If you have private health care get an MRI scan.

Mrs R heard something ‘snap’ in hers when a dog knocked her over. MRI scan a week later after the swelling had gone done showed exactly what the situation was and helped with deciding what to do.

It used to be repair asap but more recently advice seems to be work on strengthening it and let it properly stabilise. Only do the repair if you need it – you can wait years with no negative effects.
She has been able to do gentle hill walks but it quite good at her exercises and being careful so operation may not be needed for her to do the things she wants to do. It does mean any aspirations of being a professional footballer would be gone :-)

It’s an interesting question.

I get around it by deciding each year how much I want to give to charity – usually around £500 or so (but I feel a bit guilty that it’s that little given how much I earn)

I have a direct debit that takes half that, £50 usually goes on a TV relief donation and the rest to friends/colleagues doing stuff. I see those as supporting friends rather than giving to charity in the most economic way.

Isn’t great a relative term ?
One persons great is another persons average.

We had mice in the garage and I decided trying to seal up every possible way in was pointless.

I laid traps for a few weeks and caught loads of the buggers. One afternoon I caught two within seconds of re-baiting, re-setting.

Also invested in some of those sonic repellents to fill the place with sound.
After a busy couple of weeks they stopped.

I keep the traps down and the sonic things out and nothing in well over a year.

As an old dog myself I went with 4 other old dogs for a session with Jedi.
We all learned something new and I’m now a much better, smoother rider. It took time to practise as it’s not an overnight thing but the experienced personal view of your riding is well worth it IMO.

I often fall back to the underlying basics if things start to go pear shaped. Something I would have struggles to do beforehand.

I won’t embarrass a mate on the course who always had his inside foot forward when riding a figure of 8 despite knowing what to do and having decades of experience. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it

I have a Nomad, bought about 4 years ago now.

I use it at Mayhem etc and when we go on holiday but mainly it’s in the garage and gets used at least once a week as getting water to the front of the house is a pain. (I keep about 8 5l bottles to fill it up)
Been faultless in all the time I’ve had it – not cheap but will last.

We have a Canon MG6250 – printer, copier, scanner etc. I doubt it’s still available as they change the models pretty often
The best bit is it’s wireless so you can print from phones etc easily.

Daughter uses it for school to copy the odd thing.
Ink isn’t too expensive – I use an online place.

I have bought cheap before and regretted it.

I’ve also done both.
A 1:1 in the peaks and a group session (5 of us) with Jedi.

Both were good for different reasons.
The 1:1 I wanted to improve my downhill skills and it worked very well.

With Jedi it was overall riding and the group worked well with other people to watch, especially as it gets tiring sessioning at his place.

I think my most surprising was a woman who almost wiped me out on a roundabout. I was already on it turning right and she didn’t stop, came onto the roundabout and I’ve no idea how I wasn’t hit. She was making gestures as she did so.

I carried on, she went around the roundabout and followed me. At a set of lights she pulled up, got out and then proceeded to apologise and ask if I was OK. She had mis-judged my speed and was actually quite upset about the whole thing. The gestures were her trying to say sorry.

I doubt she’ll make that mistake again.

We had one visiting our garden and my experience of live traps and poison with mice led me to buy a rat sized snap trap.
Didn’t take long to not have a rat in the garden

With poison they run off and die – horrible death.
Live traps you have to take them miles away to be effective.
Snap trap – clean, quick and painless.

My daughter plays and has for the past few years.

I bought her a scrum cap but she tried it and decided to not wear it. She recently started playing at a higher level and thought it might give her confidence as the tackles are harder and she found it did.

Wife’s view was you must wear it. My view was her choice but make sure you understand the consequences.

I also got a pair of Meindl boots from Cotswolds, probably 5 years ago now. Took about 3 hrs for fitting and trying of different boots so go on a weekday afternoon.

I would highly recommend Meindl, mine are not light but they felt the best when I bought them and are fantastic to wear.

Yeti ASR

I have a mate who does exactly this for small charities and businesses.
All hosted on WordPress

It’s not a lot – will ask him exactly how much.

This whole Clarkson thing is interesting in how it polarises people.

Whether or not you like him, or his on screen persona (I’m assuming no-one here actually knows him), Top Gear brings in £50m in revenue from syndication and re-broadcast rights which helps fund other parts of the BBC.

The 3 amigo’s are a key part of that and they’ll all no doubt now be off elsewhere to do a similar show and the Beeb will be left with a big hole in it income. Not all the £50M but it won’t be the cash cow it has been. Given the freezing of the licence fee I can’t help but think it’s maybe not the best financial decision they’ve ever made.

I have a Glow worm X1 and can’t fault it.
Very light, very bright, good run time.
The remote control button is useful as you can run it on a low setting then with a simple press have it on full power.
You can program the power settings as well.

I’m about to get an X2 for the bars now distribution is sorted.

I’ve just bought an MX5 (2.0 SportTech) and it’s so much fun on smaller roads.
Not the fastest 0-60 but the gear change, gearing, handling and having the top down make it the most fun I’ve ever had in a car (apart from the Caterham drifting experience a few weeks ago)

I don’t want very fast but it overtakes with ease, revs to 7.5k and is more than enough on fun roads.

On the motorway I’ve had 41mpg, backroads is just over half that. Less MPG = more fun.

I’d be buying one pair of £70 bibshorts rather than 2 £35 pairs.

Having spent between £20 and £130 on shorts over the years I found that £70ish is the price where you get decent quality. My Endura bib shorts have lasted around 5 or so years of weekly use.

Howies bibs next on my list to try

Not difficult to change the bearings in my Yeti ASR.
I often (perhaps not that often) strip it down to clean and re-grease.

Why wouldn’t he take the measurements as per the website and trust that they get it right?

Given that most people do this and you don’t hear horror stories it seems sensible.

I would lean towards the 2yr and overpay the mortgage with the £120

Rates will go up at some point but who knows when. You’ll have around £3k less of a mortgage in 2 years.

You’re not always better off with a long term fix. 4 years ago our fixed rate came to an end and an advisor tried to get me onto another with the argument of knowing what the payments were, rates are bound to go up soon etc.

I took out an offset tracker and needed rates to stay the same for only 5 months to be better off. 40 months later the £200 odd extra I would have paid has meant the mortgage is now nearly £10k less than it would have been.

The offset helps as well, with savings rates so low all our short and medium term money is offsetting and overpaying as well means we are due to pay it all off 12 years early.

How do rate on Strava isn’t an accurate forecast of how you’ll do. Unless you’re the fastest I guess.
Racing is quite a bit different with the nerves, number of riders, attitudes etc.

As the others have said have a go and find out. Don’t set off too fast, treat it as a learning exercise and give yourself a low benchmark to bet in the next race. I found it’s better to be towards the back and then pass people as they slow up rather than going balls out and being passed.

You’ll have more fun that way and want to do it again. What’s the worst that can happen?

I would get a bunch of quotes, find someone who I wanted to do the job, with a ‘look after my stuff’ attitude and pay him what he wanted.

I’d rather pay a bit more to someone who will do a good job rather than sort out issues afterwards.

Been through similar with my Dad nearly 3 years ago now. He decided to stop the chemo himself as it was very hard.

Just pick up the phone and be prepared to get in the car and visit tomorrow. No matter what the decision.

Just use normal headphone set at a level where you can hear those downshift overtakers.

I wouldn’t do this. In my experience the wind noise created by having normal headphones in means you need the volume turned up and it’s much harder to hear traffic /other riders. The bone conducting headphones get around this as there is no wind noise created.

But I wouldn’t bother at all in a sportive, even if it isn’t against their rules.

In a sportive I’d do this. Find someone of a similar pace and have a chat. If’you don’t like them/get on with them/ find out they are tragically1969, then find someone else.

I have some aftershokz – M3’s and quite like them.

They don’t impair your hearing and I often listen to podcasts while out by myself. I find that my brain tunes out the music/podcast when I hear something I need to be aware of.
I probably use it on 50% of my solo rides as I also enjoy the madness in my head.

They do need charging up so on a long ride I’m not sure of the battery life.

I have an ASUS hub and bought an ASUS extender to get reach into the garden.

Was v easy to setup and works a treat.

I’m making similar plans for my garage and have been procrastinating for ages trying to decide what to do.

I was going to get a bench from BigDug and buy some shelves to put either side with plastic crates on to store stuff but am now tempted to have a go building a bench having seen trails_rat’s cave.

My plans for bike storage involve the use of a french cleat system on the wall.
The walls are breeze block and I’m now stuck with deciding on just painting it and attaching the rails with decent breeze block plugs or covering the wall with plywood to get a better finish.

I guess I need to take some before photos

All sounds like you’re doing the right thing.
If it were me a physio would be the first port of call.

If the physio can detect a muscle imbalance and says exercises will fix it then I would do exactly as they say.

I’d be considering a bike fit to ensure my position is right on the bike so it doesn’t re-occur.

Did the physio say to not ride ? I’d be tempted to have a gentle ride to see how it feels

I switched to EE when I renewed our mobile contracts and got 4G phones.
The all in one package of calls, broadband, mobiles etc was a good bit cheaper than BT.
Plus I managed to get 20GB of mobile data thrown in.

Same speeds as the infinity that BT provide and a very easy switch.

We’ve been going to Pembrokeshire (near Newport) for many years at Easter.

Lots of nice walking on the coastal path plus some nice hills.

Pubs are nice, biking good. Plenty to do with kids.

Just to add a bit of balance.

I use a Honda dealer to service our Accord estate. It rarely comes out at more that £300 and they often do things for free if I nip in (lightbulbs and checks).
Last but one service the car was an hour later than they said because a mechanic had cut himself so they were a man down – knocked £80 off the bill.

An independent was £75 cheaper when I last checked and didn’t give a courtesy car.

The dealers approach and attitude (I never feel like I’ve been ripped off) has meant I replaced our last accord with a newer one and will do the same again when we change. They have a long-term view of customers which I like – a free lightbulb and fitting 8 years ago has got them a long-term customer.

I’ve got FS and HT bikes and love riding them both.

About a year ago I bought a SS put rigid forks on and tool the plunge.

The first couple of rides were difficult. It’s harder in places (hills of course, but also the flat) and I kept looking for the shifter.

Didn’t take long to forget all that and it’s now a real joy to ride.
There are the physical challenges of rarely being in the gear I would be on a geared bike but the mental side is the difference for me.

I ride in a different way, because you have no choice. I love the simplicity, the quietness, the way you have to think about keeping the momentum.

Over a flat-ish 24 mile route I ride regularly I’m about 5 mins slower on the SS but the ride is much more fun.

I would really miss SSing now – I like the mindset and it makes you stronger, smoother and happier :-)

voted

nice pic

I have a Lezyne one and it’s very nice. Comes with a cover to stop it rattling and to protect it.

They do severakl so which one specifically will depend on how multi you want your tool

If you go to Cannock then ride the Monkey – it’s most of FTD plus more another loop about the same that’s more difficult. More climbing and faster downhill sections. You’ll have time for some sessions afterwards. FTD on it’s own isn’t that long.

I don’t get the haters – I really enjoy it whenever I go and riding it at full blast is a challenge.

We had one coming into our garden a few months ago.

I decided it was better for him/her to leave us alone so a rat sized snap trap did the trick.
I wouldn’t use poison as we used to live somewhere where they did and the buggers died under the floor of a flat and the smell was horrible.

It’s interesting that you think CRC should be out of pocket because of you not turning up.

Whether or not your reason is out of your control it’s not their problem.
7 days is a reasonable cut off point and if they let everyone cancel whenever they fancied it would be unworkable for them to run the day.

You can always get out of appointments, if you really want to. You clearly don’t.

Jedi is the man.

I bought a car last week and travelled 90 miles to get it.
Got a lot of info over the phone before and only went that far because after 2 months of trawling the net it was the one that matched what I was after.

There was a local one that was nearly what I wanted but it was worth the travel.