<span style=”color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, ‘Noto Sans’, sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ‘Segoe UI’, ‘Apple Color Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Symbol’, ‘Noto Color Emoji’;”>I use an exposure joystick on my coyote</span>

Thanks – I had a feeling that was going to be the answer (or one of the answers). It will please my mate who I ride with no end – he’s been recommending a joystick to me for years.

I take it the helmet mount works fine with the Coyote?

Day 5: Yoga first thing from an app – not 30mins so did some improvised kitchen weights this evening.

‘beatsaber’? Is that a euphemism???

Day 4/100: running with local club – didn’t want to go (rarely do), enjoyed it (almost always do).

3/100: 30 minutes of core strength exercises. That was deeply unpleasant. I ignore core strength and only do these exercises when I need to ‘tick off’ a daily exercise commitment (normally RED January). Running tomorrow with local social running club but Wednesday is normally a rest day so I’ll need to find something to do that’s kind on my legs – maybe drag out a lockdown yoga session?

Does anyone consider riding a motorbike as exercise? I was once told (but can’t find anything to back it up) that you can burn 500 cal/hr riding a motorbike ‘actively’.

Day 2/100
Walked to/from junior parkrun this morning. I used to walk but I’ve got into the habit of driving even when, like today, I’m not going on somewhere else afterwards. So it’s good to get back into the walking habit just as the weather turns to ****.

I’ve missed this challenge previously and only just read about it now but I’ll go for it.
parkrun for me this morning and almost certainly the worst photo ever taken of me…

Yeah, it will be a monthly payment over ten months. She can fund herself over the summer. She’s asked me to ‘front load’ the first few months so she has less pressure to get a job until later in the year.

pots/pans – she’s taken what she wanted from the kitchen and I’ve got shiny new ones. Everyone’s a winner.

“Subsistence £2340.00”

Yes, very similar to my daughter which when you look at overall ‘grant’ minus hall fees it come out a little under £2500 which is not a lot for the best part of a year. Hence me wanting to top it up a little.

(and thanks for everyone’s varied comments – they all add something and I’ll reread later this evening when I’m not trying to work at the same time)

Grants… yes, sorry, I know they’re loans now – I don’t want to give away my age but they were grants in my day (and we could ‘sign on’ and claim housing benefit in the summer too)
OnlyFans – I hope not – I wouldn’t want our paths to cross on there!
Bursaries – she may be able to get a little extra as a result of a disability and is looking into that herself.
Halls Cost – yes, there are certainly cheaper ones too – she’s already planning to live somewhere cheaper next year but there are distinct advantages to her living closer this year (and that does come at a cost).

I do realise I’m fortunate in being able to help her out with a bit extra but, without going into detail, the reason we have a little extra money in the house is unfortunate.

edit: I’ll have a look at the Martin Lewis guide too
also – she is pretty good with money already – she doesn’t drink at all or smoke/vape or need the right labels on clothes

Doolin, Galway, Achill

(and don’t try to see all of Ireland in 7 days)

Yes, Ukraine will stop at Crimea (Ukraine 2014 borders) or they will find the jets (and lots of other stuff) stop working.

Hard to say where the (any?) real redlines are and Pootin, Mad Med and others will snarl and threaten nukes about giving up Crimea but they won’t use them.

A bomb in a wine crate?

How sad.

It’s 20 years or so since I last ran with them so things may have changed…

I liked the concept and really wanted to enjoy running with them but found them to be a very odd group of individuals.

Maybe. To me it looks like a very deliberate excursion to somewhere they know they’re likely to be seen (by someone with a mobile phone to take a picture) but I suppose they could have been flying along, looked out of the window and realised where they were before clearing off. We can never rule out incompetence, I suppose.

Belarusian helicopters very deliberately overflying Poland yesterday. What are they trying to achieve?

Flight path

All we need now is for the jetstream to flip and give us a scorching Manc weekend.

Well sorry if this has turned out to be a non-event…

I’ve just popped it on the workstand to have a go at sorting it out and it’s currently shifting up and down like a Shimano advert. The bike fixing pixies have been in my shed since the weekend.

How it works this evening when actually being ridden is another matter obviously. I’ve ordered some new outer anyway and will fit it when it arrives (and watch some b-screw videos in the interim).

I’ll have another go at re-tensioning it.
The mach is newish but it’s behaving the same as the previous SLX mech (I had a spare XT mech detsined for another bike so have swapped them over) so I don’t think the jockey wheel or clutch are the issue (clutch is off).
Cassette is also newish – I bent the biggest sprocket on the previous one through sheer power!

admission: I have never understood what the b-screw does and have never touched it on any bike!

I’ll have a look into a mech hanger adjustment tool (or possibly just buy a new mech hanger).

Cable outer is original – 3 years old – so may also be worth looking at although I don’t remember any issues sliding the inner through.

a few days you need a few weeks, preferably 6+

If only… I’d quite like 6 months to to work my way slowly back to the UK but that’s not going to happen.

Thanks all.

Looking like Cape Town (or nearby) then.

I didn’t know until recently that Soft Cell’s Tainted love was a cover, but I was really surprised to learn that Cyndi Lauper’s Girls just Wanna Have Fun is also a cover.

I knew about Tainted Love when it was first released.
I found out about Girls Just Wanna Have Fun when I read this thread.

How is the car?

Maybe not what you want to hear but if you drove it through the ford, how is it an insurance job?
(edit: oops – forgot about comprehensive insurance (despite having it myself) – I guess it will depend on whether they think it was an accident or reckless)
Hopefully it’s just an electrical issue but you’ll have to pay for it yourself. Any competent garage should be able to assess it without it going back to a BMW dealer.

Your OH is correct.

Do you have any credit card (or other expensive) debt? Go after that first, maybe.

I’ve been enjoying the pictures on Twitter (and elsewhere) of people falling asleep during pootin’s rant. I wonder how many of them will be snoozing next to an open window in days to come?

Has it been stored in the dark, somewhere cool without too much temp fluctuation?
If you’re lucky it will be no worse than it was 20 years ago.

Thanks both. If going East is a nicer run than going West I certainly don’t mind going that way twice.

If I have to run in km, does that mean I have to run faster?

Possibly dumb question but… what is the point of shooting those drones down once they are over a populated area given that the ones that are not shot down don’t seem to be particularly good at hitting strategic targets. If they’re not going to hit their intended target but hit something random instead and you shoot it down and it hits something else random, hasn’t that just wasted a bullet?

Dominic Cummings? Ha ha ha!

Then we really are doomed.

I’m not completely blasé about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons but I do think he’s more likely to use chemical or biological ones.

I also rely on the fact that there are people with a lot more insight into and control over the current situation than me. And they’re unlikely to refer to the chat section of a British mountain bike forum for guidance on how to proceed.

How far into someone else’s country should we let him march every time he rattles the nuclear stick?

WRT Nuclear weapons, if Putin used them he’d have no intention of tactical use, it would be against a city – terrorism as per usual. He knows no other way.

A lot of things have surprised me do far in this war but I’d be very surprised if Russia used nuclear weapons. I would not be surprised at all if they use chemical/biological weapons when things get desperate.

Be careful what you wish for…

https://nitter.hu/raging545/status/1572701490858594304

Go somewhere else?
It depends on the family age/fitness/experience but there are many flatter family-friendly routes with utterly gorgeous views of Snowdon(ia)

I used to travel from Manchester to Stockholm weekly. One night on a flight to Stockholm the captain came on to tell us he was getting all the lights turned out as there was a Northern Lights display on the left, unusual at that latitude. Of course I was on the right window seat so didn’t get to see any of it but could hear the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the passengers with a left window (who were not in a hurry to let anyone else have a look).

From that point on I’d make sure I had the ‘North’ window seat if I was flying in the dark. It never happened again on a flight I was on.

Not really but when the kids were little we used to have a Ford Galaxy that was known as “the family fun bus” – does that count?

Also I’m just in the process of buying a camper which has very definitely been named by its current owner. It’s a local sale and it turns out we have a number of mutual friends so we’re bound to keep bumping into each other. I just know she’s going to continue referring to it by name.