Anyone else expecting freezer/lawn content?

Yes – that’s why I’m here.

I believe you are not supposed to used co2 inflators with them

That’s a no from me then.

Also, don’t bother with Zoes if you’re tall

I’m 6ft and it’s fine, but not sure how it would be if you’re much taller.

James, a year ago I bought a 2016 Zoe as a runaround second car and it’s perfect for the job. We use it for 80% of our driving, the Mondeo is only used for long distance trips and when I need to drive the bike somewhere or go camping.

Range is about 150+ miles in summer and 130 in winter. That’s enough to drive to London or the south coast no problem. For nearly all the driving we do around home it’s the obvious choice.

Another happy user of Otterboxes – my phone has even survived a couple of drops when mountain biking.

I’m sure we have no Tory MPs on here.  And probably no MPs at all.

Still wondering if I should order the Vitus XC bike for my Daughter – if I use my CC I should be covered…..

Yes, if it’s over £100 and it does not get delivered / arrives damaged / not as advertised.   But not for simply wanting to return it because you don’t want it.

I’m fairly certain that I have read about a scam where people think that money has been transferred to their bank account and it has not, in order to defraud them of an item they are selling.

This happened to a friend a couple of weeks ago.  The buyer turns up and shows you on his phone that he has transferred the funds to you. But after 10 mins it doesn’t appear in your account he says he needs to go now and the money must be on its was so he wants the item.  In reality his phone was running a spoof app and he never transferred the money.

But I generally agree with what the non paranoids above have said – when the money appears in your account it’s yours and he can’t use only your sort code/ account name/number to remove your money.

“David is so impressive” – Yes, but in The Galleria della Accademia.

PS re food I can’t remember restaurant names but this is Italy so and the food is nearly always great. Just head down any side street away from the main tourist hot spots for 100m and there will be loads of great places. If you and Mrs A like meat then try the Bistecca Florentine – a big T bone steak cooked over charcoal for two.

Florence is a brilliant destination and there is enough for a week. And hopefully in November should be a lot less crowded. Number one tip is rent a bike for a few hours, or even half a day – the centre is very compact and mainly flat – and nobody seems to mind you riding around and through the crowds.

The Duomo (cathedral) is a must see – and the climb to the top of the dome is worth doing (unless you are very claustrophobic) and the climb up its tower is great too. Also visit the Plazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signora.  There are several other good churches to see – Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce. Walk over the iconic Ponto Vecchiio to the Plazzo Pitti.There are nice views of the city from the Giadino Bardini just over the river.  It’s a shame you don’t want to do art galleries because The Uffuzi is one of the world’s best. The corridor Varsi is an interesting high level route over the river from about the 1500s I think – unfortunately it still hadn’t been opened to the public last time I was there but should be now – will probably need advance booking. The sightseeing hop on/hop off bus is worth a go if you are short on time. 

One thing this discussion illustrates is just how complicated and entrenched this conflict is, with so many reasons for historical bitterness between the two sides. In a situation like Northern Ireland the hardliners on both sides realised, after a generation of fruitless conflict, that accepting a compromise agreement was the least bad option.

Unfortunately in the Palestinian / Israeli case, with the outside parties involved such as Iran and the US feeling so little consequences of supporting a protracted conflict, the situation could rumble on until the next century.

I used to do quite a bit of long haul for work and there are some good suggestions above.  My experience is:

– Sennheiser Momentum are great over ear headphones with good noise cancelling – it’s amazing how loud the cabin of the pane seems when you turn them off.  Any I think the sound quality is excellent – I spent a lot of time at LHR auditioning different headphones from my iPad using music I knew very well.  I personally though the Bose were good for noise reduction but had a too anodyne, restrained sound.   I only ever use the bluetooth but they take cable too.

– I got a Snoozeband the other day for use in bed and it decent and not expensive, but is not noise cancelling.  But if you do sleep on your side it could be more comfortable after a long period than over ears – maybe take both so you can swap around.

– I Used to download a lot of music onto Spotify, plays and podcasts onto BBC Sounds and sometimes a few TV programs onto the iPad with Netflix.  Better spending your time watching or listening to things you like.

-Melatonin is worthwhile for getting to sleep when heading east, it is clinically proven to help.  It is a natural hormone, unlike valium, but will just encourage you to sleep a few hours earlier rather than knock you out.  In the UK you need to ask the doctor for a script, but in other places like the US it’s over the counter – and on line too.

– Try to live life in the plane on your new time zone as soon as you can, eyeshades on when its night at your destination, and watch films/drink coffee when it’s daytime there.  You may feel shit on the the plane, but get some of the jet lag over before you arrive.  Even better when heading to Aus try and get up and go to bed a couple of  hours early for a few days before you leave the UK – helps the body clock move in the right direction

Good luck.

What Kramer said.  My wife rides a 27.5 and she’s a good foot shorter than you.

How tall are you?

not a lot of genuine understanding, compassion and empathy

nobody has the moral high ground here.

Probably the two best comments I’ve seen in 137 posts on this thread.

I also know how work place gossip can go from zero to a million with very little provocation.

Yes you are right about that, it might be completely untrue and he deserves the chance to deal with unfounded rumours or to deal with the fact his affair has become common knowledge.

there’s no blackmail, just a lot of assumptions all round.

If you read through the previous posts about “blackmail” it is stated that in case he admits the affair then asking him to “do the right thing” is blackmail.

Let’s be clear, it is not blackmail. If he won’t “do the right thing” and he expects the OP to keep quiet about it too, then he is asking the OP to lie to the wife who is also a close friend. Nobody has precipitated that situation except him starting the affair – no matter how discrete he naively thought he would be.

Effectively this is blackmailing your friend that he should do what ‘you’ feel is the right thing.

You might think that at first, but on reflection if the rumours are true then effectively your friend is blackmailing you into being untruthful to his wife. He has chosen that situation – not you and not his wife.

If your focus is 3-5 hr XC rather than “not the Surrey Hills” there is the Nirvana Killer Loop. But don’t worry, the only killer part is its 27miles and 2700ft climbing – although that’s not particularly long. You can always extend it if you want by including the top of Holmbury and Pitch Hills, and even loop into Box Hill.

Plenty of nice pubs/cafes to chose from all over the route. It’s on Ride with GPS or start from Westcott and buy a copy of the route card from Nirvana cycles.

do you want to lose one or both of the friendships?

Sadly I suspect that is a likely outcome whatever you decide to do.

Yep

Thanks – it explains my sometimes poor battery life.

And how mingling are people’s straps if you don’t wash them

At least that’s not a problem for me – it gets a rinse in the shower with me after every ride.

A year ago I swapped from Giffgaff to Smarty because Giffgaff didn’t offer WiFi calling. Now I have it with Smarty it works perfectly, and I pay almost exactly the same per month.

Are you disconnecting one side of the hrm when you take it off so the battery doesn’t drain

Are you supposed to do that?

Just like the apocryphal six phases of a big project ending in punishment of the innocent and reward for the uninvolved, it seems that even a seemingly innocuous subject on the STW forum, will quickly deteriorate through tedious debate about a tangential issue (Maths vs Arithmetic), through shoehorned political comments (Brexit), to all out hostility (Call me an idiot to my face).

Hopefully it’s all made worthwhile by an occasion flash of wit (Popcorn anyone . . . how much is the postage).

blame isn’t always assigned according to the circumstances and it might actually have lots to do with prejudice.

Oh well that proves it, the driver was to blame but the innocent motorcyclist got fitted up by the police

The driver was definatly not taking the care and attention required, a pretty shockingly crap turn.

How do you know – you can’t see what the driver can see at the moment they started to turn?  It is entirely believable that she saw slow moving oncoming cars giving her plenty of time to turn, then at the last moment as she naturally focused her attention to the road she was turning into, a motorbike overtook the cars at high speed and couldn’t stop before it hit her.

I have no proof of this, but you have no proof of a “shockingly bad” turn – except that it was the motorcyclist who got charged for careless driving.

the mindset of the police/CPS was that he was a wrong’un and to focus on him.

Or maybe the police:
– measured the motorcycle skid mark and used that to estimate his speed as far above the speed limit
– talked to witnesses who described the motorcyclist‘s behaviour in the few seconds before the incident, not clear on the video
– interviewed the car driver and motorcyclist about their version of what happened
– looked at videos of just before the crash from other dashcams.

I am much more prepared to accept the decision to charge him and find him guilty rather than the armchair experts with 5 seconds of video on a mobile phone.

Most of the fault lies with the car driver.

I don’t know the facts here other than a few seconds of video on a small screen. But no doubt there was a police serious RTA investigation into this, and as a result the people who do know the facts decided the motorcycle was guilty of Careless Driving.

And how is it for getting a bike in without removing the wheels?

What about a combo then? Say 30c up front with a 32c rear? Near perfect Goldilocks solution???

I’d much prefer better grip up front – rear grip is rarely much of a limitation on the roads.

My road bike came fitted with 32mm tyres. I thought these seemed wide compared to the 25mm tyres on my old road bike but thought I’d give them a go. I find them more comfortable on the generally poor Surrey country back roads, and also better grip on wet roads – although in the absence of any real A-B testing both could be psychological.

So I was very interested to read the comments above.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. Batteries replaced and straps washed – both HRMs seem to be working ok now.

I always separate the electronics from the strap and then the strap gets a rinse in the shower.  But I’ve never cleaned the electronics capsules – interesting, I’ll take a look at that.

Thanks for the comments guys.  Just to be clear I am getting a signal from both the Wahoo and Coospo, it’s just that it doesn’t seem to follow my perceived heartrate.

After a while the straps seem to get clogged with salt or the sensor pads delaminate (not really sure which) and this also gives dodgy readings.

The Wahoo strap looks clean so I am now trying a new battery with that, although it doesn’t seem along ago since I replaced it.   The Coospo strap sensors do look quite manky, so it’s in the washing machine today!   I’ll see how they work on Saturday’s ride before deciding whether to go for:

A replacement strap without electronics is only about £10 on Amazon.

You’ll also need a phone line of course – so hopefully this is still connected

not necessarily.

Our BT line had been cut years ago after we went to NTL cable. When we signed up for NOW last year they arranged for Openreach to install a new cable to the house, which we didn’t have to pay for.

Do you actually need „true fibre“ and 200-300Mb? In most areas the BT local copper wire can still offer 50-100Mb. I’m getting 67MB from NOW for £21/month, which I found more than sufficient for WFH and TV.

Swinley can make you heartily sick of berms – so plenty of practice available there.

For a more downhill feel, John the Baptist at Peaslake has plenty of descending berms on the last section below the church.

I still have my dads from the 1950’s. It’s all still valid today

Apart from there not being any motorways until about 1959.

But I guess the „system of car control“ is fundamentally unchanged.

“He’s hit a parked car before now

Fair enough – I was wrong.

naming and shaming him as hitting cars when drunk

The OP didn’t claim this did he? Libelling him to the local pub(s) puts you in the wrong and you could end up in court.

Just follow the previous good advice to tell the police.