Hernia belt works for me, it’s the difference between doing stuff (including hike a bike) and feeling really insecure when I don’t have it on. The belts are not the most comfy on a bike and I don’t feel the need when road biking, but I find it ok on the MTB.

I knee jerked and panic bought a comfort-truss from the states, it appeared to be better than the Amazon ones but it is loads more expensive. Also the guy who runs it has a bunch of core exercises which don’t seem to exacerbate the hernia. Whether you buy into the rest of his speil is up to you. Suffice to say, I’m waiting on an op.

It’s all personal preference so its probably useful to know what the differences are between SPD and other systems. What feels different with the Time pedals? (Presuming someone’s tried them both)

I went from SPDs to CB which have loads more float and easier to clip in and out of which gave me confidence on more gnarly trails (used to just ride SPDs on the XC bike). Despite this I missed the locked in feel of SPDs as the CB feel quite loose, and I missed the clear end of float feel. Went from that to Hopes and found a very happy medium. The entry and release is so nice and easy but they still feel lovely and secure, plus the bearings hold up beautifully. Best way I can describe the difference is that you don’t have to do the toe hook then stamp in quite such a defined way, just wave your feet at the pedal and you’re in.

As an aside I’ve always steered clear of non shimano systems which use SPD cleats as I figured that Shimano must be the most optimised, and IME the m520’s will outlast me.

If you’re using trailforks be aware that red and black are the other way round in Canada. Black = single black, red = double black.

First time I rode out there I decided to take a red back to the carpark for a chilled last lap, It wasn’t!

Is anyone watching the Wigan v Penrith league game? It seems like a lot gets referred to the video ref but I’m enjoying how decisive he is!
Puts that Scotland call into perspective..

I came here to say Starling, and to question what in hot hell’s name is 3D traction? But that’s already been covered so I’ll just add:

Curtis.

And to balance out the above I’ve always liked my Oranges and think it’s a damn shame.

I think this qualifies as grand:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/86179827#/?channel=RES_BU

Tiny rebel frequently break the (my) cardinal rule which is: never add fruit juice to your beer. 

The ones that don’t are ok, but not my favourite. 

Ps. Fruity tastes from hoppyness are fine, but if there is fruit on the ingredients list it’s out. 

I took a punt and ordered something yesterday afternoon, wiggle dispatch email at 11pm and courier tracking says it’s due for delivery tomorrow. On the face of it everything seems to be working… I will report back if it goes pear shaped

If you’ve not already I’d try calibrating your trainer, I don’t have a kickr but I’m guessing there’s a wahoo app of some sort. Fixed a similar problem with my jet-black. It sounds like you have erg mode turned on if it is changing power.

Edit. Just ready that it’s an FTP of 175. That seems low. Were you hitting the power targets that it was asking for?

If ‘Analogue’ is bad, ‘Acoustic’ makes me want to scratch my (or their) eyes out

I figure that you pay the money for having your shims shuffled by someone who knows what they’re up to. If you already know or fancy finding out by trial and error then happy days.

I thought that my rear was going on the blink with the lever pulling to the bar, but it turned out that the pistons had started to push out unevenly as the pads wore. After a little fiddling with a screwdriver it’s right as rain, and so easy to do with the new slippery pistons. might be worth a go for anyone worrying about their fancy brakes.
Ps. They work so bloody well!

My brand X dropper feels a fair bit smoother and more solid than my one up, also the brand X doesn’t make a weird crack type noise when you push the lever. None of them are deal-breakers and I went for the one up as it’s longer drop than the brand X, however it’d be nice if it felt as refined as the cheaper post.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrG76Rrvu8-/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

It’s a doozy! Hope he’s ok

Can you not just turn the map layer off 🤷.

I’d love it if this was the answer! (but I’m sure its more complicated than that)

We’ll be watching 7’s by half time!

*doh, should have read the article

BruceWee
Full Member
Two Bald men fighting over a comb.

Ever the cry when Scotland (a country of 5 million who don’t really play rugby much) beats England (a country of 60 million who not only invented but actually own the game).

Nope, a bald man wrestled the comb from the beautifully maned lion and is now waving his unshaven ball sack in the lion’s face while the lion pretends it doesn’t really matter because neither combatant was really on top form.

Feel bad about yourselves. You should.

Thats the spirit, lovely to see such sportsmanship.

My observation is that the Scots really care about their rugby and do play it quite a lot. Great game, Scotland edged it and both teams have positives and negatives to take. I was a bit gutted with the loss initially but now glad that it was a compelling game as he only thing worse than watching a loss is watching crap game and realising that you can’t get that 80 minutes back.

Surfshark seems to be working well at the moment, but you probably can’t go wrong with Nord vpn

I rate this, it should be great seeing the next generation of rippers who haven’t yet joined the self preservation society. Please don’t let it go the way of pink bike academy where the element of competition is made to feel like all those crap reality TV shows on the box. I have faith that it won’t.

If you tap where it says “Instagram” in the top left, you can select to see “following only”. Its a bit annoying that you have to do this every time but it does cut out a lot of the dross.

It’s because you can’t play Jack Ryan in Dobly

I’ve never owned a reverb but plenty of my riding mates do/have and amongst that sample there have been enough issues to put me off. Hydraulic connections, bleeding and all that is ok in my books though maybe unnecessarily faffy, but my issue is all the ones that either upgrade to suspension seatposts or decide that the world is too scary and don’t come back up to play. Yeah ok maybe they could be overdue a service, but when there are plenty of posts on the market that don’t need that in depth level of servicing I fail to see the benefit.

furinstance, brandx/aefect etc. service is easily done at home with about 3 tools, a rag and some fresh grease, maybe once every 12-18 months when the cable needs changing? A tenner for a new seal kit if you like.
(oh and that does nothing to answer the OP question of whether the new ones are better than the old ones. I’ll stick with a rant!)

There’s a couple of pay and display car parks on and around brunel lock road or there’s the Ashton Court carpark (though likely to be busy on weekends). Both have reasonable off road access to the pump track, you’ll just need to use a couple of pedetrian crossings to get onto cycle paths.

I bought one from here:
Nature Spy

The buying guides were useful and the price seemed decent. I can’t remember all of the features to look for, but I do like having the screen on the front so you can preview the angle when you’re setting it up.

I went up a size and they fitted fine. Nice and waterproof, warm, however I do find them a bit weird to ride in as the palm feels like it’s made of two layers which slip a little.

Play a long game, convince your other half to acquire a horse and then you get free rein (boom boom) as bike purchases pale into insignificance

Slashed sidewalls is the undoing of these, or any puncture so big that worms won’t do the job. I’ve been riding inserts for about 2 years (og rimpacts) and love them, however the puncture gods decided that my time was up the other day and zapped me with a big old sidewall slash. Amusingly they strung me along and it *almost* sealed with 3x worms, but not quite. I just rode it out in the end which was alright if a little squirmy in the corners, and the insert doesnt look any worse for wear.
Somewhere there’s a video from cushcore which shows you how to fit a tube with an insert there. I’ve not watched it but probably ought to. I prescribe to the binbag and tube method for big rides.

Nice, worst* of both worlds 😟

I wouldn’t ( read amn’t) fix just now.
* maybe

Yeah I know what you mean but we luckily managed to get in before it went properly crazy and I’m willing to bet (literally) that it’ll still be high when our current fix finishes in July ’23. My gut feeling is that it’ll take a good few of years to get back down below 4% but like everyone else I could well be wrong. The buy out isn’t crazy and will easily be offset by the cost of a few months at 6%+, that was enough for me.

To bring this one back to life.. our timing sucked too so we bit the bullet and decided to get a rate ‘locked in’ even though we’ll have to buy out of our current fix. My question is, how ‘locked in’ is ‘locked in’? Ie. we have the offer, we’ve gone through the legals and can stump up the arrangement fee however the offer is valid until the end of March.
Our mortgage broker is advising that there is no risk so we should set the completion sometime in mid march to give a little buffer and the lender will honor the deal. I’m however nervous.
It’s all a bit inverted from my norm, I’ve only bought and switched whilst rates have been low and going down. This time we’re wanting to keep our current rate for as long as possible and then the new mortgage is damage limitation.

@rone as mentioned I’ve not found a good decaf (but happy to try some!) I do however like extract coffee half speed:
https://extractcoffee.co.uk/shop/half-speed-low-caffeine/

1kg seems to last about 1.5 months. Usually espresso drinks but aeropress if I’m away. This thread is making me feel better about my consumption!
There are a few places that sell half and half decaff/regular beans but I guess you could mix them up yourself too. I find it’s a good mix of keeping the taste and dropping the caffeine. Taste is obviously personal but I’ve not yet found a decaf bean that I like drinking straight up.

Out of interest what spread of times do we have for caffeine curfews? There’s 3pm above, I try to keep to 1pm (or lunchtime), my mate has 10am.
My parents have no such thing, they regularly have a cup of instant coffee before bed and then complain that they don’t sleep properly any more.

Can I hit you lot with a bit of a left field question?
I don’t have access to my turbo at the moment however I do have a gym with a concept 2 rower. How transferable do you think intervals on the rowing machine will be for mountainbiking? Does anyone have any suggested sessions?
I can run a few times a week to keep up my ploddy base fitness but despise running intervals so in my head thats when I’d like to use the rower. I had a go at an interval session the other day and it seemed like a good workout, something like 5x 1000m efforts with 2min rests and I was quite cooked at the end. I’m still not 100% sure how it works though!

I set the lever to the middle, 5 or 6, I’d read that this doesn’t make any difference to the resistance or the distance calculation but don’t quite understand how all the inputs work together? I was doing the 1000m intervals at about 2:00min/500m pace, to go faster do I need to up the stroke speed or push harder? or either?
Cheers for any help

That Gamin watch is astounding.

Modern Tool Watch

Well quite

Huh, that’s interesting. As a tech 3 V4 user I can shed no light, however I always wondered what the point of the E4 calliper was as it’s only a little bit lighter than a V4.

Wild pondering here, maybe if they’ve upped the power by 30% (or whatever) both the E4 and V4 are now more than enough for some people so they make the choice on feel?

Cheers, but I can’t emphasize enough how idealised that is and how variable your actual power will likely be.
Another way of thinking about it is remember what it feels like to do a body weight squat, each leg is basically pushing half your bodyweight. If you weigh more than 60kg, don’t push as hard as you would doing a squat. That’s probably as accurate as my numbers above.

Yeah you could come up with an estimate, my brain is a bit fried after a long day but it’ll be something like this:

Guess a power, say 200 watts for knocking along at a half decent effort. That’s 100 watts per leg (yeah right, but let’s go with it)
Watts = N × m/s, therefore force (N) = watts/speed (m/s)

Guess a cadence, say 90rpm, and guess crank length = 175mm, that gives a circle of about 1.1m per crank (who knew!). So that’s (90/60)*1.1 = 1.65m/s leg speed.

So, Force = 100/1.65 = 60.6N, or 6.2kg.
That’s very idealised and assumes a lot of things, including that you maintain the same force all the way around the stroke. I don’t have a power meter so I have no idea how much it does vary but I bet it’s about 50% or more, so call that a peak of 10-15kg.
Also thats for spinning along at a decent leg speed, half that cadence and you’ll double the force so I imagine that your force will spike dramatically when starting off, and you know how much harder it feels going uphill..

So by no means take this as saying that it’s ok but if you’re just pottering you can probably keep the force low ish, but it really will be pottering. I’d be concerned about what happens if something goes wrong and you need to crank out of a tight spot, and not knowing if you’ve spiked over 30kg.

I have no strong feelings on the cube or Rob Hatch’s pronunciations however it gets on my tits when he gets excited and repeats every sentence at least twice:

“and here we go, here we go! Geraint Thomas is cracking on the lower slopes, cracking on the lower slopes! now we have a race, now we have a race…” Ad infinitum.

If I were king Ned and David would commentate every road race. Oh and whilst I’m at it lets get a bit more Matt Stephens air time.