stand on his own two feet and not add to the UK housing crisis.

Really?  He will need to occupy a home whether he buys it or rents it so has the same impact on availability of housing.

Ergon are the only ones for me too.

Isn’t it great having an on line doctor to answer questions and clear up our misconceptions. I’d always assumed ibuprofen was anti inflammatory, so you live and learn.

The fact that it’s rumoured to  have been a thing tells you quite a lot, but it seems a bit like something from ‘Things Fall Apart’ and personally I’d want something a little more concrete then people saying stuff ‘off the record’.

Yes, this.

100 mile road ride from Surrey on 12th May:   https://www.swrc.org.uk/may-flyer/about-the-may-flyer

OP: all the advice is either don’t do it at all –  or do it for below the WBAC price if you are willing to take a risk.

Personally I think the best advice is say no. None of your man-maths adds up.

just totally anonymous items in a bag

This. Although from what the @kcr ‘s Amazon link says they are logging on to generate the review, not me.

the modern day equivalent of finding a horses head in your bed.

A horse’s head I can cope with, it’s when they leave the rest of the horse in my bed that I get worried.

Have you tried them on yet?

No, because:

they could be harmful if you try them on and you don’t have your ears pierced

But you are welcome to have them@MrSparkle

I found the Inside Health episode quite reassuring: a few key takeaways for me were:

– Ticks need temperatures over about 15C be active

– Ticks don’t just jump on and start feeding, but first spend a couple of hours realising they are on a host and finding the best spot to feed.
– Most ticks aren’t carrying Lyme disease, so a tick bite is far from being a guaranteed Lyme infection.

Ive occasionally had this after a ride in warm weather and sweating a lot. I have read explanations that its is an electrolyte imbalance and that it is muscle tiredness.  Personally I think it is the combination of both.

If you can’t avoid the tiredness you can minimise the electrolyte imbalance by adding High 5 Zero tabs to all your drinking water during the ride,  as suggested above.

My wife is 5’ 0” and uses an XS size  Specialized FS with 27.5 wheels. It fits her fine.

@5lab – I’ve seen a couple of partial eclipses in the UK and unfortunately 20% will barely be noticeable.

If you have the right glasses or use a pinhole/screen you will see a small nibble from the sun’s circle at max, and if you look carefully you might spot some effects on shadows such as from leaves of plants but you might not: this sort of thing becomes much more noticeable at 50% +

But going down to 80% sunlight from 100% will be imperceptible in terms of brightness and effects on wildlife.

Plus what Frank said.

Like northwind I went to Northern Cornwall to watch the 1999 eclipse. Although very thin cloud meant we couldn’t see the corona we got a great view of the sun’s disc progressively disappearing entirely. And as we went up a hill near St Agnes we had a great view of the shadow heading across the Bristol Channel towards us and then disappearing south over to the Lizard.

I’m seriously thinking of going to Spain to get another chance.

It’s down to what people are prepared to pay for it.  People generally see water as a “lifestyle product“ that says something about who they are, so they are relatively insensitive to the ridiculous cost. Whereas milk is seen as just a basic commodity foodstuff to feed the family at the lowest cost.

The article linked by @susepic gives a positive message. For all the worries about statistical manipulation and proxy factors like levels of calcification, scarring and A-fib, for the real endpoint (mortality): “measure their VO2 max to get an unambiguous assessment of aerobic fitness, the outcome is clear. The fitter you are, the longer you’re expected to live”.

I heard the same sentiment on a recent Zoe podcast about exercise: a good VO2 max is a predictor of longevity.

I had the aluminium bars on my old Stumpjumper snap years ago. Low speed impact after a fall and I couldn’t believe the bar had broken.  No doubt  a few years of metal fatigue had weakened it first – but Ali bars do break unexpectedly too.

and ideally cheap and does something clever to get my photos onto my phone / into iCloud library

So good quality , full featured and cheap? I think at best you can choose 2 of those 3.

I’ve been down the DLSR and compact camera route, and am now happy that my iPhone pro does 99% of what I want.  It would be very slightly better with an additional even more powerful optical zoom, but that’s about it.

I’m just interested to have now learned the term Mary Sue.

Looking forward to reading A Gentleman in Moscow soon, once I’ve finished The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell which I’m quite enjoying but not yet fully sold on.

One Ive just finished and really enjoyed was A woman in the polar night. It is a short book by an Austrian artist in the 1930s  who went off to join her husband living in a trappers hut in north Svarlbard for a year – as you do. That doesn’t sound very promising but it is really good.

Japan Centre between Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square.  The downstairs cafe is quick and cheap with a good range of Japanese food – and there’s usually plenty of Japanese in there too!

Thanks for those suggestions. I’ve been to the excellent Smitsonian air museums, but the Pentagon and the NRA are things I’d never thought of. 🤔

Thank you konagirl and PCA.

Yes there was a notice on the Garmin Connect app about server issues.  My ride appeared on Strava about 30mins after uploading via Garmin Connect.

It was open when I looked this morning, but is no longer a Specialized bike dealer. It is now a hire shop called The Riders Hub. But they did seem to have Specialized bikes available for you to hire. Here is a link:

Home

Loads of good comments from Frank – Havana was great for just walking and biking about – I think we spent a good 5 days there.

We did a home stay in Vinales – again you can hire a bike and do a bit of walking, it’s a small country town and you can see most things in a full couple of days.

We loved Trinidad, went by bus from Havana and spent a good 4 days there in another home stay. It is just so full of music and dancing it had a wonderful vibe. It was wonderful to see just how good the taxi dancers were in the square – some were really old looking guys but with fantastic moves. Also can hire a car and driver for a trip to the mountains and can hire a bike for a ride to the beach.

And yes, the mojitos were great.

PS I had no trouble going to the USA a few months later.  I think the restrictions are more focused on their own citizens.

I’m surprised that UK gardening shows get aired anywhere outside the UK, let alone in North Korea….”

I am finding it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the UK and North Korea.

It staggering that from an amusing little story it takes less than a dozen comments to deteriorate into petty political point scoring.

Surrey Hills was reasonably dry yesterday morning. Not totally mud free but good enough so I didn’t have to clean the bike. Since then we’ve had more rain showers today with the same scheduled for Thursday, Friday and maybe Sunday. But Saturday and Monday look pretty good, although not mud free.

If you want mud free try the Heathlands around Hindhead – Thursley: they drain in no time at all.

Thank god i dont have one of those awful stinking diesel or petrol cars

A particularly fine example of “Whataboutery”.

No I don’t think so.

The “comfort” will come from the deceleration when hitting the ground being the same in both cases.

Both bikes will fall at the same vertical speed and so will hit the ground at the same vertical speed.  If they then reduce this speed to zero across the same suspension travel they will both feel the same deceleration and so the same “comfort”.

But to achieve this the 105kg rider will need a suspension about 50% firmer sprung than the 70kg rider.

I set it up years ago to have separate zones for upstairs and downstairs. But modulation based on outside temperature sounds an interesting new feature.

Just to check first

Mains gas, ok water pressure, 4 bedroom semi.

On our £1400 annual gas bill 15% efficiency could save us £200 pa which of course is a long payback on a new boiler. And a couple of plumbers have told me these old boilers are less efficient but worth repairing as long as parts are available because they are generally more reliable. So I’m not keen to change but recognise at some stage I’ll have to.

Do modern combo boilers work ok with pumped showers and with filling baths vs HW tanks?

What’s your explanation Kramer?

Bead not seated on tyre inflated with inner tube; will I die?

Oh dear, I do hope Kramer hasn’t inadvertently answered his own topic.

I found a Coospro HRM strap was quite cheap and works OK with my Garmin. It does BT but for some reason refuses to talk to my iPhone.

I also have a Wahoo Tickr that works well too, but has nice flashing lights to tell you if you are still alive, and does BT to my iPhone, but costs a bit more.

I far prefer the Tesla over Renault Zoe in this respect

I have a 2016 Zoe that does not seem to have a one pedal mode.  Is that something just on new Zoes?

I don’t think I would ever want to use one pedal mode on a car when there is the potential for me to drive a regular 2 pedal car.

Looking on line some people say don’t use WD40 as a cleaner and others  say don’t use it as a lubricant.

WD40 is a good solvent and will remove lube from the chain bearings, but if you effectively add lube again afterwards there should be no problem – as many people on line also say. I can’t think of any mechanism for it to “destroy bearings” other than people wrongly assuming WD40 is a spray on lube.

On this one I’d go with your practical experience rather than what some boy in a shop said.

Confusingly WD40 also sell a spray chain lube product – I have no idea if it is any good.

As it’s a rear wheel what’s the worst that can go wrong? The tyre comes off and the back wheel skids you to a halt – unlikely to get out of control or OTB.

And most likely thing to happen is the tyre eventually seats itself properly.

But IANAD

a good picture doesn’t rely on being edited.

That’s a debatable claim. Back when I printed for myself from negs many of my best prints were cropped on the enlarger, contrast enhanced, burnt in or dodged, and as for colour prints the scope for modification was amazing.

Not using editing is an artificial barrier you might want to impose on yourself for creative reasons but doesn’t give a subjectively better picture.

Another for Omron M2.

take a few readings at a time as well as they vary

Good advice. I always ignore the first reading I get and then use the average of the 2nd and 3rd. Also don’t take your readings for a couple of hours after tea or coffee.  Other measurement strategies and no caffeine periods are also advised by different groups.

Well IANAD and DrP is of course a doctor. But I was advised both by my family GP and the Marsden Hospital urology nurse not to ride for 48hrs before my PSA tests. And after taking their advice I got the two lowest results I’d ever had – which of course could be coincidental.

But if you got a slightly high result after cycling wouldn’t your first thought be “I wonder if the cycling caused that” and want to be retested?

Pro tip… Never answer unsolicited calls.

Pro tip . . . This doesn’t necessarily apply to unsolicited letters through the post.

Probably gammon faced Tory in origin.

Racist, sexist, ageist and irrelevant. Well done you.