I was pretty close to putting down a deposit on one. But .. It’s quite petty, but they sound awful.

I don’t think they sound that bad inside the car, certainly more interesting a noise than the noise from my Golf, IMO. I had a 340i (F21 not G21^) for a year or so. That had a lovely, lovely noise and tonnes of lovely torque and handled pretty well – but again you wouldn’t call it fun to drive. At all.

I’m car-less as of last week and cycle most commutes/school runs but pretty sure I’m going to go on the list for a Yaris GR, and buy a used JCW 3 door in the meantime. I reckon about 200-250 bhp in a small light car is my sweet spot.

Teslas are bonkers quick, but once the novelty wears off of making yourself feel sick in a straight line, you realise it’s hardly something you could call light, nimble or fun in the corners… Sports cars they are definitely not.

I’ve just sold a Golf R. Again. Great car, nice and (comparatively) light but it’s arguably too good and in use totally uninspiring to drive. Mine was a 7.5, and although I like the look of the 8 the touchscreen and capacitive buttons in my wife’s ID3 would almost certainly make me stay away. Plus, some of the plastics in the new one really are a bit cheap.

Worse than that though, are the Golf’s noisy top links/bushes which start at around six months old and never go away. I don’t think they changed in the 8. They drove me crazy, but some owners say they never hear them (they must never drive without music).

For your criteria, if I was buying tomorrow, I’d stick on a blindfold/disguise and buy a Civic Type R. It’s still by far the best ‘normal’ car I’ve driven. Realise it’s not sub 5 seconds 0-60 but I’m not really interested in drag races, more how it drives once moving.

I left one in the van today when it went in to the shop. I can now see that it’s actually about 35 miles away, at a specialist repairer.

I had no idea that’s where it was going – but have left one discretely hidden in the van. It replaced a Tile, which has never, ever worked like that (too small a user base to be useful).

I can see instances in manufacturing and retail where not being able to quickly get on a users machine is a pain in the arse (maybe they’ve saved a file locally, or have a locally attached device you need access to). Shared passwords, and no policy to force change is obviously a bad idea though.

If we really need access then we manage it with LogMeIn, which is much less invasive than resetting passwords and disabling 2FA if we need access for any reason (for the most part it’s usually just software updates and support issues).

The thing I’ve always found uncomfortable is knowing that the administrator can grant themselves full access to mailbox rights for any user in Exchange O365 and by default the person who ‘owns’ the mailbox gets no notification of that being done. Privacy, by default, doesn’t really exist.

You’re starting to get sick of one bike not arriving, and you’ve heard ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

The shop has most likely long since become sick of waiting for a few hundred bikes to arrive and have heard very little, or in some cases absolutely nothing.

Just tell them if you don’t want it, or wait if you do… They’ll understand you’re fed up waiting, and if you don’t want it then it’s one less customer for them to feel frustrated on behalf of. They’ll sell it to somebody else very easily.

We’re not in the cycle trade but facing the same issues on supply. So frustrating and feel really sorry for the customers who know, for the most part, that we’re doing our best even though it it’s nearly impossible to believe that we can’t get an update from the manufacturer.

I would read a lot that put my mind at rest, and then read one paper that would make me question everything again. A cardiologist is the only answer though. Turns out they’ve read more than I ever could, do it for a living in fact, and probably not at 2 in the morning like I often did… 😉

I’m not sure it matters what you show them in advance really, or how much you spend on devices – at least not at this stage. They’ll arrange a battery of tests (I had ECG, 48 hour trace, echos and one MRI) until they reach a conclusion.

I was getting up to 15,000 ectopics a day (mostly atrial, 20% ventricular) which they still thought were harmless, lots of runs of bigenemy and trigenemy sometimes for hours (so, 20 ectopics a minute), all caught on tape. No fibrillation. Then literally one day they just stopped.

They come and go now, periods of quiet for months on end and then periods where it can get quite bad for a few weeks and then nothing again. Dehydration does me no favours, nor does alcohol and if I haven’t been riding much then I can feel them for a day or two after a really hard ride or turbo session. I ALWAYS get them now if I’m about to get a cold too, I’ll have a day or two of them before the sore throat/runny nose starts.

Sometimes I get them at the start of a ride for the first ten minutes or so, which 20 years later still freak me out (they started when I was 25) and I’ve never really learned to ignore them.

The empty feeling you describe, and the inability to get your HR up, sounds more viral than anything else – definitely something I’ve experienced before – but I don’t think it’s directly heart related. Until you’re told otherwise, try to relax. 🙂

I’ve got Powerbeats Pro which sound okay, are completely fiddle free for running/biking and switch well between devices – I’ll probably never buy non-Apple wireless headphones again for this reason.

I bought my sun some Beats Flex for running. Sound pretty good too, and only £50 with the W1 chip for easy switching. He’s constantly fiddling with the fit while running though…

I’d echo that, we’ve got lots of external cable to the lounge, kitchen, office and playroom, and use Powerline in the kids bedrooms. Powerline is very convenient, but I don’t think it’s stable enough for lots of VOIP or Teams/Zoom etc.

My office is now above the garage, about 15m from the house – laying a cable there isn’t an option. I’m using two Ubiquiti Outdoor Mesh AP with a clear line of sight between the house and garage, with a switch at the end on the garage so everything back to cable. So far they’ve been utterly stable, and I’m getting the same broadband speeds on download as wired to the router in the house, very low latency, and about 850mbps to the NAS. An external cable run would be quicker, more stable and a lot cheaper though…

Unless your house is terraced, is the easiest solution not to pop some holes in your walls and run a cable externally from the router to the garage?

I don’t think there’s much wrong with the current system. Directors declaring dividends on net of tax earnings will pay a bit less income tax than a comparable salary, and definitely less NI – but often with the considerable risk of their personal assets being used as security on business liabilities. That risk has to have some reward or people won’t do it. The gap isn’t huge at all to salaried staff, despite what people think.

There are much bigger fish to fry to increase the public purse than gains in higher taxes to directors. My landlord (commercial) is legally set up in the Cayman Islands and pays next to no UK tax at all on all his property income. Amazon/Apple/Google and so on legally contribute very little tax – that needs to change. The huge amount of cash business done with tradesman. Drug dealers. The list goes on – but it’s a harder problem to solve than just whacking NI on dividends or increasing the tax rate a few percent to the higher rate.

I know very little about BMX, other than I bought a lovely Fly last year to scratch a 30 year itch. Everything hurts, especially the forearms and my back.

Everything feels unfamiliar. Sadly.

I wish I’d bought a jump bike – which I’d have been equally crap on but at least it would have felt something vaguely familiar.

My Fly looks class though 😉

The finance company won’t allow it – depends how happy you are with keeping your head down on that. I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable, the T&Cs of your loan will expressly forbid it.

I’ve got a Sony OLED (AF9) and a new Sony LED (X9005). I really don’t think the OLED is worth the extra money – both are excellent.

I went LED as it’s in the family room with a console attached, and I kept reading horror stories of OLED screen burn (although never had an issue myself).

Thanks, will add that now.

Busy reading Signs of Life by Stephen Fabes. A junior doctor who’s decided to cycle around the world – I’m only about 10% in but it’s extremely well written – really, really easy to read.

The best thing I did to mine, and I wish I’d done it much sooner, was fit a decent sectional door. It has eliminated the draughts and made it possible to heat much more efficiently, I feel it’s more secure (I know) than the up and over door that was on there, and frankly I love the convenience.

That, and the Big Dug floor tiles as above (shamefully, without the attention to detail of the blue section)… 😉

You’re not entitled to a full refund under CRA given it’s past 30 days, and any refund will almost certainly have deductions for use.

Would you not rather have it fixed?

EDIT: actually, need to double check that. Some items can’t have deductions – it’s now hopeless advice as I’m not sure on bikes 😉

Even by STW standards, the level of pedantry on the last few pages has sunk to new lows… 😉

Do the minimum you can to keep fit/sane, otherwise ‘they’ could make it binary. Try to do it from your door. Try not to travel. Keep away from people. It might not be your best month of biking…

Apparently, it was like a bank holiday this weekend again at the usual spots. Families walking, as well as bikers. Pretty sure that’s not the intention.

Sorry, you’re right. $20 a month, so in a post Brexit world about £19 😉

When did TR become £20? I went to have another look at it tonight but it’s shot up in price.

I like it, a lot, but it’s either Zwift or TR for me at that price…

LED lights in kitchen unit kick boards. Why you’d want the attention brought down to the floor is a mystery to me…

I think part of the answer lies in what platform the school is using.

Both of our schools are using Seesaw to provide home learning this lockdown. It works fine in a browser but it’s a better experience on the iPad app where you can use the pen, perform easier uploads of completed work and so on.

Previously they were trying to do everything in a badly deployed SharePoint environment, which was a nightmare on a laptop but practically impossible on an iPad.

+2 RRP Bolt On. It’s a good shape, stable and stupidly expensive 😉

Nothing currently says you couldn’t ride 8miles to the woods meet one friend and go for a bike ride outside im sure the police wouldn’t question that behaviour.

I agree, but although it could easily be interpreted as allowed, I know the car parks and the woods themselves will be busy with people thinking the same, and I’m going to take a view for a few weeks that that isn’t what is needed.

Everybody has a different take on civil duty, or indeed perceived personal risk. Unless somebody is disregarding or flouting the rules, as opposed to exploring the grey, then I think it’s not helpful to get angry about it.

The trails are really sloppy and cut up at the moment anyway, and I’m hoping some people staying away will stop some of the erosion continuing during winter – which I reckon is worse this year than ever before – pretty much everywhere I ride.

It’s not the government really, is it, it’s us.

We’ve known since March to keep away from each other but a huge percentage of the general pop still don’t, and have a very casual attitude to it all. At time, me too – mostly through complacency. No amount of guidance matters – other than actually locking us down which I think we should do for a few weeks, but we won’t.

I went for a run around the area I live last night at 6ish, and my wife and I ran past around 30-40 people out walking/running in close proximity down 2m wide paths in the space of 30 minutes. If I’d gone on a 25 mile road ride from the front door I’d have been close to far fewer people. I know which one I feel is more responsible.

I’m not sure heading to the local woods 8 miles away, is responsible. I suspect they’ll still be busy with people meeting up, and honestly I’m struggling with not going myself, but I think it’s important over the next few weeks to play my part and stay away.

TLDR: unless we actually lock down, there’ll be a lot of people interpreting the rules to suit. Mostly without malice, and because they’ve made a judgement call on what’s safe: it’s pointless arguing over it, as it’s been left open.

Of course, some people couldn’t give a **** too, and it’s pointless arguing with them too.

Portal TV is on my list too. Hate FB, but will create an account just for the purpose… Zoom support is just around the corner for it, all the other FB Portals already have it.

All the important stuff is actually on 2 other drives

Even easier then, just have BackBlaze pick up those two drives and you’ll not need to sort/exclude anything.

I was responding to this in your OP: If it involves sorting out my photos & awful filing system I won’t get around to it. If you do want to move all your folders under a root OneDrive folder then just remember you can only sync to one root folder (AFAIK), so you couldn’t split your folders across two drives as OneDrive folders.

Once you’ve moved them, if you also want to point your Documents/Photos etc under the OneDrive folder you can. Just right click them and change the Location under Properties.

I use Backblaze B2 and Arq as the back up agent – it’s solid. I pay about $4 a month for the folders I want backing up (about 1TB). Arq will back up to most cloud providers if you don’t want to use Backblaze, it’s encrypted, and versioned.

Not sure there is much point in complete computer cloud backup, in your case you could just do the C drive and then exclude a couple of system folders – no sorting really.

Minefield, in my experience. Really wanted a commercial oven/range at home that I could kick and abuse, but nobody wanted to answer whether the meter and supply could cope, what extraction was needed (much higher BTUs and CO2) and what the insurance implications are. I’m sure somebody knows, and it might be an easy answer, but damned if I could find them…

In the end we ended up with an induction hob and a few electric ovens. After 25 years of gas hobs, I’m surprised how controllable induction is and how quickly I’ve gotten used to it – I prefer it to gas. It’ll probably be more scratched than a scratched thing within a very short space of time but I’m dead impressed in terms of performance and control…

Just to add a voice for PocketCasts somebody else mentioned ^^.

The app on IOS/android is good, has all the BBC content (they might have invested, hazy memory) and you can pick up on where you left off on mobile app once you’ve added it as a service to Sonos.

It’s not good for new podcast discovery, but you can do all of that in the app on your mobile/tablet, but smooth and very easy for listening to the stuff you subscribe to or for picking up new episodes of those you’ve already listened to.

If I could only have one bike, it wouldn’t have a motor, but I like having both. For me, riding an ebike when everybody else is on a normal bike is a joyless (and cold) experience.

I rode Tuesday and Wednesday, same place, similar routes. It took 1hr45 on the ebike and 2hr40 yesterday, for two miles less.

Average heart rate was exactly the same both rides (154) but I had a higher max on the ebike (189 vs 182). Ebikes make the riding as easy or hard as you want it to be. Calling it cheating is completely missing the point.

Game changer for some people though. One of the guys I rode with on Tuesday had two replacement knees. He simply wouldn’t be able to put the power through a non-ebike.

Apple TV touch remote. The old one was fine, the one with the little touch pad must have been signed off without any user testing.

Unimaginable pain. So, so sorry 🙁

Craig

50% of the gen pop aren’t thick, but there is a large slice not interested in reading much beyond the headlines of a red top – and that forms their views, and their social circles reinforce it. Equally applies to those on the left or right.

A conspiracy is much more interesting than the truth, and that’s often what grabs their attention.

I don’t know how you reach these people.

I don’t have a lot to complain about with Zwift, I think it’s come a long way. The design of the UI is a bit dated and cutesy, both the app and Companion but hey…

I don’t want steering, tbh. Turning the bars on my road bike isn’t really something I do much of on a normal ride, it would feel entirely unnatural to do that on a turbo.

A little Zwift Bluetooth mobile to Velcro on to the bars to replicate the icons in Zwift Companion to turn left, right etc might be worth £40 to me – but suspect a tiny market. I don’t always want to use Companion, phone battery is often low at the end of the day when I invariably get on it.

Sorry I haven’t been in touch Rob since race one, and missing from action. I’ve not been feeling so good since the middle of the week following race one. Starting to feel back on track, heading out for a gentle pedal today so hopefully will make the next race…

I feel really bad after the massive effort you put in that I hadn’t apologised sooner. I’m sure I wasn’t noticed to be missing, but like to pretend I’m more important than that 😉

I’m really grateful you’ve taken the time to set this up – so would say any changes would have to be suggested to create less work for you, rather than more.

As a complete novice to meet ups, it appears we all start at the same time. If that’s the case, is it not easier to just to say everybody starts at 200w (for example) for the first two minutes to allow us to move to/sit where we want in the group, and then at two minutes precisely we go?

Anyone who goes off earlier than that earns some kind of special prize…

I think we had a very similar ride, Steve. I was waiting to see when it would kick off, and took a drink, by the time I put it down the group had gone. I find it really hard to regulate the power to keep the pace even when in a pair, but I think we did alright.

Sorry for going for the sprint – I felt a bit of a knob 🙂

Craig (IATR)

That was a spectacular fail on timing on the second lap sprint, where I started on the banner. I tried to then use it as a solo breakaway, but had too much massage oil on my hands and kept slipping off the goods hoods. Honest.

Need to learn some Zwift etiquette.

Thanks both. 🙂

You do that too?

I thought the thread was looking very serious, so I’ve broken out the sweet almond oil…

I’m a bit thick. So, having never done a meet up, but reading this thread…

I’ll not be on the line on a turbo pre-event, like a normal race?
Wherever I am in Watatopia warming up, at 7.30 I’ll be transferred to the group?
There’s no start as such, we’ll form a group with Rob at the front?
At some point, once we’re all together there’ll be a signal to race?

Is that about right? Just finishing my pre-race massage now…