I used Squirt for a couple of years and was reasonably happy, but eventually I got discontented with its often lasting only half a ride on MTBs in very wet conditions.  So,  persuaded by TJ’s evangalism I tried Putoline.

It’s not perfect but it is much longer lasting than Squirt in terms of the chain getting noisey.  And the extra time to remove and rewax every month or two is made up for by a much longer chain life.

out of spite. . . . Or out of genuine concern

both assumptions are unwarranted. The assumption you think is being made in this story says more about you than it does about the facts.

To be fair, that continues the unsubstantiated assumption that the report was solely out of spite.

. . . rather than the unsubstantiated assumption that the report was solely out of genuine concern.

BMWs because most drivers are ****.

And Mercs. . . and indeed any other German make.

At 65 I’ve recently replaced my winter hardtail with a winter FS. It was definitely easier on my body.

The energy demands for most cyclists is glucose, and as a result I suspect we have a glucose burning engine.

Why do you think this is true? Won’t it vary widely depending on the type of riding you are doing and on individual physiology / training?

I know from experience I can do 3 hours gentle Z1/Z2 road riding without breakfast and without feeling hungry, but after a hard hour or two up and down hills I’d bonk without something to eat.

So I’m interested in whether that’s just your opinion or there is research to support it?

Good question tjagain. There are a number of technologies out there, such as:

• Compressed Air storage in underground caverns with heat of compression storage
• Alternative battery chemistries such as Redox Flow and Sodium Ion
• Gravity batteries
• Vehicle to Grid central management of EV batteries to act as a decentralised nation wide battery

Robertajobb – you have totally missed my main point: Alternative electricity storage methods already exist which are expensive and/or inefficient but way better than storing electricity as hydrogen

So instead of using a silly inefficient hydrogen “battery” we should spend our money on proven more efficient methods.

Large amounts hydrogen are nasty and explosive.

No more so than petrol or natural gas or lots of other flammable fluids we have stored for years.

Store it as a gas it takes huge volumes.  To liquify it means chilling to very low temps.

This is the real problem, physics not safety.

Much less so if it’s used to generate electricity

So robertajobb what you say is generate wind powered electricity at night to inefficiently make hydrogen to inefficiently store to inefficiently make back into electricity?  Basically, a very very inefficient battery?

Alternative electricity storage methods already exist which are expensive and/or inefficient but way better than storing electricity as hydrogen.

We have been lied to for so long about what is the best diet.

And you are still doing it lambchop, together with your “alternative facts” from You Tubers.

Half the point of this is for it to be simple and to be cheap and all the above analysis paralysis and pissing about is counter to that.

Yes.

Fibre is not required by the human body in any way. In fact it causes more problems than not

Sorry lambchop, this is utter garbage. Fiber is one of the handful of foods that has been consistently found to reduce mortality. There is a lot of evidence in proper scientific journals if you are actually interested.

As just one example an analysis covering 3.5 million people showed “This comprehensive meta-analysis provides additional evidence supporting the protective association between fiber intake and all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates”.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38011755

you’re also getting it dirty

Are you really?

A dirty chain can only add water, which will evaporate from the hot wax, or solid particles which will drop to the bottom of the DFF. If you use the suspended  basket in the DFF the solids will stay on the bottom and not make the wax dirty.

What other “dirt” is there?

How about a quick rant then:

The bike industry is a mess right now! What used to be a simple, straightforward market has become a labyrinth of overpriced gimmicks and constant “innovations” that no one asked for. Every year, it seems like there’s a new “must-have” technology—whether it’s electronic shifting, dropper posts on road bikes, or absurdly wide tires—that’s more about squeezing extra money out of customers than actually improving the riding experience. And don’t even get me started on the constant changes in standards. You buy a bike, and within a year, it’s practically obsolete because they’ve decided to tweak the axle size or introduce yet another proprietary. The industry is alienating the very people who love it most.

I thought Chat GPT did reasonably well.

My dad threatened to leave me and my sister in a lay by if we didn’t stop fighting.  We didn’t.  He pulled in, dumped us and drove…..

I did that to my two when they ignored warnings to stop fighting in the car. It was only a mile or so for them to walk home, less distance than walking to school, but they still remember that incident now they are in their 30s

Went to Japan last October/ early Nov for about 5 weeks.  Weather was perfect – probably best time of year to visit.  In Tokyo it started off mid 20s and mainly sunny, by Nov a bit cooler, but still nice.

Is it available on free to view TV?

Yes – what @gordimhor said.

US around a 20% of domestic and commercial electricity consumption is air conditioning

”Interestingly”, Aircon was originally invented as a way to allow magazines to print in colour.

one it the factors driving global temperatures up is efforts to keep things cool

Ironic that the parts of the world most against the concept of global warming are the ones most dependent on Aircon to be habitable – south and SW USA, Australia, Middle East. . .

In the business of making oxygen, our larger sites could be running several compressors over 10MW each, which would result in them getting monthly bills over £1m.

I suspect anyone making steel in an electric arc furnace will dwarf that.

Over winter, I might do it every other ride.

It depends on conditions. When it’s dusty and dry I get a couple of hundred miles out of the MTB and rather more out of the road bike.

In the very worst of the winter it can be as little as one ride to keep the chain feeling/sounding good – but for comparison in the same conditions a chain lubed with Squirt would sound awful before half a ride in the worst of the Surrey Hills grinding paste.

Did you watch it?

Live, and again on catch up. Did you watch it?

He lost half of that straight after the clash as he lost most of his momentum.

Someone with “more in their legs” would have been chasing Pidcock down to re-pass him rather than giving up nearly a minute from the finish.

had far more in his legs it seemed

Except when Pidders did pass him he went on to win with a 9sec margin. Someone with more in their legs would have closed that down.

If it had come to a sprint I’d not have been backing TP.

Maybe so, but the race is not won by deciding who might have won in a sprint, or who might have had more in their legs at the end.

What a race!

WTF

Off to bbc1

For a crap intro cartoon and a crap chat from a presenter while we missed all the sudden drama.

BBC 2 on iPlayer seems about a minute or so behind the broadcast version.

I think the drone footage has been a game changer for this sort of event.

It never occurred to me that I needed to declare the incident as it was so minor and no claim was made

I have a suspicion that nowadays insurance companies use “minor incident no claim made” history as a proxy for “had a bang but settled it directly with the other driver for cash” – and so rate you as a higher risk.

Effectively the party has split

That’s as untrue as saying the Labour Party had split under Corbyn.  Whilst there were big tensions between the left and right they stayed together and eventually navigated their way back to electoral success.

The Tory party is undergoing the same process now and it could resolve either way. That is what makes the current leadership contest so interesting.

I’m puzzled why any of them are standing now

For the most part the simple answer is ego – like the leader of almost any political party. You don’t get to the top of the greasy pole by just caring about your vision or policies – you also have a solid conviction that you out of all the others are the best and the only one that can make things happen.  Look at Biden and Corbyn clinging onto the leadership role when the rest of the world could see their time had long since passed.

Getting to that position is so difficult that any time spent in at the top is recognised as an achievement – unless you totally Liz Truss it.

A couple of years ago I moved from Virgin Media (good internet – awful customer service) to NOW.  They have been fine so far, which sounds a lot better than some others.

It’s a difficult one. The obvious choices are:

• head more towards the right, on the basis that Reform is their main threat.
• head back towards One Nation style conservativism, on the basis that elections are won from the centre and trying to appeal to an increasingly extreme sector of the electorate is electoral suicide.

I suspect that are likely to drift further right, partly because and that most members who chose the leader are more right wing than the average Tory voter. I think that’s probably good in the short to medium term because it would likely make even more disaffected “blue wall” voters move to the Lib Dems in a future election.

full house on the gammon bingo card

I do find it ironic how people who presumably consider themselves anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc, are very happy to be openly racist sexist and ageist about those they disagree with.

I have traveled a lot for work, and not, and what I have found always works is zero forex fee  credit cards like Halifax Clarity and Barclaycard. As others said above, you get the perfect exchange rate, so it is the cheapest possible option: for more info read the Money Saving Expert website.

For cash I just withdraw what I want from ATMs in the foreign country on my CC. I then transfer an additional payment into the credit card to avoid paying any CC interest – although in reality that is still small compared to the ursury of getting forex in the UK.  And if you really really need the security blanket of taking forex from the UK then order it in advance for collection at the post office or airport – again it’s a lot cheaper than the ripoff of being a walk-in.

And finally, as has also been said above always refuse the offer of convert to GBP on foreign CC transactions and cash withdrawals.

In my (ex) work we had cameras in the production facilities and on all our delivery vehicles – except Germany where it was basically illegal to risk getting video of random passers by.  This was to help in investigating incidents.

And as someone where part of my role was investigating incidents I am another one of those who is surprised this isn’t standard on a ships bridge, just like in a commercial aircraft cockpit.

Now that Biden has gone, maybe we should stop posting here and use only the “US Election thread” to discuss the US Election?

Just mentioning it for a friend.

then let Harris have a full run up at the election.

Unfortunately Harris is woefully unpopular and when Trump says she’ll be easier to beat than Biden I suspect he’s right.  It may not be fair or nice, but that’s the situation and the overriding priority is to keep Trump out.