Like many others, I’m not successful at this at all. Equally, I also find regular exercise away from people helps bring my mood up.

On the work front, I’m trying to disengage to reduce my stress. I’ve always been the type of person who really “goes for it” at work. Not in a self promoting way, more of a trying to do everything to the absolute best of my ability. That has led to my emotions being far too tied to whether I perform well at work. After some pretty sobering feedback from the head of the company I work for (that isn’t really shared by anyone else I work with, but that ultimately doesn’t matter to my self image), I’m trying to cut that chord and not care as much about work.

It is a double edged sword, as then I feel that I’m not “worth it” and get really down on myself.

Overall, the whole worry about the stuff you can do something about is really good advice. It just takes a lot Iof mental effort to keep working that out minute by minute.

Tie that with you (well, me) naturally having less energy and more health worries as we all get older, and I wish I’d tried this a long time ago.

Very simply what I’m trying to do:

1. Care less about people and situations who don’t care about me.

2. Be more gentle but more frequent with exercise so that I can get fitter at a slower pace.

3. Try to eat even healthier (hardly drink, super low cholesterol, dislike sugar, and love veggies, but still fat).

4. Care more about the people that matter to me and try to get them know that I do.

5. Find something to be joyful about as often as possible.

Don’t know if it’s going to work, but got to try. Notice no targets above? ?

I use the Endura MT500 freeze trouser things during the winter. Primaloft gold. I’m a 38″ waist with 35″ inside leg, and they fit pretty well in XXL. Another month or so before the switch from shorts to trousers happens.

BasqueMTB. Massa Marittima. Sierra Nevada. Lake Garda. Luchon. Ainse.

Hut booties. Choose your outdoor manufacturer. The North Face for me.

I missed this thread when it came up originally. I’ve great memories of working in Korea as a nipper back in the 90s. I’d love to do this trip. Thank you fir all the pictures. Properly nostalgic.

San Sebastien … Luchon? Luchon is obviously in France, but very near the border. BasqueMTB for San Sebastien and AQR for Luchon.

Ordered with the stickers. Saw it on FB, ordered then noticed this thread when I closed the shopping window in my browser. Still got my Buddha mint keyring. Unfortunately, the little loop for threading the ring died long ago, so it looks like he has little horns.

Lives in pride of place on my home desk.

The ink subscription from HP is all well and good until they stop supporting your particular printer and are left with a useless lump of plastic. Even when you try to get “cheaper” cartridges for it, nobody does them because it was covered by the ink subscription service. Grrrrrr.

M&S dry roasted peanuts are very nice. A bit like Pringles in that, once you pop, you just can’t stop.

Well. Glassie was pretty darned good, and parking at the church in Weem was a good suggestion. I forgot to take any knee or elbow pads, so was taking it easy. The black trails were not super black, but probably at my limit for blind riding on my my own.

I was glad I took my ebike though. That winch up the fire road would get tiresome if I was trying to do that without assistance.

Cool. I didn’t think you were allowed to park at the bunkhouse if you weren’t staying there.

The LT had a super slack seat angle, so if you are big for the frame size (I was as they only went up to XL), I’d say that a mullet setup would make that worse still. It would climb like a wandery thing and you’d be forever perched on the nose of your saddle.

To be fair, I never liked my LT mainly because of this. I replaced it with a TRC as soon as they came out, and that was a great bike (still running with one of my friend’s son).

+1 for Ergon GE1 grips.

Just got my new bike with XT linkglide (on purpose). Seems to shift OK, but not quite as nice as XT 12 speed on my normal bike. Quite a big jump in teeth for the last few sprockets on the cassette. Obviously, no word on wear yet.

No love for Street Pigeon?

Skiing do is always an option, as is the winking owl or Macdui’s. Quite difficult to get tables for big groups at short notice in Aviemore. Normally end up just having to wait in the Cairngorm if there at short notice.

If you want to do the best of the Lairig Ghru, my advice would be to climb the fire road from the pontoon bridge just South/ West of Loch Morlich up to Rothiemurchus Lodge. Push the half hour horrible path from there to where it intersects the Lairig Ghru and then turn right, have fun and descend like a mad thing down to Picadilly. Forest paths from there back to Aviemore. I rode the Speyside Way up to Boat of Garten, then Nethy Bridge, the  over the Ryvoan Pass down to Loch Morlich and tacked the Lairig Ghru on at the end on Saturday. Twas a fine bimble.

Side to side play in mine after only 3 (admittedly long) rides. Think that TFTuned may be getting a BikeYoke order from me as they are 25% at the moment. Anyone want to buy a 210mm OneUp V3 post? ?

I’m not alone then. I’ve got a Bikeyoke revive on one bike that is flawless. Just got a new bike with a V3 post and, as above, really quite hard to get it to move. Big push on the lever and big push down from my bahookie. Not impressed.

It’s not even a 29er or anything you’ve described, but it is a flipping good bike.

My 2nd hand XL Danny Macaskill era Bronson. Going for a song. Well, you did ask.

I’d always rather ride down the Ryvoan Pass than use the Speyside Way. One of my favourite views in the whole wide world, even if the path down is nowhere near as fun as it was over a decade ago. Going up Glen Tilt would be the easier way to gain elevation for sure. Plus the hike/push is less going South to North, so I can see your point. How tough is the Braemar to Tomintoul route? What kind of trail are you talking about? North of Falls of Tarth vs Ryvoan Pass vs Speyside Way?

I’ve never done the full loop, but have done all the component parts apart from the Tomintoul piece ( did something a bit harder if shorter from Aviemore to Braemar in a howling gale).

Out of interest, what is the favoured direction? Clockwise or anti clockwise? Braemar to Blair Atholl is definitely easier North to South and the Gaick Pass was more awe inspiring going South to North (for me), but wondering what the settled will is.

How does the trip up to Tomintoul from Loch Morlich compare to the rest of the loop?

Thinking I might give it a go on my incoming ebike and stay super nice places rather than bike pack it (I’m old and soft).

Daft cap … nearly p15hed mesel.

Given the amount of solo in the middle of nowhere riding I do  the risk of not taking one is too high to contemplate. Weighs hee haw, takes up a tiny amount of space and is a god send if you do need it. My teeny tiny topeak multi tool has one and it works fine.

About every 6 months when I change tyres. Try to slop any leftover Stans between tyres, but always top up as well with fresh Stans.

If we aren’t allowing resurrection, Stevie Wonder. I had tickets for a gig of his back in 2009, but had an emergency back operation about 2 weeks before and had to give the tickets away for free. Heard him about 5 years later when holidaying in the South of France and he did an outdoor gig about 400 metres from my hotel.

If resurrection are allowed … The Doors, Queen, The Beatles.

I’ve been lucky enough to have seen most of my “contemporary” bands through the years … often in great, small venues

I gave up on contacts years ago after a couple of gritty eye issues and have used rad8 prescription transition riding specs since. Even though I’m a sweaty betty, they don’t seem to steam up that badly. Unfortunately, you can’t get prescription ones with the anti fog built in from rad8, but they give you a wee wipe to apply a coating when you clean your glasses and that works fine.

Highly recommended.

Very happy about this. I really agree that investment at Stirling uni would be a far better option, build on those excellent facilities and open them up more to the public.

Funnily enough, Takeshi’s Castle is an actual building in Osaka. General Takeshi is pretty honoured in Japan, not so much in Korea.

Being facetious, design a virus that wipes out 50% of the world population? Being serious though, energy efficiency is the biggest win out there. Invest in either getting people into modern, very well insulated homes or insulate what they have, invest in a mass public transport system that actually works, heavily tax international shipment of consumables so we actually use local production. However, we still need wind, hydrogen, carbon capture, nuclear gas instead of coal.

We’ve left it too late, had too many children worldwide, and really not thought about what we are doing, even though climate science has been telling us all of this for at least 40 years.

About 3 months with a propane (R290) based heat pump plus solar and batteries. We picked propane for better CoP at low ambient temperatures vs R32. Paid a little bit more than a R32 unit. No radiators replaced, but we did have to change our water tank for a 300 litre unit to make sure that they warrantied the whole system (have a 250litre perfectly fine water tank if you want it ?).

Early 2000s timber frame house. We’re basically breaking even during the summer, including running an EV.

Plenty of hot water, and not anticipating any major issues during winter. 10kW unit for a 190m2 house.

You’ve likely caused an issue with the “keys” that stop the post from rotating (just little cylinders that sit in vertical grooves between the outer and inner tubes in the post). Strip down and replace the keys. It still might not fix your issue if the “grooves” are damaged though.

+1 for Ian at the bikeworks. Andy was rightly internet famous for his seatpost removal machine. Ian is his successor and a darned good mechanic.

Pole saw? I’ve got a Black & Decker one. Not good at “loose” hedges, but great for trees or dense hedges like leylandii (probably spelled that wrong).

Hale & Pace would say a cat.

Similar to others, I did try drying a pair of cycling gloves that hadn’t dried in time naturally (on a radiator). 20 second blasts did no good at all and then the gloves melted. Made a horrible mess of the aparthotel’s microwave. Went out a bought new gloves for my bike ride.

I often dream of this. If I was a multi millionaire retiree, I’d split my time between Dunkeld (summer), Viareggio in Italy (spring and autumn), and Lake Wanaka in NZ (winter). If I had to pick one … erm … probably Dunkeld.

I keep getting spammed by True Classic t shirts. The reviews seem good and I am tempted. Tried Spoke (after liking their trousers), but they had a very weird fit. Spoke and Solace tees have been better, but only the “heather” colours weirdly. Their plain colour t shirts seem to be a very different material and fit.

Police Academy? That would be a brave watch. You might as well chuck in Airplane and Weird Science into that (tip: don’t watch either if you value your PC sensibilities).

I was discussing this with my much better half the other day about the new Time Bandits series. She reckoned the original film would be super dated and not worth watching as a comparison before the new series starts.

I’m of the opposite opinion. Some films are just funny, regardless of the current view (Life of Brian?), so worth re-watching to see if Time Bandits sits in that category.

Hmm, makes me want to watch some classics (in my head) again … Leon, Fifth Element, Life of Brian, Nikita, Pulp Fiction, Kiss kiss bang bang.

I know there a lot of Luc Besson films in there. What can I say? I like a lot of his stuff.