I’ve got merino baselayers from Icebreaker, dhb, Rapha, Sugoi and Embers, and they all get a lot of use. They’re all great. In terms of value for money I think the dhb stuff is right up there.

“Bezanson”? Bejayzus! 😯

It may be what thomthumb says – it was the cause of mine overshifting when I was too stoopid to drop the mech having put an MTB chainset on in place of a road triple. Oops. 😳

Acquired a big chopper.
Darn too slow.

But did he pin her?

I really liked the build quality of my Dahon Cadenza, very well made / good components. Only got rid of it because I don’t commute any more.

Am I right in thinking I’m detecting a fair bit of this kind of thinking driving certain behaviours on here…? 😉

A one-time marine biologist, I now spend most of my time getting people to talk with each other so they make better (less bad? good?) decisions.

Most of the time, great fun. Not so fun when doing stoopid workloads due to inability of clients to see that a quinquennial cycle comes around, oooh, about… every – five – freakin’ – years – surprise!!

Yeah, there was a guy who did John O’Groats-Land’s End with us earlier this year, George. Set a world record. Amazing effort from an amazing person. The backstory[/url] to his ride makes it even more impressive. And a thoroughly nice bloke too.

This is Dyson – half Staffie, quarter lab, quarter whippet. All dopey. Oh, and that’s Dusty the cat just turfed him off his bed, the gert big wuss.

Hehe, excellent blog 😆 After my snip, my left nut felt like it had gone up to the size of a grapefruit, but I exaggerate – it was only more like a satsuma 😐

About 10 days sitting around and the purchase of my first full susser made it all better though 😉

Salsa Moto Rapido. Just great fun.

The convertape guy on eBay / t’interweb sells a whole load of different velcro options, may be of use?

I did it twice this year, once in early April and once in late September. It was great fun both times. The first was with an unfit friend and the second with a large group of mixed abilities, so we went in three days, split with overnight stays at Malham and York, and it was very steady.

Very doable in two days for anyone of moderate fitness. I’m hoping to do it in one day next year but it’ll be going some. I think someone has already done it in about 16 hours.

I’d advise 25c tyres at least, it’s pretty broken up in places. As others have said, the drop into Pateley Bridge is quite character building, especially if loaded with panniers…

I have the gpx files if you want them, drop me a line if you do.

What fuzzhead said re cleaning – a few years ago I had to take mine pretty much from doing Mayhem to Canada. Gave it what I thought was a pretty good clean but even so they gave me a really hard time at customs.

And even more so about my cycling shoes – they took ’em away and scrubbed ’em, said I was lucky for them not to bill me for the pleasure! 😯

Fair enough, it was my oversight 😳 – managing (agricultural) disease spread is a real concern, and the Aussies are very hot on this.

I got overtaken by a lorry tyre at the Almondsbury interchange (M5/M4). It was around 1am, I was in the left hand lane, it was in the fast lane, no other vehicles around, nowt. Bizarre.

What crikey and timbur said.

Also, keep your hands away from Mrs B’s teeth during the event, I got bitten when Mrs D was bearing down. It hurt.

As above – Tifosi Fototec are very good value.

Impressive! Nuts, but impressive!!

1) Afan Argoed
2) Glentress
3) Gwydyr

Tough call between Gwydyr and Brechfa though!

I think I can probably dig out the gpx files from my Cyclemeter app for the 9 day JOGLE if you want them to square up with rootes1’s LEJOG files. Just let me know.

That sounds like a very good baseline of fitness / training to me. Throw in the occasional century ride, just to get the Time In The Saddle and you’re there. I didn’t get anywhere near that level of mileage until the last three or four weeks before JOGLE this year, and was fine with the 1,000 miles in 9 days that we took, so I’m sure you’ll be absolutely flying – have fun! 😀

Alpkit does some funky little gadgets / jewellery type stuff for climbers.

Sometimes 20, sometimes 90: sometimes a 2 hour day, sometimes round the clock – we’re very flexible! And ‘peaky’ is actually how I prefer to work. Means I can go out and play to balance out the mad days.

Weekends are still pretty much sacrosanct though.

It becomes a problem however when it turns out the peak is actually a plateau which you saw coming all along, had warned about, and no-one had planned to deal with 😕

Did JOGLE on the Planet X SL Pro earlier this year, it was very comfortable in terms of geometry, with about an inch of spacers under the stem (and 25c tyres).

Macavity, thanks for that link. I inadvertently appear to have been using the right pressure for my 12-and-a-bit stone! Generally about 95psi rear and 90 up front on a 25c.

Lovely day for a pootle in Zummerzet, just what the doctor ordered for anti-depression therapy.

Went to Bath Archers’ club, great fun. Nice’n’small, low key – some fun night shooting too! 8)

Driving conditions were foul last night, driving back from Yeovil up to Bruton in the fog was horrible. Had to take it really slow. We’re used to bad fog from living up in Leeds, but I’ve never known anywhere that gets it so patchy/thick.

That said, it sounds like the accident was more down to the driver entering from the slipway without due attention. Horrendous situation: excellent work by the emergency services, as ever.

As wwaswas says – no charge for either the buyer or seller via PayPal Gift UNLESS the buyer uses a credit card – the PayPal balance or link to bank account routes are free.

Hedonism.

Done. Will put the word around.

Superb – I’m crying here! 😀

Being out in the sun / wind / rain / mud / dust / dark / for ages / for a short local blast / for a two week epic abroad / on my own / with good mates. But being out.

Sticky pistons.

Done about 10 years ago, as an outpatient visit. The right nut, no problem, I think the Senior Registrar was doing it. No after pain at all, just the odd tugging feeling while they were snipping.

The left nut… I reckon they must have got some oik off the street, or more likely it was a brand new shiny Junior House Officer. They had to go and get the consultant to QUOTE rummage around UNQUOTE 😯 for the vas def which had retreated into my scrotum.

As the (male) nurse wheeled me into the ward he had a quiet word with the sister, and said I’d had a fair bit of trauma 😐 So for about 10 days I had one nut doing a good impression of Buster Gonad, the other perfectly fine. Very frustrating as most people seem to have no worries. Missed Mayhem too!

But it did give me the perfect excuse to go and get a full susser 😀

Like I said… tazzymtb leading the vanguard! It will indeed be “MAHOOOO…OSIVE” 😉

Not very…

A client saying “What we really want is some high level detail”. 🙄

I was _that_ close to playing back to her Douglas Adams’ line that “what we want are clearly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty” just to see if she twigged…

Charlie doth speak truth…. (and he was very helpful with my CC, TC and Fargo!) 😀

I think the way it wupped the carbon roadies was because of the engine, Ade 😉

‘Tis true though, the CC is just a fun bike for anything really, on or off road. Sold mine but only because I have the Traveller’s Check (S’n’S couplings) version 😀