drive down there (from Bristol), setting off whatever time we are able to get away from work in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, get as far as we can

So that’ll be junction 19 on the M4…

Where does the water go, that’s being pumped out the reservoir? They’re presumably pumping out a considerable amount of water and it’s not as if they can store it in a few buckets until the dam is fixed.

Love the EM’s but find it hard to enjoy anything beyond 2010, so showing my age. Whilst being a techno junky, I always enjoy this mix from “one half of deep dish” for a bit of turntable tweaking and general zone out and day dream type of experience. It just has the right level of intro/build up/main set/wind down and outro to end of set. And press repeat.

Essential Mix Sharam 2006

“And deer do cough with a bark like sound and look nothing like dogs.”

In jest though, the dog comment from croe was funny.

Donation made. It all sounds pretty scary but delighted to read that you’re safe.

ElShalimo

Member

@z1ppy – your mate is an idiot. Or you’re just trolling

It is for a similar reason that a colleague has just sold his motor home. Once set up in the campsite, awning in place, electric plugged in etc., that was it, he couldn’t drive anywhere without packing everything up. Where-as a caravan can be de-coupled from the vehicle, giving freedom of travel with the vehicle. I guess it depends on how long you plan on staying in one location and whether you want to visit places beyond what you cancel reach by bike/local forms of transport.

Quite intrigued by the new direction this thread is going on, with regard to the analysis of the @campgareth data.

Meanwhile, on the OP’s opinion on ebikes, “I’m sure they serve their purpose for people with disabilities and old age going against them.”

Care to expand on this?

“Will we all be forced out of the convinience of trail centres and pushed to the the secret squirrel trails and out into the middle of no where so the ebikes can’t find us.”

How could you be ‘forced’?

Sounds great, as I have neither the time nor inclination to do my own repairs. So you’d pick up my bike, fix it and return it on the day? Would the price be comparable with my lbs or would you charge a bit more to reflect the convenience? Would you also build bikes to spec? Would you offer wheel building/trueing?

Was up to 36ish C the last few days, between Zurich and Lake Konstance. I don’t understand how people can ‘sunbathe’ in that weather. Now we’re camping for a few days in the north-western foothills of the Austrian Alps and it’s a more comfortable 30ish. Stormy weather is supposed to be rolling in on Friday afternoon so hopefully the temperature will drop a few degrees.

“stupid last 800mtrs of gravel at the top of an already butt busting climb”

I did Planche des Belle Filles on Saturday. The first part of the last bit after the really lung busting bit past the ski station was fairly hard pack chalky gravel and not too bad (although it was dry which helped). However it was the kick up in the last 40 metres or so that went on to loose asphalt and seemed OTT. A rider on a motocross bike didn’t make it as the bike lost traction and flipped over.

Thanks all, that’s helpful.

Depends on the weather. Take two just in case. Might be worth taking a jacket too.

So the most robust grounds for appeal could be: “on establishing their presence on the road, the pedestrian should have had all senses alert to other users already established on the route.”

This sets the case that pedestrians have a duty to reduce the likelihood of unexpected behaviour to occur at locations where there are typically higher incidents of accidents.

Following a ten year negotiation period with Mrs Doordonot, I have finally secured release for more than five days. Plan is to drive to Saas-fee valley in a month or so, via stop over for dark-side action climbing TdF stage 6 hills around / including the Ballon d’Alsace. Then it’s a week of high Alpine hiking and mountaineering, then a bit more road tripping to pick up the rest of the fam.

Thanks folks.

Raining 🤷🏼‍♂️

The ‘About Me’ and ‘Welcome’ links both go to the same page. As others have said, it’s all about you, everywhere; every page seems to open with a picture of you. How about pictures of the area you want to ‘guide’, trails, paths etc. Would be good to see this place you like so much and try to convince the reader to come here too. ‘About me’ – what are your qualifications? How many years mtb racing and to what standard?

Nice that you like it and you found someone special to share that place with you, but I feel like it’s all about you and your connection and not reaching out to engage me.

That aside, nice logo, simple layout, easy to navigate. Good luck.

A couple of weeks ago I saw the plate, “U L05ER L” on a BMW in a respectable part of Greater London. Couldn’t help thinking the joke was on the owner.

… and stop selling loads of cheap tat. Go back to having a lean range of bikes, frames and essential geeky bits. Leave the headsets and bearings and so on to the ‘bay or LBS.

But also name one of the bikes the Big Fat Dog.

Tom, oh yeah, that’s it – d’oh! I couldn’t figure out why the winner of group D has been normally racing group A. He was a quick 55 year old, pushing out something like 5.5w/kg most the way round.

Did my longest zwift race to date: 50km / 5 laps of Central Park; 1hr 30. Had a bored point at around 45 minutes but managed to push through that. Only two of us in the group (D) and I trailed in 8 minutes behind the group winner. However his time would’ve put him in to 4th in the B group, where-as the three other riders I rode with placed top 4 in C group, so that was a better benchmark. I’ll be back in to C group next ride.

Then I did the BRT Ages event on Friday and in a group of five in D group, the first four would’ve put them into the top 5 in A group.

I don’t see the point of ‘racing’ in a group so displaced from a person’s capability. It was a bit irksome as it meant there was no one for me to pace against. Pulled out after two laps. Highlight was a mid-race ride-on from weeksy. Then I asked the group winner why they raced out of category. Haven’t had a reply yet. I’ll probably get flamed now.

Ton, sorry to read about that. I’d like to reiterate what others have said: do find someone to talk to and if you don’t have someone, do take up the offers here. Don’t hang around, just do it. I do fear that, as others have said, the loss of community makes people feel considerably more vulnerable and there is a lack of peer support.

Last September I set up a dads group when junior started at primary school, because it seemed to me that dads walk in the shadow of the mums during school time. My hope was that dads would have a group to meet up with each month for a beer and some grub and shoot the breeze, have a bit of banter, but also talk about the kid(s) and any issues at school or otherwise. Word has already got around with someone saying they wish they had a dads group.

did the Ridgeway Double last summer with the intend of following up with a SDD

Ha! This is what I’m thinking as I grew up local to the Marlborough Downs part of the Ridgeway, then lived in Tring for a while, so did the single from Ivinghoe Beacon westwards. The double (about 180 miles?) seems pretty straightforward on a dry day, and a good training session for getting the lights and nutrition dialled.

DrP, I think it was you and njee who I was keeping tabs on about your speedy attempts at SDW singles and doubles. Sub-9 hours is remarkable; do you/have you done much xc racing?

In terms of what the big deal is about the SDW; for me it’s a nice and fast, rolling route, sense of exposure without being too remote, and water taps means it can be done lightweight.

I’m doing the Stroud half marathon, which is in October. It’s a road event which I generally avoid because I find 13 miles of tarmac quite punishing. However, it’s to pace a friend who’s doing his first half. Its been a couple of years since I last ran a meaningful distance (marathons and ultras) so I’m winding down to more manageable dashes.

What other race/challenge recommendations are there for xc half marathons in June/July? Somewhere scenic would be nice. Something a bit different. I’ve not done a fell race so might have a go.

Cobrakai, thanks for the gate opening offer, but for me that’s part of the challenge. Sounds like you’d be a similar pace though, so keep your options open in case we can agree a date.

I did the sub-12 on a 1×10 29er Scandal with 100mm Rebas and tubeless 2.25 Spesh ground controls. This time will be same set up but with tubeless nobby nics. Also, I don’t use gels or energy drink, but if it’s hot I’ll take a few electrolyte tabs.

In terms of my training, an added twist is to do most of it in zwift with club/solo rides when possible (because I’m time-pressed). People ‘dis zwift but it got me pretty fit last time.

As with the single (W-E), presumably the official start/finish for the double is the Winchester monument?

@robcolliver, when you did the double double, did you go all the way to the Winchester monument each time? It’s a bit tedious.

Ok, good to know. How long did it take you to walk the climb?

Well, that’s why I don’t want to say sub-24 hours or go home. There’s still merit in finishing the double ‘as fast as I can’, and therefore the challenge then becomes one of figuring out the best average to maintain without hitting the wall. That’s partly where I went wrong first time: being so fixated on the sub24, that I didn’t allow myself to concede that finishing the double was still a worthwhile achievement.

There are several points I need to get into the mindset for, including the climb out of Eastbourne back on to the SDW to start the return journey.

So anyway, in a roundabout way I was wondering if anyone else wanted to start at or around the same time as a sort of pace-making challenge. It’s not that everyone goes at the same pace or needs to talk to each other (I know! Crazy), but rather that seeing someone else you recognise from the start, either pulling away, chasing one-another down or still on the outward journey while another is on the return, could make it quite motivational. At night, seeing other bike lights flashing about on the route would be an experience.

‘The Gap’ on Friday with some oldies, one of whom was on a new skool 27.5 fat bike and giggling like a five year old on the descents. Fat bikes on rocky trails get my vote. But I managed to improve my Strava pb by around two minutes on my skinny tyre FS 29er. Old skool rules.

Nice to see small start-ups like this. Seems well thought out and I enjoyed the photo captions. Beer taps in the kitchen is brilliant. Perhaps selling and installing those could be your day job? Comes with a taster keg.

It’s obviously three spurious references taken out of context:

1. “Man miles” as in, I cycled fifteen man miles today. And now I feel epic;

2. “goose with face” as in, “I saw a goose with a face like a horse”;

3. “19 and a bit years ago” as in, “I cycled fifteen man miles, 19 and a bit years ago.”

I asked a similar question a few years back – the last post on the thread might be the answer you’re looking for e.g. a hope alternative (url link thingy isn’t working):

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/smoothie-mixer-needs-a-smoothie-crown-race/

That said, that was back in the day when I did my own repairs and spent hours trawling the internet to get the correct part. Next time round I took it to my lbs and they just sourced something out of their box of stuff, not a hope or on-one part.

Now’s the time to get a decent uplift service, combine Afan and Glyncorrwg (as mentioned earlier in this thread) and pitch the combined trail centre as a more enduro version of BPW? Plenty of places to park the T5’s, opportunity to have racing and camping and, close to surf on the south-west coast. Maybe even run some roadie sportives out from the centre.

Yep, used them over Christmas. I prefer them as they treat the customer as a person essential to their business model and not a pita.

What time were you there? I set off around 11am, when most the loop was still in shade/shelter from the wind. Other than a few pockets of sun, it was only the last 1/4 or so as you come round one of the last exposed the hillsides (castle valley?) where it was sunny and a bit slushy. Still powder dry in the shade and amongst the plantation.

So you’re taking about someone who is generally spot on, on racing and bikes (all types), skillz, tech, debating, spanner monkeying, style, beer, edl? No-one. Not even molgrips.

Is that Cwmcarn or FoD?

No idea about FoD either, although I would’ve thought the roads are open. I might risk it for Cwmcarn anyway. It’s all about the adventure.

@qwerty, the ‘light dusting’ resulted in a six car pile-up on Bear Hill this morning. There was a pretty good blanketing in the Woodchester valley, gone by the afternoon though.

tacx T2240

+1. Got mine on the carpet and it’s pretty quiet even when I’m out the saddle giving it the beans. Drive chain on the other hand sounds like a bag of spanners, which I suppose is the advantage of going with a direct drive.