Been coerced into doing the Tour of East Lothian audax on Sunday with some fit (and competitive) roadies from work. Hopefully they will drop me early on and I can settle into pootling along, chatting and stopping at every cafe :)

Its all good. By preference big natural trails exploring the wild and beautiful countryside but real life means I don’t often have time for that. For practicality, ease and being a known quantity trail centres are great but I wouldn’t be inclined to travel far just to ride at a trail centre and would travel far specifically to ride a ‘natural’ route. But the reality is 99% of my riding is on well trodden ‘natural’ trails in the local hills as I can ride there from the front door. So convenience trumps everything else for me.

Chickenman, done the Ben alder loop before and the climb to Bealach Breabag would definately be outside my no hike a bike limits these days!

Cheers Al, did gala back to Edinburgh late last year but climbed from innerleithen up leithen water to the mast at gt rather than going over gypsy Glen. Been looking at the route down to Melrose in the capital trail and will probably do that later this year.

Sent you an email nobeer. Never ridden on Arran before.

Lots of good stuff, keep them coming.

Bruneep, I’m central Scotland based so stuff I can get to and back in a day ideal, however I will also be up near Glenlivet next month and in torridon in summer.

Just to balance some of the big numbers here, mine is 141 at 63.5kg so 2.22w/kg bang on the average recreational cyclists ftp according to coggans table. And that’s exactly what I am :)

Thanks for sharing. Some really nice work. Makes me want to get back on the street with the camera again :)

Love that, sums up how much fun it is messing about on bikes. No fancy gear or niche bikes just a bunch of blokes having a great time.

Apparently I can’t take a bike.

Curious, I’m at the in laws from Xmas till the 28th. I’m under strict instruction to take the bike. We normally do Xmas at home so looking forward to someone else doing the work whilst I can chill.

I’ll be up for it, will keep an eye on this thread.

I went for a ride too, my Sunday lunch with the family was a three hour mid ride stop. Felt a little sluggish on the way home.

Many many moons ago.

Control theory.

Still work as a control engineer, buggered if can remember any of the clever maths I used to be able to do though.

Cheers Duncan just let me know where and when.

Hmm, Elite, I think the calculator is broken.

Currently at Tebay services, so no chance I will make it. Would be up for a spin later in the week though if anyone is out.

I should be coming out to play.

Great stuff. I lost 2 and 1/2 stone this year, currently retraining my habits in weight maintenance mode. Feels so much better and really bizarre when you try on your fat trousers and they just fall down, really eye opening how fat I was getting and didn’t realise.

As it looks like most folk are bailing out I may just stay in this Indian restaurant for longer than I planned then.

I’m back in Manchester on Monday so should be joining you again.

Vitamin D, I have ms and whilst there is no proven link my neurologist recommends taking it just in case the less sunshine/increased ms prevalence correlation proves to be related to vit d deficiency.

Mk1 Escort 1300e, In my head it looked like this:

In reality it was probably closer to this:

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Had some great times in that car :)

I’m still planning on being there.

Why do you need interest free credit. Would a bank loan + big discount on a sale bike not be cheaper than full price bike with interest free loan?

I’ll be in Manchester next week so will come and join you again on Monday.

135mm, awesome portrait lens. Too long to be practical 95% of the time though.

I’ll agree with b r for a closer to home option, borders railway to gala and ride back to Edinburgh. I did it last week, brilliant day out on the bike and finishing a long day on the bike at home is a bonus.

https://www.strava.com/activities/410292827

Early eighties I recall riding over the pentlands on a 3 speed Sturmer archered no braked monstrosity cobbled together from scavenged bike bits. 1982 I ruptured my spleen doing dirt jumps badly on a pals grifter, thus began a long history of regular a&e attendance. First ‘real’ mtb was a 91 Kona.

I have to agree with the convenience thing. 99% of my riding is off road, but only because it’s convenient and I’m off road 100yds from my front door with miles of trail to play on. If I had to drive to mtb then I think 99% of my riding would be road (assuming the road riding from my door was any good). All down to limited time and getting the most out of my ‘me’ time.

Here is mine, mostly street portraits but haven’t uploaded for ages:_

https://www.flickr.com/photos/66982909@N02/

I just had my kitchen templated for silestone, we have had silestone and corian samples in the kitchen for a few months and been using both as cutting boards. Silestone is immaculate, corian scratched to bits, I know the corian can be repaired but as I will pretty much neglect the worktops then I’d prefer to have something less likely to be damaged in the first place.

I don’t think taking a day out or pigging out occasionally is an issue at all, I lost 2 1/2 stone this year with plenty of off days. Although the fact you sound concerned about not having ridden for a day suggests you may be a bit obsessed with having to ride, time off is a good thing both for the body and the mind.

Full loop of torres del paine. Although not sure if by backpacking you mean trekking somewhere exotic or the club 18-30 style beer, beaches, hostel living and bumming about of the classic student packpacking in australia.

Middle aged, plenty of worn out bits, carrying a degenerative illness, but never been more content. Life is great.

I dropped 2 & 1/2 stone this year and it’s made a big difference. Not sure if I’m any faster but I can put in a decent length ride at a reasonable pace without feeling like I’m going to die. Its both weight loss and fitness gains as I’m riding more this year than I have for a few years (pretty much stopped riding for a few years and piled the weight on) and beginning to feel the old fitness return, although still a long way to go with the fitness.

Today I have mostly been painting the garden fence. Rain has stopped play now.

1 shed, emailed you back. Just name a place and time and I’ll head over.

That was great fun, if a little damp. Thanks for showing me round.

I’m working in Warrington next week so might join you all. Hope there is no objection to slow blokes with no discernible talent on the bike :)

Thanks all MNPR sounds good, will get the lights charged.1 shed, we could go for a bimble Wednesday or Thursday eve, will mail you direct.