Been 3 times and last time took the bikes. Fantastic place. Distances are big between sites though. Took my Discovery in 2007 on the ferry and it was the best holiday ever, crossing the barren interior twice…

It was a bit if a shock when we took the bikes in 2010 though (They stopped the ferry at the end of 2008). Once you are out of the Reykjavik/Keflavik region, it’s a long way to anywhere, especially on a bike. If I did it again, I would seriously consider taking the bus to cover greater distance so you can get more sites and rides in. Having said that, I had not done any proper training so fitness was not super.

Camping is easy. Lots of camp sites that all seem to be cheap and wild camping is fine as long as you are 100mtrs away from cultivated land. Water is pretty accessible. We managed with 2 750ml bottles each and some sterilising tabs.

I decided that it was a delicate balance between having a great, relaxing holiday, or putting yourself through a two week endurance ride.

I would do it again tomorrow without hesitation. Love the place!!

🙂

We manage with two:

Hilux Surf (bikes and camping duties)
MX-5 Mk I (Everything else)

“The Breaking of the Fellowship” – From the soundtrack of Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Ring.

I love Mrs Brown… Cracking film. Feels a bit of a guilty pleasure type of thing though. I think Dench and Connolly are very good in it.

On the subject of Mrs Browns Boys… The regular series, in my opinion are great. They never fail to make me laugh out loud. However, I didn’t think the Christmas episodes were anywhere near as good. In fact, I didn’t bother watching the second one as I was so disappointed with the first…

A case of trying too hard I think…

We just replaced a vintage 1988 Sime Halstead that gave up on us… One of the controller boards failed. Replaced it with a condensing Worcester Greenstar 29cdi Classic. It was mentioned when the previous failure was diagnosed that it was undersized for our house and number of radiators. Took that with a pinch of salt…

However, the difference with the new one is amazing! The radiators are nearly too hot too touch if you have the boiler set at mid range and the hot water now has pressure and comes out really hot, very quickly…

Had to turn it all right down now as it is far more effective at heating the house…

Running Kona Project 2 on the Felt. Wanted the Pro carbon ones originally but by the time I had got around to ordering them, they had been discontinued. My LBS managed to locate a NOS pair of P2s and I have to say, I love the ride…

No more clunky, heavy front end. Just nice, direct and simple…

Not sure if I will bother with suspension again…

Cooper ATR. Good value, good grip, good lifespan…

Agreed … Riding at Rotorua and Wellington is great! You could spend days at Whakarewarewa Redwood Forest (Rotorua) and still not ride it all…

Managed to survive my first day (yesterday) of using them so you should be OK.

Have to say, I really like them… The feeling of being connected and not shuffling my feet subconsciously on the pedals has made my riding feel loads better…

Same here!

Cheaper too!!

🙂

Tried my first bivvi near Hound Tor last Sunday night. Cold and wet but really enjoyed it…

Lots of familiar tracks looking very washed out in places. Sure has been a lot of water around up there.

Looking to go again soon though not this weekend…

I have just replaced the tired Suntour suspension forks on my hardtail for some NOS Kona Project 2’s…

They are over a kilo lighter than the suspension. It is fair to say the bike feels completely different. As the front is now loads lighter and the bike fully rigid…

Have to say, I really like it!

Same here… One of our team of 5 has to go. I am now officially “At Risk” and have to justify why I should stay and a team mate should go…

We are a close team that has worked together for years so it is not an easy task…

Hmmm… No direct experience with InCopy…

However, there are a couple of clues in your query. I believe there is a way of viewing low-res images, rather than the full, high quality image. Having to load high-res, full quality images over the network will be really very slow and tedious!

Running iMacs won’t be helping too much either. Our print department runs a mixture of Mac Pros and iMacs. The difference between them is very significant.

Is your server Mac or Windows? This also seems to make a big difference in this sort of scenario. We ran a full suite of Apple Xserves and Xsan for file serving and storage and the Apple workstations loved it, but the PCs didn’t, taking much longer to open files than the Macs. Now we are running Windows based servers and SAN and the PCs love it and the Macs take longer to open, and save stuff now…

Go figure…

Hope this is of some help…

Cheers,

Si

Captain Scott’s Journal of the Terra Nova Antarctic expedition.
Worst Journey in the World – Apsley Cherry-Garrard.

Both make me feel very humble…

Brilliant album! Very find memories as a boy listening to it. Saved up and bought my own copy on double cassette which I played so much it wore out. Re-bought it a few years ago on CD/SACD. Still brilliant. Missed the first tour but did manage to buy a DVD of the concert at the O2. Really liked it and thought it worked well as a live show.

Not convinced by the re-working though. How can you get rid of Richard Burton?? I like Liam Neeson but not sure if it will work…

2010 Felt Q620

Set of mud tyres and set of skinny slicks

Does everything I want.

Doesn’t stop me looking and dreaming of other bikes though…

Was my favourite film for many years…
Yes it’s 80s… That is half the charm now.
Highlander 2 was just shockingly rubbish (IMO).
Number 3 not too much better (IMO), but at least it tried to carry on where 1 left off…
The Quickening, where they link it to the TV series… Hmmm…

None as good as the first… Some great camera work as has been said…

Celica RA28
Landcruiser 40 and 70 series

Hmmm lovely…

Senna (again)
Touching the Void
Frozen Planet (series)
The North Face
The Beckoning Silence

1994 Hilux Surf KZN 130.

Great for putting bikes in, kayaks on, and camping trips…

Not especially good on fuel, but never breaks and I can’t help but love it…

3-4 miles there…
between 3-13 miles home, depending on how much energy I have…

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but they are lots of people who feel like you do and have had similar experiences in life.

If you take nothing else from any replies to your post, remember, you are not alone! Never, ever think that you are…

I thought it was just me but it turns out that lots of people ride to keep sane.

Having suffered from depression a few times in the last 7 or so years, I was advised that exercise would help keep the spirits up.

At 36, I took up kayaking with my eldest son. This turned my life around and I haven’t looked back since. After a rather sobering experience on the River Dart (in spate) my ardour for whitewater paddling cooled a little. As a result, I haven’t paddled in anger for over 3 years now. I noticed that my spirits were generally low and getting lower as the months went on, so decided after some gentle nudging from my wife that maybe I should dust off the 1990 Emmelle Dolomite XL in the shed and start riding to and from work.

At first I didn’t enjoy it. The fact that Torquay is built on 7 hills means that there is no flat around here. It’s either up or down. The ride to work is very nearly all downhill. Therefore, going home is a hard (for me), ride. Anyway, after a month or two, I realised that I wasn’t so tired when I got home… I could speak!

I then took the plunge and decided that cycling around Iceland (one of my favourite countries) would be a good idea. One little dabble with the Cycle scheme and I got a 2010 Felt Q620 hardtail. Wow, bikes have improved in the last 20 years!!

Me and a mate spent 2 weeks riding in Iceland in July 2010. It was ace. Despite the fact that I hopelessly underprepared physically!

The riding bug has well and truly bitten me and I love riding to and from work. I only live about 0.8 miles from work but I now ride 9 – 13.5 miles home (80% uphill) just so I can ride for longer. I even look forward to the ride home. I find myself plotting longer routes home now.

I have competed in Devon Dirt Mountain bike race and the Dartmoor Classic this year.

I even took my bike to NZ this Summer and rode in some amazing places!

I feel so much happier because I ride. Ask my wife…

Cycling has given me back my self esteem, and taken away over two stone…

Rowley Birkin…

Pure genius

Spent 4 weeks in NZ over the Summer. Did not ride around Auckland bit did manage some riding at Rotorua at Whakarewarewa Forest which was better than anything I have ever had the pleasure of riding before. Chap who worked there was very helpful too. They sell a trail map which is printed on material so you can scrunch it up in your pocket and it doesn’t get spoiled, called a “manky”. You need a map (on a hanky) as the park is enormous!

Then rode a bit around Wellington, on Mont Victoria. Very steep but great fun.

Finished off around Queenstown, on Dewers Peak and some of the Devils creek trail. Got a bit snowy though…

Lots of lovely riding. Locals all looked at me like I was mad as I wanted to ride in the “middle of Winter”, and the fact that I took my own bike with me as it was cheaper than hiring one there…

Si