves in a contract.
And workers should be praised for doing so effectively.

If you think that working enthusiastically in crap jobs is a route to success then…I disagree.
Life is not a Nike advert.

I found that over-tightening the valve nut was causing this problem.
It stops the inner tube from having any wiggle room.
Not had it happen since keeping it loose.

Where did that person get the land from?….somewhere down the line it’s been stolen

In the late 1800s, land ownership was a mainstream political talking point.
Groups like the Land League questioned the general idea of individuals owning large swathes of land.
Campaigners such as Henry George: “As no man made the land, so no man can claim a right of ownership in the land.”

Land reforms were talked about in terms of social justice; promoted by politicians like Lloyd-George and Churchill. The People’s Budget of 1909 included a land tax.

The issues remain as relevant as ever but are now rarely talked about.

Yeah, I guess I was wondering if you need a Wiim in each room. What about if the speaker was AirPlay 2?

Looks like that would work fine, based on this.

So you’d just need a WiimPro.

Help a luddite, please… I have record player in our lounge which is connected to some speakers in the good old fashioned way. I would like to stream music from it to our Kitchen.

I think you need two things. Your turntable plugged into a Wiim Pro – pro has an input.
That acts as the base, allowing you to send whatever’s played on the turntable to other Wiim devices via your wi-fi.

So you would need another Wiim in your kitchen that’s connected to some speakers.
If these are powered speakers ie they need to be plugged into mains, this could be a Wiim Mini (£80ish).
If they’re normal speakers, you would also need an amp to plug the Mini into.
Alternatively, you could just use a Wiim Amp.

Some crazy blue sky thinking.
Why don’t you sell one of your bikes/ebikes?

Can you add a stretch goal to buy the little fella his own ancient woodland?

not sure of your point? the woodland already has these things, with only one entrance, and bordered by fields with grazing animals, I’d assume its in the farmer’s interests to keep the fences in good condition.

This is reassuring but my fear is that it will prove wholly inadequate when it comes to keeping poor people out.

its a fenced bit of land with a gate. I wouldn’t pop by kids into someone’s back garden without permission, I woudln’t do it here either

Very wise. I would suggest looking into electric fencing and private security to keep your little ones safe in their ancient woodland.

I heard a band called The Beetles… Too obscure for me

Before them there was some bloke called David Booey.
Must be big with the kids on TikTok or something.

What’s the point?

Do you see that your experience is very different then?

I don’t.
You generally don’t seem open to any advice that’s contrary to what you already believe.
So this all seems pretty pointless. Best of luck to your daughter.

Copa – did you ask for help as a teenager?

No, I responded by becoming more withdrawn.
Because everything you do feels magnified, prone to causing tension/arguments.
So tried to avoid family situations where that could occur.

And what about this bit? Am I right about this too?

With all possible respect, you appear to be looking at this as someone who has experienced trauma around a similar situation and you seem to be projecting your personal experience onto our daughters’ situation.

Of course. I’ve said repeatedly that I can empathise because I went through similar things as a child/teenager.
And have spent a good part of my adult life trying to undo some of the damage that was caused.
I’ve tried to articulate some of the things your daughter may be going through.

“…but it feels like you are telling us that we are wrong and we should just accept that she is who she is and any help that we try to give (help that she is asking for) is just making matters worse.”

That’s absolutely what I’m suggesting. 100% that.

She is hating herself for being like this right now and wants our help in trying to understand what is going on.

I’m sure she is. And I’ve tried, and obviously failed, to explain why that might be.

It wasn’t normal for her 12 months ago though – that’s why she doesn’t like it and we are being concerned parents. Right now, I don’t think it is correct to consider her current state of mind off as being normal.

It’s absolutely normal for an introverted teenager to want to avoid stuff like party games.

What I find weird, is that you seem to have so little genuine interest in understanding what introverted personalities are like.

And yet, you’re happy to obsess over her actions and decisions. Analysing them; magnifying small/trivial things and making them big issues.

From personal experience, I know just how horrible this can be. How it makes life miserable.
Everything you do and say becomes a potential trigger point for parental trauma.
How tiring and draining it is. How it makes you feel weird and guilty about being who you are.

And how utterly pointless/damaging it all is.

Wiim works really well. Saves a lot of faffing around with wifi speakers.
Just plug it into whatever you already have – amp/speakers or powered speakers.
The cheapest one works fine and reviews suggest there’s very little difference in quality compared to the more expensive version.

Great post @jimmy
Very much agree with this:

There’s no “normal” here, just personalities – learn who she is, what she likes and try not to force anything else that induces anxiety – that’s the worst thing.

That + a slackset?

That’s lovely.

Really not a fan of the curly top tube.
The split top tube on the previous one put me off as well.
Wish there was a no frills/curls option.

Last week she had a couple of friends over for a sleepover (at our insistence as she hadn’t seen them all Christmas as we had been away with family).

This kind of thing makes me shudder as it’s a reminder of stuff my parents used to do.
At the time, it just made me miserable, and I wasn’t able to articulate why – which escalated things.

But what I wished I could have said is that I understand it’s done with the very best of intentions.
That you only want what’s best but that it’s achieving nothing and only makes things worse.
And something to consider is that the problem here is really with you.
You don’t understand your daughter or that she’s different to you.

I find it scary that you don’t get why somebody may be exhausted and want some alone time after socialising.
Have you ever tried reading/researching about introverted personality types?

I was similar when growing up, and still am, but the most traumatic stuff was my parents trying to change it.
Them stressing over it and treating it as a problem that needed fixing.
And looking back, it seemed more about them just having different types of personalities.

It helps me to think about it in terms of introvert/extrovert.
And that it’s normal to have social anxiety.
And while being introverted can often be frustrating, it also gives you some superpowers.
So it’s something to be understood/harnessed – rather than changed.

Exactly what my company did three years ago, we owed $20m, the next week we owed $0 and carried on trading under the same company name, selling the same stock to the same customers

In the good old days before public limited companies, the owner would be sent to a debtor’s prison until they’d repaid what they owed. While it may be legal, it’s no morally different to being a thief or shoplifter.

Please respect Weeksy.
Before you communicate, ask yourself – is this about bikes?
If it’s related to bikes, that’s not about bikes.
It needs to be about bikes.

Another vote for Cardiff.
With the Taff Trail, you can live near the city centre and ride into the mountains – 98% of it traffic free.

Dunno, maybe trails that are closed with windfall?

There’s one ‘hidden trail’ on there that’s my favourite route in the area.
It goes across the moors by Vivod Mountain and heads back down into Llangollen.
It’s rideable all year round, a kind of a red route. Only know about it because a relative lives close to it.

Seems so ridiculously difficult to find out about these kinds of things.

Have a peek on Trailforks.

How does it work with the dotted line routes – marked as “trail is hidden” in map legend?
Are they marked that way because of access/rights issues?

16 pages of this thread says otherwise.

Aye, it’s been well covered. Why don’t you read some of it.

OK, why’s that an issue?

It’s not necessarily an issue. They’re just two different things.

What are people ‘giving up’ though?

Cycling.

This YouTube channel has some rides/loops in the area that I’ve not seen elsewhere.
No GPX files but shows the kind of thing that’s around.

Flat Tyres would be my go to for ride planning;

Nice one. Lots of ideas there.

I’d also like to know this.
It’s a weird area because it seems ideal mountain bike/cx country.
But apart from Llandegla and the weird One Giant Leap place, it’s hard to know where to go.
A lot of the routes that link from Llandegla seem pretty unrideable outside of summer.
And it’s a brutal area for climbs, so hard to just tootle around exploring.

for a lot of cyclists a degree of suffering is part of the activity. if you take away part of the activity you also take away part of their identity, or at least you take away part of what makes up their hobby.

It can be applied to other things as well, like supporting a lower-league football club.
For many, following a club that’s a bit rubbish and often struggles is a part of the overall experience.
You could reduce/eliminate that by switching to support a Man City but, in doing so, you would lose something.

Or in the words of New Order:

In the end you will submit
It’s got to hurt a little bit