Spain, TJ. I used to go in to work sick as a dog because I didn’t get paid if I didn’t. Each country has its own rules on sick pay. Then there’s dealing with the crap that’s accumulated when you get back if you take time off, in a sector working to deadlines.

I suspect in this friends case the options are quit or fired. And both would be bad for the rest of the friend’s life. So he feels trapped, but knows freeing himself might be worse.

Just get on with life doing what you can of what you’d normally do and one day it’ll  be in the past.

I don’t think I can rival six months of councelling but it doesn’t sound like your friend’s problème is just his job. And I doubt a different job would change much. Like many people of your friend’s age, keeping all the balls up in the air – job, partner, kids, home, distant family, bills, activities, others’ expectations… requires energy and motivation.

So which of those balls really needs to be kept up right now? Kid(s), definitely. Job to keep the kid ball up. I don’t know how your friend would feel about seeing other balls lying on the ground beyond the personal activities one that is already there. Maybe if your friend picked that one up again it would make it easier to keep the others up.

Pleased to read about you using the train so much, Kryton. Much as I like EVs, in your situation with a low mileage car you like, I’d stick.

They can drive and drink in some places and it’s a pity they can’t vote.

Don’t wait till you’re retired to walk the GR10, you’ll suffer too much to enjoy it. Do it ASAP. And mix it with the HRP and Spanish GR11 which for some sections aren’t any harder but more out there.

No, not too young. IME kids are more likely to do something daft at 19 than 15.

St Briavels because I stayed in it on one of my first weekends with the Southern Section CTC.

Blois, a lot learned.

Pau, I visited with in-laws I remember fondly, and I’ve run through the grounds hundreds of times.

Amboise, junior loved the Da Vinci garden.

I pretty much gave up on humour on this site a decade ago, Bruce. Some kinds of humour work, mainly black or deadpan. Anything too clever and people will (deliberately) misunderstand or assume you’re ignorant or thick which is easier and better for their self esteem. If you do try humour the addition of ‘sic’, ‘pun intended’, ‘note the irony’ and copious smileys (when they are available) just might get the message across that you’re not being entirely serious. Maybe.

Be dull boring, play consistently straight and you might get a wry smile (your own) even if nobody else is amused. And if you do use humour people chose not to get, watch with detachment as they dive in ripping it to bits without for a moment thinking you’re marvelling at their bad faith in assuming the worst about you.

But above all, don’t worry about it, it’s only a bike forum and most members seem pretty good people behind their personas. The kind of people in or supporting the anti-fascist demos rather than fascists.

You don’t normally feel the need to put words into people’s mouths, Bruce. I said that the text books I used for foreign laguage teaching didn’t mention aspects, no more than that. I’m not denying their existance, you’re the one denying something people are happy and familiar with exists.

To deny the existence of the future tense(s) in English really isn’t mainstream even among English teachers. A key requisit when explaining things is using words your audience understands. Talk about tenses and most of your audience is with you, they can relate to what you’re saying and will probably understand. Talk about moods or aspects and most are thinking about things other than using verbs in appropriate forms.

No news on the fate of the rioters or their puppet masters today ?

I suggest typing “future tenses in English” into Google because you’ll get a whole lot more results to reputable sites giving good explanations.

Every English as a foreign language textbook I used had chapters on future tenses in English without a mention of aspects.

No point worrying much about grammar anyhow, just imitate. Which is why I know that “je travaille demain” is the best way to communicate the fact I’m working tomorrow.

Someone with a humungous carbon footprint dies when hit by an increasingly common due to climatic change Med storm. Whilst the other using his feet to walk somewhere carbon free gets taken down by a car. Karma works in strange ways.

How 2000s. The fibre in our street has about as many users as the copper wire telephone lines that still dangle between poles and houses. 5g phones and 300giga a months for 19e99 has made fibre redundant for most people round here.

The A470, the most dangerous road in Wales, and still up there even if you take into account the length.

I worked for Welsh Water based in Aberaeron for 5 years driving 20 000 miles or more sampling, investgaing, site visiting so I’m familiar with those roads which despite low traffic levels have a lot of crashes, often misjudged overtakes.

My landlord’s son, a farmer, had an overtaking accident – a tractor pulled out only looking the way he was expecting cars to come from. He lived. Decades later I was reading the Welsh press online and realised the person killed in a similar collision was the landlord’s grandaughter. :(

A car that accelerates well gives drivers the feeling the can make safe overtakes with shorter gaps. The reality is that when you overtake another vehicle doing 50 you’re on the wrong side of the road well over the speed limit and someone doing the same as you might be coming the other way.

Mine’s run out, all the ones important are ticked or being lived now. Sure I’ve still got ideas but they don’t mean enough to me to have regrets if they never happen.

Having driven in the UK recently I can’t get my head around people here seeing overtaking performance important. Most people were driving up to the limit and if anyone wasn’t a queue soon formed so I’d have had to overtake dozens of cars to achieve anything other than change my place in the line.

Other people were sensibly not bothering to try to overtake, there were few gaps in oncoming traffic and if there was a gap the next on-coming car was often speeding.

High risk no reward. Pointless. Leave a good gap, relax and enjoy whatever you have on the audio.

Yes, to the original question, quite useful as a geologist who loves maps.

On the language thing I have ideas without language then find the words in the appropriate language to express them, or not depending on the language

The previous government managed the dual feat of sending back qualified useful Europeans and allowing in legally record numbers of poorly qualified from elsewhere. And at the same time the goverment demonised refugees and people arriving on boats which reflected on all immigrants thus increasing racist sentiment and here we are now.

Je travaille demain/Je bosse demain

Motorists moaning about cyclists using bike infrastructure as intended on a bike forum.

See also Motorists sitting in their two tonnes of high embedded CO2 materials taking up huge amount of space and being the major congestion problem moaning about the space dedicated to cyclists.

Take a taxi. Go up to the first taxi in the rank, show them the trip you want to do and ask for a quote for when you want to do the trip. Taxis in Spain are regarded as public transport. With 4/5 in the Taxi it’s often more convenient and not much more expensive than the train.

May kill people

If the drivers in the jams had the French/German reflex of making a corridor for emergency vehicles no lives would have been threatened.

I was on the A36 recently which stopped due to an accident which showed on Maps in minutes. Two cars moved to leave a corridor, me and another car on French plates. I heard sirens and moved as far over as possible, so did the other French car. The other drivers only reacted as the ambulance tried to push through.

However, I’ve been mightily impressed with the great British public who have done more to clear the streets of fascists than the government. Starmer – unimpressed, whoevet said he should have been taking on Farrage directly I agree with.

The BBC have been hopeless, sitting on the fence before finally coming around to the most benign scenarios rather the more likely rapidly accelerating end of the spectrum. From 2014 I give you the BBC “Impacts page”.

Scientists around the globe are looking at all the evidence around climate change and using supercomputer models to come up with predictions for our future environment and weather.

However, the next stage of that work, which is just as important, is looking at the knock-on effects of potential changes. For example, are we likely to see an increase in precipitation and sea levels? Does this mean there will be an increase in flooding and what can we do to protect ourselves from that?

How will our health be affected by climate change, how will agricultural practices change and how will wildlife cope? And what will the effects on coral be?

And while it may be controversial some would argue that climate change could bring with it positives as well as negatives.

Wishy washier and less commital it would be hard to write. The BBC is finally reacting somewhat late and mildly to the alarm signals from the activists. For over 10 years now the two major French channels have been including climatic change in the weather reports pretty much every night.

An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006, clearly no-one at the Beeb went to see it.

Closest stage race finish I’ve ever seen. Fascinating seeing the gap respond to every change in pace.

So why the numerous complaints from the people of STW about the harsh sentencing of JSOs, Stumpjon? They’re raising awareness, provoking debate, and as with the civil rights movement “people” will at some point change. Back in the early 70s I don’t remember seeing huge anti-fascist demos when skin heads were beating immigrants up. Today the “bad actors” are having their arses handed to them.

Attitudes are changing and it isn’t the scientists alone who are provoking the change. It’s the activists who are doing the most to get the message across. So some don’t like the message, but it needs to be so big and loud they can’t ignore it.

People don’t know instinctively when they’re on the wrong side, they need convincing.

While Binner’s was off his head in Hacienda I was enjoying good company, racing cars (with a competition licence in events so none of you were at risk unless you wanted to be) caving, clubing, climbing, horse riding, mountaineering, skiing, wind surfing and a long list of other sports and activities – all stone cold sober.  I was an occasional drinker and I’m now tea total, very occasionally smoked a joint or picked mushrooms but didn’t find it “absolutely brilliant fun” in fact it was deadly boring and left me feeling grot after. Sex with C or M or…  was absolutely brilliant fun with absolutely no hangover.

In most of those activities drugs were used and available, I just didn’t, not even playing in a band where there was more than a little social pressure to join in, and to be honest I was relieved when it ground to a halt.

The social aspect is the point of this post. It’s a social thing as much as a kicks thing. Being part of the scene is the motivation behind a lot of the drug taking, smoking and boozing. People can’t say no, that would require mental strength and a certain disregard for what others might think. The second part of the social thing is the Dutch courage part of drink and drugs, people know they can do things drugged up they otherwise wouldn’t have the courage or determination to get through. And that’s where we get to coked up fascists and tree surgeons.

We don’t all like the same things, Binner’s idea of absolutely brilliant fun leaves me indifferent, however skinning up a mountain (pun intended), sitting on the top munching a peanut butter sandwich in good company then skiing back down is”absolutely brilliant fun”, to me. One requires handing over a bank note for substances, the other a bit more effort to earn many more bank notes, accumulate the gear and experience then making the effort to get to the right place at the right time.

Cheap kicks followed by a hangover, no ta.

No drugs visible beyond the occasional pint visible on the PGCE course I did OP. I know a lot of teachers and only one smokes an occasional joint.

:) the “riz cantonnais” the credit was used to pay for was all the better for the lack of effort needed to get it hot and edible on two plates. We didn’t eat the plates and ate it with conventional cutlery rather than chop sticks. The credit card lives to make another such purchase when we’re both too lazy to cook properly. :)

The climate scientists have convinced governments they need to take action but the instant governements do they have a mini-revolution on their hands. The French gilet jaune protests started with a woman starting the movement to protest about eco-taxes on diesel and the gilet jaune tract I got was very specifically anti-EV, anti-wind power and pro cheap diesel, petrol and gas. The problem isn’t the heads of state, it’s the people. In particular the vocal climate sceptics on social media such as STW where only very recently have the wilfully ignorant gone quiet(er).

The politicians know where we’re headed but that doing anything about it is political suicide. Check out Labour party promises and then compare it with what they actually do. Theresa May promised “net-zero” by when was it?2050. What did she do to achieve that? Nothing.

Stopping oil isn’t going to happen not because of what the government decides or does, it’s because of what you me and everyone else decides and does. It’s only when billions of people take personal responsability that anything significant will change. For that the existential threat will have to be real to them, and by then it will be to late.

Unspoken peace declaration walking through town yesterday early evening.

“What’s for dinner”, she asks

“Any ideas”, I reply – silence which I break with “bit early for a kebab – supermarket’s still open though”

“one of those frozen stir fry bag things” she ventures

“Yup, I’ve got a credit card”

She defrosted it in the microwave, I stir fried it.

Whatever the sentences handed out don’t lose sight of the fact JSO are on the right side of history. In the not too distant future they’ll be seen in the same way as Rosa Parks refusing to give up a bus seat, raised fists at an Olympics, my great aunt suffragette writing “votes for women” on an Mp’s wall, De Gaule’s call from London… and all the other defiant gestures that were on the side of right and good.

Having been in the same clubs and done the same events for three decades it’s quite easy for us to dress the same and it makes us smile. Going through junior’s stuff recently we found some club jerseys in different sizes from his racing days, we gave them to him and he sent us a pic of him and his girlfriend wearing them on a bike tour.

It seems STW Ts sell well.

Go on, get the T-shirt, then wear until it falls off your back.

Edit: I missed the thread being months old and several pages long and highly entertaining, sorry for such a boring post.

The Shimano 12s chain has u-shaped chain rollers which don’t run perfectly on a SRAM cassette. So use a SRAM chain or better still a KMC X12 which I find runs better on the Shimano 12S chainring and fine on the SRAM cassette. The old 11S shimano Deore crankset is identical to the 12S apart from the chainring. The 11S chainring has shorter teeth that aren’t profiled for the u-shaped 12S rollers and runs perfectly with the KMC X12 or 11/12S SRAM chains.

Madame Edukator and here sister both swear by Hoka trail shoes for walking. Both found them excellent from the moment they put them on. Just walking around the shop should give you a good idea of whether they are going to suit your needs.

Should leave it plugged in, even a 13 Amp socket should have enough grunt to keep the battery charging (albeit slowly) and warm.

I’ll ask the ski resort to equip every parking place with a 13A socket like they do in Finland. ;)

So the Daily Mail is now accurately reporting on the violence its decades long anti-regugee agenda has helped to provoke, Easily.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13107707/Fury-plans-house-asylum-seekers-tiny-Cumbrian-town-grips-homes-shortage-Bid-migrants-eight-rundown-properties-sparks-anger-police-increasing-patrols-accommodation-vandalised.html

It’s got all the classic anti-immigrant nonsense in there if you can be bothered to read it:

They point out that residents already struggle to book GP appointments, there are no dentists, the nearest fully manned police station is 45 minutes away in Whitehaven, hospitals are at least 40 minutes away and 112 local families are on the waiting list for rented accommodation.

One local said: ‘It’s already virtually impossible to get a dental appointment in Millom. The only dentist in town isn’t taking new NHS patients and has a long waiting for private patients.

‘It’s also a struggle to get an appointment at the GP, you have to be quick to get in and it’s a case of queuing on the phone and hoping you’ll be able to see a doctor that date and often you can’t.

I’m not bothered about a traffic lights grand prix (quite the opposite) but do like the instant and totally reliable go when feeding into traffic at roundabouts or pulling out into gaps in traffic on a major road.

A thank you to those STWers who over the last couple of years have announced they’re giving up linking Twitter/X and have stuck to it.

As for the Daily Mail, we all know what it stands for and how seriously (not) to take it. With Twitter/X you never know which perhaps makes it even more subversive.

Best sound system, possibly:  Renault Scenic techno option “iconic” which has Harman Kardon audio.

sounds more like a shortfall in your car than a general EV thing ! :)

Drive your car up to a ski resort in January, leave it outside then get back to us with how much range you have and the amount of regen braking on tap. It’s quite handy having a warning about limited regen because when you’re used to one-pedal driving it’s a bit odd having to brake for bends.

The i4 battery unit weighs 500kg. Now work out how much energy is required to get that from say zero to 12°C. Your cabin might be warm but the battery will take much longer to warm up.

Driving the Zoe out of the garage at 12°C everything works fine right from the off. Leave it outside in sub zero temperatures and even after 10 minutes of pre-heating the battery is still so cold there’s a big red warning to say the regen isn’t working, and the range is lousy.

The Aussies might wear hats but leave so many other areas exposed they have the highest skin cancer rates in the world:

Skin cancer statistics