As many previous posters have pointed out, taking the fastest, most direct route won’t be a very enjoyable cycling experience, but if you have the time to take a slightly more roundabout path, you can do some really nice cycling between Lands End and John o’ Groats. Loch Lomond and Glencoe is one of the worst options for cycling north; great scenery, but the motor traffic on those roads will overshadow any enjoyment from the cycling. I’d even suggest that the coast road up through Wick is not the best way to get to the north coast. There are also some lovely roads up along the Welsh/English border.

100% this.

If you actually take some time and effort to plot the route carefully, you can get a surprising amount on quiet lanes and terrain such as old railway paths and similar traffic-free trails which are normally do-able on most road bikes. A few sections where you really do have to weave around a lot or accept that you’ll be on some busy roads. Notably crossing the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds corridor, pretty much wherever you do it is going to involve some urban jungle or a LOT of wandering around on towpaths and highly variable Sustrans routes but otherwise it’s possible to do large swathes of it on really quite scenic roads.

Dozens of t-shirts from events though (mostly running).

One of my clothing clear-outs, I got rid of many T-shirts from numerous events. They all went to a clothing bank so I imagine there’s a bunch of refugees in some war-torn encampment in Syria comparing their respective Merida / Kona 100 T-shirts or wondering what a Dirty Reiver is.

I actually ordered a new Rapha LS jersey the other week, only to cancel it a few hours later when I remembered that I had the exact same one already !

I’ve done sort outs of my clothing from time to time and found jerseys I’d forgotten I had.

I have fewer than 55 jerseys though so I’m OK on that front!

Obvs though I forgot to allow that only our plucky little TP can truly handle a bike in the pro peleton

Has to be said that – by and large – the standard of bike handling within the general WT peloton is a lot better than it used to be. The current “mode of racing” of full gas from start to finish, jostling for position, surfing wheels etc demands much more than the old skool style of racing where you could get away with sitting in the bunch for hours.

Certainly the traditional thought that roadies aren’t good technically is very out of date. Some are better than others of course but the overall standard has improved greatly.

OK, well I did try that, but they only used the bike i had which I knew was wrong.

That’s not a proper bike fitter then.

Go to someone who has a background in physiotherapy and the proper bike fitting rig and give your full medical history and a rundown of the things you’ve tried.

FWIW, shorter cranks is probably the next big thing in bike fit following a general realisation that the current use of 170 – 175 as standard is based mostly on “well we’ve always done it like this”.

Speaking of anonymous / poor results, Michael Rasmussen (yes, the former doper chucked off the Tour for lying about his whereabouts) has popped up talking about Chris Froome basically saying that he’s another rider who’s wildly overpaid for a year of absolute nothingness.

I like the Endura FS260 overshoes – they’re a lightweight waterproof fabric/plastic type thing.

They’re not especially robust, especially when used off road, I usually reckon on a season on road shoes then a season on MTB shoes which will wreck them completely.

Also, given that they have a couple of gigantic holes in the bottom for cleats, no overshoe will ever be completely waterproof.

Ineos appear to be a sinking ship.

Various rumours swirling that they won’t exist at all in the next couple of years – although I suspect some of it is media dredging up all manner of speculation and asking any random cycling pundit (and in this case, washed up former manager who oversaw the Lance Years!) probing questions and potentially knitting the answers of 2 and 2 together to give 6¾…

https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling/sir-jim-ratcliffe-is-fed-up-with-his-toy-johan-bruyneel-doubts-future-of-ineos-grenadiers-amidst-tom-pidcock-debacle

I did RAB 7 years ago in absolutely awful weather. It was a great experience and really stress free with everything organised (like bike transport to and from start). I’ve done loads of cycling trips over the years and it was one of the best

2017? Yes, that was pretty biblical wasn’t it?! Cav rode a stage of it that – in the pissing rain out of Bath I seem to remember.

Hayter is exceptionally strong but has gotten a bit lost with his positioning in the peloton – change of scenery and hopefully some wins will get him back on track.

Ethan Hayter, yes.

Ineos also lost the very talented Leo Hayter who had a really bad patch with mental health issues and depression – he posted quite openly about it on his blog and social media after a long period of coming to terms with it. Hopefully he’s on the mend now but it’s another crack in the Ineos armour losing a rider like Leo.

There are a few trails in various bits of woodland (with varying degrees of legality) nothing in the immediate locale that is worth taking the MTB for I’d say. However you are but a short train ride away from the South Lakes, can get the train from Silverdale or Arnside over the bay (very nice it is too!) to Grange-over-Sands and ride up through the lanes to Grizedale Forest.

Or a drive up the motorway and across. Train is much quicker but then there’s more riding to get to the proper MTB stuff.

The lanes around Silverdale are lovely on a road / gravel bike though if you have that option.

That being said, I can’t really see him as a GC rider. The idea of trying to turn him into a grand tour rider when he’s never even got top ten in a world tour stage race seems daft given his one-day results.

Sky / Ineos turned Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas from track-focused riders to Grand Tour winners. There’s plenty of cases of riders mixing things up and/or changing their focus; equally plenty of cases where riders focus on one thing. Chris Hoy for example was never going to be a roadie or a MTBer, he’s a true track sprint specialist but Mark Cavendish very successfully mixed track and road.

MvdP and WvA mix road and CX, Sagan mixed road and MTB, Lachlan Morton did (for a while) mix road and gravel before going off to do his own adventure racing stuff (which EF seem to be fully supporting and indeed monetising!)

It’s certainly do-able, I just think it requires huge amounts of commitment and buy-in from everyone concerned. And if one half of the partnership isn’t buying into that, there’s going to be friction.

Most decent MTB talent ends up racing on the road because you can make more money as a mediocre continental tour team domestique than winning MTB races.  Hence when someone does do both (Pidcock, Peter Sagan, Lachlan Morton) they tend to be absolutely dominant off-road in the few races they do turn up to because they’re in a different league.

Yep, and it was the same with MvdP in CX last year, he won almost every race.

I mean, I know they’re different, I was just kind of wondering aloud / on screen about how much he *wants* to pick and choose vs how much he’s being *allowed* to pick and choose.

It’s always seen as fairly high risk, letting your star roadies go off and do MTBing cos of the greater chance they’ll break themselves…

I had that with mine where I’d accidentally put it to sleep rather then turning it off. Thankfully I found this before I was due to start my ride and charged it up fully from completely flat!

Garmin batteries also have a habit of being fine, fine fine, average, crap. All of my previous Garmins started off brilliantly and then gradually degraded almost without me noticing until they suddenly dropped off a cliff edge. Went from lasting 8hrs to lasting 3hrs in the space of a few weeks.

You can get replacement batteries for them (or have them sent off and repaired).

Quickest check before any of that though – have a look at the backlight settings. Is it on for longer than it needs to be? Is it on in the background without you / your wife noticing? If the unit has been left on standby, it can “wake up” if moved at which point the backlight will come on, it’ll start hunting for satellites and all of that uses a lot of battery.

That’s true enough but realistically can he better the likes of Pogacar, Evenpoel, Roglic and Vingegaard? Unless he can manage that he’s going to be an also-ran, surely?

He’s very opportunistic though, that is a definite point in his favour plus he’s got the beginnings / hints of a really solid palmares potential.
I guess the issue is whether Ineos (or any team) wants an opportunistic stage hunter riding for himself rather than a team player who’ll go with a defined plan (even if that plan doesn’t come to fruition).

Some of the smaller teams, the ones that come to the Tour with no expectation of anything other than a bit of breakaway time and a potential lucky stage win might be ideal for him. Less pressure, a chance to race as a bit of a lone wolf.

Again, just speculating. Commentators were saying during the Grand Tours that maybe the days of the breakaway were over because they routinely got chased down (by accident or design) and then Pogacar went off and won. Again.

If he goes anywhere else I reckon he’ll not race a mountain bike again.

Current Olympic (double Olympic!) and former World and European MTB Champion though. That’s kind of a big deal. Do you just walk away from that to concentrate on road? Or pick and choose a bit? Maybe that’s where the rift is? Is he being pushed to choose one or the other? I don’t know by the way, it’s kind of a rhetorical question.

Is some of the ‘fastest and most direct route’ a bit of a roadie culture thing? Whereas I would want quality and quantity over speed…

I think many of the people doing LEJOG are doing it to “do it” (if that makes sense!). It’s a box ticking exercise. They’re “doing” LEJOG – sometimes for charity, sometimes because it’s A Thing that cyclists do. If you ride from LE to JOG, even a non-cyclist knows that you’ve done A Big Ride. Like swimming the channel or running the London Marathon. If you went out and ran 26.2 miles around your hometown, no-one would care. If you Do the London Marathon, you can put it out there for sponsorship and kudos.

There are a couple of books (notably the Cicerone guide) of suggested / ideal routes so most people are just following the maps and online guides.

There’s nothing really wrong with that as such but it kind of turns it into a “going through the motions” ride rather than an “I’ll see what’s off down here” ride. Again, nothing at all wrong with that, people can tour or do curated rides like LEJOG / C2C / King Alfreds Way etc any way they want, there’s no real right or wrong. LEJOG has the advantage though that other than the road out of LE and the road into JOG, there’s a million permutations and combinations you can do over anything from 4 to 40 days if you can be bothered to calculate your ideal route.

Will research RAB.

https://www.rideacrossbritain.com/

Used to be annual but what with cost of living, inflation etc, they’ve now moved it to every two years. Most recent one was as mentioned by @velocipede ^^ just 5-6 weeks ago so the next one is September 2026. Usually about 600 – 700 riders on it, it’s kind of like a big Sportive combined with a cycle tour.

Member of cycle UK, will have a look. Thanks.

https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewforum.php?f=22

so…….if I was doing it again, and planning to do it alone or in a small group

Just to add to all of that excellent post, if you are planning on doing it in a small group, make damn sure you’re all of similar ability, you all agree the aim up front and you’re all capable of the pre-planned daily distance. There is nothing worse than having a group of (eg) 4 where one person is consistently smashing it off the front or consistently trudging along off the back while the other 3 wait at every junction.

Likewise if you have 3 people well up for camping, experienced in it, know what to do, what to pack etc and one person who hates camping, it’ll be pretty miserable.

The benefit of a big supported event like RAB is there’s always someone of your ability somewhere, groups form almost organically out on the road and it really helps with motivation.

Anyone done it on here and got recommendations or advice.

How are you planning on doing it? Solo, small group, organised tour? Any support vehicle? Camping (and therefore a fair chunk of luggage) or lightweight / credit card touring?

What route? Your own concoction, following a guidebook or nicking .gpx files from an organised tour? On road or including some off-road stuff? A straightforward “get the job done” route or a longer and more scenic option?

How long? Less than 5 days and you’re kind of committing to either very long days in the saddle or some unpleasant and busy A-roads just to get the job done. More than about 12 days and you start increasing the odds of running into shit weather.

Also have a look at logistics of getting back from JOG, it can be a pain at the best of times. Riding to Wick or Thurso and getting the train back to Inverness is probably the best option but you will need to book your bike on as early as possible.

I got 2 episodes into Kaos (which was very well reviewed) but just didn’t gel with it at all. Binned that off.

I watched Wolfs last night (Apple TV which required signing up for a week’s free trial which I’m going to have to cancel again before they take £8.99 off me) which was enjoyable. Quite silly but funny in parts, even if it is just Brad Pitt and George Clooney being Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

But I was genuinely surprised at the level of e-bike use on really what must be one of the least challenging parks.

It’s also one of the easiest-to-access trail centres, within an hour’s drive of Manchester, Liverpool and half of North Wales so it gets way busier than many of the other trail centres. I’ve been 3 or 4 times in the last year – maybe 60-70 mins drive each way but a full day of riding, no gates, walkers, horses or dogs to worry about, decent cafe, jetwash, enough riding there to keep most people occupied and content for a day.

What’s not to like? Couldn’t care less what bike people use – maybe they’re rich show-offs or maybe they’re recovering from illness or injury or have some kind of medical condition or maybe they did a full week of commuting / training on a normal bike and now just want to spin around on an e-bike? Whichever it is, most of them are friendly enough. :-)

I ask why? Does riding an ebike suddenly make everything super-easy – only if you put it in super-power mode all the time. You can put in just as much work effort on an ebike as a manual bike; you just go faster up the hills, can travel further (between the constant rain showers) and see more countryide. What’s wrong with that?

I can only see a couple of snarky comments, I think most people (including me) are fine with the use of e-bikes. It’s great that he’s out riding.

The point remains though that as per your original question of can you take him to BPW and then trying to find workarounds in the Highway Code / Road Traffic Act etc is:
No you can’t (legally) take him to BPW on his e-bike and
The RTA, rules of the road, Public Rights of Way Act etc are irrelevant.

It’s their (privately owned) park, it’s their insurance and their rules and regulations.

Ultimately if BPW say no ebikes are allowed, that is their rule of entry and it doesn’t need any legal basis.

This. Their park, their rules and any Road Traffic Act stuff around what does and does not constitute “a highway” is irrelevant.

I’m just disappointed that there are 12 year old kids riding ebikes.

Used to get similar comments at circuit races when kids started turning up with Di2 – often hand-me-down stuff from a parent’s bike rather than brand new but still, electronic gears for 12 year olds?! But actually it makes a lot of sense. Kids have less grip power and hand strength than adults so a system that minimises reach and stretch to change gears is perfect. Especially lower level groupsets – Tiagra and Sora were well known for requiring significant lever throw to change gear which young/small hands often struggled with.

Same with an e-bike – if it allows a kid to do some reasonable climbs rather than just pottering around the green route then great stuff! I’ve been MTBing with my young nieces a few times and they rapidly get tired, they’re bored of the limited options on the basic family trails and would love to be out for a bit longer. Many adults on e-bikes are using them for exactly that purpose!

Labour have convened a global investment jamboree where, despite what they’d like you to believe, the basic tenor is the UK flashing a bit of thigh and seeing who fancies a bit.

This is really just the same Tory-lite bollocks that’s been tried (and failed) on several occasions from Cameron, via the stupidity of Brexit and then again with Sunak…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e9yk24w3eo

Every bit of red tape for one person is someone else’s protection against fraud, rights abuses, environmental damage, the list is endless. Just seems to be a clarion cry of any Government – “we’ll cut red tape!” and “bonfire of the quangos!”

I mean, I didn’t have particularly high hopes given that most of the election run-up was “we’re not quite as shit as the Tories”; there’s been some pretty positive stuff (from DfT / Louise Haigh in particular) but it’s undermined by the sheer stupidity of “we’ll try what the Tories tried and failed at, we’ll give that another go cos we must be able to make it work…”

 I shouted aggressively at it “**** off and go home!” or something, and it scarpered.

That approach also works with the scratty feral street dogs you get in many Spanish villages. They may not understand the actual English but assertive shouting directed at them has the desired effect. And to be fair those dogs are usually doing it out of boredom rather than full-on aggression.

I kicked a tiny little Yorkshire Terrier off me once. Passed it and its owner along the canal towpath, no issues, “thanks very much” etc then the little shit started yapping frantically, ran after me and bit my shoe, catching onto the end of the velcro strap and then being carried around and around as I pedalled. Unclipped and shook it and the yappy little git got ejected sideways. I didn’t stop to debate this with the owner and I certainly wouldn’t like to experience it with anything bigger than a Yorkshire Terrier!

But yes, as others have said, get the bike between you and it. Chainring side outwards if possible.

Roll on moonbase alpha

Moon Unit Alpha and Moon Unit Zappa.

#austinpowers

HTF can people be so clever to work out how to nail the return to the launch tower basically to perfection?

Meh, Blofeld did basically the same thing but from inside a super secret hollowed-out volcano. ;-)

Reading that back…..as a career palmares it’d put him well up there, to do it in a single season is just nuts!

Commentators were saying it was 25 wins in 57 days of racing. Which is insane and impressive but sadly also rather dull.

I turned it on with 45km to go and it wasn’t a race, it was a procession. The only even vaguely exciting bit was seeing the third group on the road fighting it out for 3rd place.

World Track Championships next week from Denmark, thankfully Pogacar doesn’t race track!

That’s $15bn/year in a country whose GDP is $25 trillion. So, what, 0.06%? It’s pocket change

There was a video of some guy interviewing people in the street around the time of some big space news – final shuttle voyage or something – asking them what % of the USA GDP they thought went to NASA and people were guessing at 20, 30%.

It’s about 0.3% most years.

So a year of struggling with “power” and the ups and downs of chronic fatigue have got to me, I think I’m done with competitive cycling.

Quite a few years ago now (mid 2000’s maybe), I finished a National Series MTB XC race at some absolute mudfest venue, much the same as the other half dozen mudfest venues I’d been to that year. Think I might have scraped top 20 – ironic really, the conditions were so bad that the main reason I got top 20 was because so many other people pulled out!

Packed the car with a jetwashed bike, a muddy tent, a bag full of muddy kit and drove the 200 or so miles back home on a Sunday night, arriving at 10pm or so. And I just thought – why? I could have had 3x the riding for 1/10th the price locally. I could have been home 4hrs ago without a quietly rusting bike or a load of filthy camping kit.

And that was it. It was the kick I needed to say that I was never going to get any better, could honestly not really afford such trips, the training (what with actually having a proper job rather than being a carefree student) wasn’t getting any easier and the week of post-race logistics of cleaning everything, fixing the bike etc wasn’t fun either.

After that I did some occasional road, circuit and CX/gravel races as well as 24hr and endurance MTB but it was much more selective, none of the need to chase series points or do every round and so on.

I actually did a lot more riding – more miles, more places and a lot less cost! And it was a lot more fun. It did need a mental reset but, almost counter-intuitively, it made the occasional races I did do a lot more fun as well, allowed me to focus on that and think “ooh, this is a bit special” rather than thinking “oh FFS, I need to drive another 250 miles next weekend, camp in a field, ride around for 3hrs and then drive home again”.

You can still stay fit. Not racing doesn’t have to equal “splodging on sofa drinking beer”. You can still ride in nice places. You can still have fun doing it. Just take a year or so to reset the mind. Good luck and enjoy the riding – even the slow rides!

At a previous employer we had a nasty CFO who hated cyclists and begrudgingly lost the battle with HR director to offer it – but with the shittiest possible implementation.

That’s another issue with it – it’s not just a barrier for the low-paid, it’s a barrier in any employment where one senior figure can kill the whole thing dead cos they hate cyclists. Not dissimilar to how one stick-in-the-mud in a council department can effectively kill off any road safety schemes, cycle lanes etc.

The main overhaul needs to remove all the numerous providers from their position and have it administered by central government as a default. ANYONE can apply, no limit, no restrictions on shop or supplier, primary purpose should be riding to work but what you do with it in your own time is your business. Effectively create an interest-free loan scheme for bikes – it can be tied into repayments via tax / salary sacrifice if you work but other repayment options if you are on minimum wage. Could put in a graduated limit if required for people with low credit scores so someone on minimum wage can’t go out and buy a £10,000 MTB but that’s no different to most areas of life.

And then cross-subsidise for the low-paid, self-employed and even the WFH-ers – recognising that people who WFH may still need to go to meetings, still need to travel around their local area, shops etc.

I like the idea of removing VAT from bikes but I remember when they did it with helmets. Suddenly got cheaper, then in a few months, it felt like they’d gone back up to the original price and a bit more.

That’s common practice, basically any tax cut (see for example the 5p/litre cut on fuel duty during Covid) rapidly just becomes extra profit for the retailer, the end price remains at/near the same for the consumer but the money is going elsewhere.

I think the main problem with C2W is it’s been hijacked by the providers who have seen it as an easy way to make a few quid, there are multiple schemes out there now, all with their own restrictions, T&C’s.

Not dissimilar to the PPI refunds thing where any number of sharks sprung up offering to help you do PPI refunds and then they’d take 40% of your refund. It wasn’t difficult to go through the banks directly for it (and get 100% of your refund) but they pushed it and pushed it as “the easy / guaranteed option”.

Most of these providers are linked into various HR outsourcing stuff – my last place had outsourced all the employee benefits to some “agency” that charged the employer a set fee per employee on the basis that they’d then handle all the admin and then the “perks” offered would be something like “save 2% at Center Parcs if you go on a Tuesday in November” and “save 1% at Boots when you spend £200 or more in one transaction”. Worthless shite.

The cycle to work scheme that they administered was worse than useless.

Latest news item on the subject.  ;-)

There was an absolute goldmine of a thread on Mumsnet years ago which went viral from someone claiming that dinosaurs were all a conspiracy. Christians Against Dinosaurs.

They never existed (cos God, creation, the evolution lie…), all the skeletons were put there by bored Victorians who could then go and dig them up to “discover” them and also they were bad role models for children cos … I dunno, something about big sharp teeth and lack of family values.

It was absolutely insane and the resulting piss-take was both devastatingly sarcastic and hilarious.

Twice on my own bike in 30+ years of riding.

Once on a 9sp drivetrain, my old MTB probably early 2000’s in Swinley Forest.

Second one was during the Three Peaks CX about 10 years ago. Hit a rock, pinch flatted the rear tyre and the impact bounced the bike around and knocked the chain off the big sprocket and over into the gap between cassette and spokes. One of those mechanical incidents you couldn’t repeat if you tried!

Chain was tangled behind the cassette, tyre was flat but I couldn’t get the wheel out cos there was no slack in the rear mech. Had to split the chain using the breaker tool (naturally the quick link was in the bit of the chain buried behind the cassette…), get the wheel out, fix the flat then reassemble the chain, cutting out part of the damaged section of chain.

Eventually DNF’d – the chain kept breaking, it was by then too short to use the big ring and it couldn’t take any power through it.

Had to use it a couple of times on other people’s bikes when ride-leading. Always the result of ham-fisted shifting under load.

Investigation work is going to take place during the upcoming closure.

In the shape of a full length trench across the road at the Doctors Gate culvert. Just in case anyone was thinking of haring around the corner from the summit and descending to the landslide area, don’t bother – you’ll be faced with various large digging machines and a bloody big hole in the road.

I was reading somewhere that there’s every chance that Snake Pass will go the way of the Mam Tor road; it’s just one, reasonably likely, decently serious, andslip away from being unrepairable.

Yep, it’s taking up significant chunks of Derbyshire’s entire annual roads budget.

Idiot move or attempted fraud?

Both.

The former to try and get his underage son into a cycle club and ignoring the consequences for everyone if he is injured, causes someone else to be injured or simply spends months getting thrashed by actual 5-year olds.

The latter for attempting to alter a passport.

His contribution..a knowing smirk followed by “15 minute cities!”

My Mum lives in a Low Traffic Neighbourhood – first put in in a trial form during COVID but now permanent.

The local area FB group is basically a bunch of frothing gammons claiming that the whole thing is a woke conspiracy, all the council data is flawed or manipulated or just plain fake and that, as they have Free Movement under Magna Carta, this amounts to a violation of their human rights.

Anyone even suggesting that actually the LTN is good cos it’s quieter, their kids can cycle to school etc is immediately denounced as a council plant or a stooge for the local pro-cycling weirdy beardy group.