You could of course die from carbon monoxide poisoning?

Thanks woody, there are a couple of Fords, sadly not in use, they built a temporary bridge for the past couple of years at the North end of the forest. The famous Ford from back in the glory days is not in use at all as it’s just far too rough for a car.

Far more exciting watching Stephen Petch in his Fiesta R5 or Robinson in his Mk2 Escort !!

I too have an ageing 4S and reluctant to upgrade to a bigger size screen. Am in the process of saving for a new one though and will just have to put up with it, though I’m also very slightly tempted to get an Apple watch too as I think I’d find it very useful when out and about at events that I go to. Not in any hurry so happy to wait for a new version when it’s launched or soon after.

Just throwing Titanic 2 in there. Was a great laugh though

Same again, had to get a new line installed when I moved in but never a phone plugged into it and not a clue what the number is. Wish I was in a cable area so could just get virgin broadband without paying for a landline.

Vodafone closely followed by Travelodge. Will never use either again.

To be fair, Vodafone were (mostly) fine until I tried to leave…

Took about 15 calls over multiple days to get a pac code, some of the staff put me on hold only for someone else to answer (bar stewards didn’t want to deal with someone starting to get annoyed), had to confirm details each time, then the tenth guy I spoke to said that my address wasn’t correct….. Oh you’ll have to phone back tomorrow as the cancellations team closed 5 minutes ago….
Then to top it off got a friendly guy who gave me the code and said it’d been available for ages and he didn’t know why I was having so much trouble?!
Then I paid the final amount, was told I’d never hear from them again (hurrah!), only to receive a bill the next month! Called and gave them my number and they said that that number wasn’t on their system! (No cos its on BT now)….. Went on and on and on and on and on……..

Then in June I’d spent the day at Wimbledon and had booked and paid for a Travelodge in Bedford, as I had to be in work the following afternoon so it was a wee bit up the road.
Except the final match was a long one and only just finished before it got too dark. So got to the TL at about midnight, tried to open the door but it was locked – foreign chappie on reception buzzes me in and I smiled and said I nearly started to panic a bit…. His reply was that no, right now is the time to panic as they didn’t have a room for me…. Not to worry there is another place not far away, he gets on the phone to them (oh, you’re full too?).
Not amused by now.
He finds another one somewhere else, there’s definitely a room, he says he will make absolutely sure I get a full refund and free breakfast the next morning – fair enough I thought.
Asked the girl at reception the ne t morning if I could get something confirming I’m getting a refund. “Oh, we don’t do refunds?”. Maybe I can get the manager to speak to you, write your details down.
No call so I call them back a few days later and nothing happens.
Tweeted Travelodge UK who said they had spoken to the hotel who said they’d never offered me a refund.
Oh and no breakfast either.

(Try to) play tennis a couple of evenings a week, and cardio tennis twice a week which I really enjoy!

Rallying – been all over the world watching & taking photos at events, but now mainly filming for a tv program these days which takes up a lot of my time outside work, also try to do a bit of co-driving now and again, have done the Safari Rally in Kenya twice and probably will again next year.

Love map reading and could sit and look at maps for hours and hours, either randomly or trying to work out a route for driving or biking.

Would love to give kayaking a go but wouldn’t know where to start and, again, not knowing anyone who would also try it is annoying.

I wear 661 exo knee-shin pads whenever I’m on my bike, they are on the thin side but that’s all I wanted to avoid pedal/shin injuries mainly. Very rarely notice them when I’m pedalling so worth it for me. I did buy a set of exo elbow pads at the same time and have them in my bag but don’t think I’ve ever worn them out the house!

I have a RoadHawk HD, but I must point out that it is utterly, utterly useless. The sound is always 2-3 secs ahead of the video, it does record speed, position etc but you need to use their software to see it. Which would be fine if the software didn’t look like it’d been done by a first year student who had been out on the razz for the first three months of their course and they’d handed that in as their coursework as they don’t have a clue what they did with it but *somehow* lets you view on it. Ish. If you have an Internet connection.

And if you haven’t got an Internet connection, you can’t do anything on the software. ANYTHING. I only wanted to change from continuous 1-minute looping recording, to 30-minute clips with no looping when memory is full. But as I had no internet on my laptop in deepest Africa, impossible to change! Useless!

So, in summary, I am also after a recommendation.

Yes, did the same and transferred over from Vodafone (with great amount of hassle/stress caused by their pitiful customer service)

Happy with it, slightly worse signal strength but generally faster data, I have been getting a lot more spam calls though and endless texts saying ‘you’ve missed a call but they didn’t leave a voicemail’ despite no call appearing on my phone (quite frustrating).

Renewal quoted was £650, confused.com listed them at cheapest for £440, called and gave ref no – so down about £100 from last year, though to be fair that was when I had 0 no claims discount.

That includes full rac membership, recovery/onward travel etc.

Haven’t done it but believe that for supplies, utilities etc you will be entitled to a 5% vat rate.

I’d imagine that more likely is that someone driving past noticed a car in the trees and presumably thought that it would have been dealt with previously. Hence they called 101 or whatever it is rather than 999.

Terrible situation, seems the person that received the info either ignored it or thought “I’ll sort that in 2 mins after I finish this cuppa……………………….ahhhh, now where was I?”

Either way, not good. You’d also have to say incredibly unlucky of the occupants for this all to happen.

If I’d seen an accident, I would pull over in the hard shoulder and walk/run back as far away from the road as possible whilst phoning 999. Seems though that there wasn’t a crash barrier where this happened, just a drop down a bank into trees.

Leccy companies will have procedures to follow for suspect meters, it’s a regulated market so there’s probably things they must do, and do within a specified timeframe.

Oh and anything connected is hackable.

Some great pics above, lots of happy people!!

I really don’t like getting my photo taken, but on the odd occasion I do allow it.

Here is a very nervous me (on the right) with my good friend Geoff, just before the ceremonial start of the Safari Rally last year. We were going well and up to 2nd 2WD car before our props haft broke…..many many drinks were consumed after that…

Then this year we had another attempt, and despite a huge amount of problems (with both car, crew and the weather) we got through it and made it to the finish – definitely one of the biggest highlights of my life. On the drive back to the hotel afterwards I am not embarrassed to say that I wept like a baby, massive relief, joy, pride, satisfaction and general awesomeness. While the photo isn’t great, it takes me right back there.

The biggest “advantage” for me, the one i found the most surprising was just how it “simplifies” trail riding. Just one lever to press, no front ring to worry about / choose. I know that sounds odd, and i thought i might miss the ability to suddenly downshift a large ratio jump, like you could do with a 3x or 3x setup, but no, i just love riding, and not having to think about gears really!

+1, find it really easy and freed up a nice space on my bars for my reverb.

It’s £14 on the meter, standard rates is £30 odd.

I was sitting alongside our car on the Safari Rally in 2014, whilst the guys were repairing the damage we’d done driving out the previous stage, and as always happens loads of kids came along to see what was happening.

I was eating an Apple and just like here, I never eat the core. So when I was done, I threw it away into the bushes.

It was swiftly followed by two five year old kids who fought each other over it.

So now I always feel a little bit guilty when I throw my apple cores in the bin. But always very grateful that I can do so without worrying.

Yes.

Should be free to get it installed.

I pay £14 a month. But I’m a singleton and am careful with usage.

Fancy some of those Adidas ones, only place I can find in stock is Rosebikes, will see what’s what come pay day!

If I’d spent all day messing around getting stuck, then no doubt cold and wet, only to be offered a salad, I’d probably punch someone too, to be fair.

All the same, apart from a few funny bits I won’t miss it really.

Went for my first ride tubeless this afternoon, bit of XC and through some local woods.

I presume it just takes a while to get used to the tyres being a bit ‘spongey’, flexing a bit more than previously?

I have standard Alex rims and worked without an issue with my Conti Trail Kings, I did have a Mountain King on the rear but it refused to work, swapped for a spare and went up first time. Really chuffed.

Do people carry spare sealant with them, or just a tube and sort it when home?

In my experience of chasing car rallies through various remote parts of Kenya, they have much better phone & data signal than we get in the UK.

Back in my student days I won £40 worth of goods from a bakers in Glenrothes thanks to Kingdom FM, got the lot in a few big brown paper bags as I had to go back to uni. Did put a big of weight on that week….

Nothing apart from that.

I keep myself to myself and have lived in my house for 16 months and only spoken to my neighbour once, after they’d taken a parcel in and I hadn’t been notified. I did overhear them moaning about my front lawn once, but as I’m out at work all day, either riding or playing tennis on weekday evenings, and very often away at events at the weekend, I think they’d also moan if I mowed it at 6am or something. Meh.

Elderly other neighbour I’ve yet to see. It is quiet here though and never hear any trouble, in fact I was late for work once cos I couldn’t find my keys to lock the house door, spent ages looking everywhere (as you do), they were in the ignition of my unlocked car out on the street.

If I was asked for anything I’d be more than happy to help, but never have been, don’t mind really. I’ll probably be moving within the next 6 months anyway.

Thanks guys, I tried to get the adapter off the Airshot but wouldn’t budge even with two sets of pliers, got it eventually but had taken the core out earlier, I’ll know for next time.

Love it, brilliant bit of kit – just wish it was a different shape so it wouldn’t fall over all the time!

Wouldn’t have been able to get it working without one though, so very happy.

Standard rim, not drilled (really should, I can see that now), no soapy water needed. I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t work with my tyres but seems to have worked just fine, will see if it’s still holding up in the morning I guess. Have only done the front so will have to try to borrow a drill from someone at work before doing the rear (may well redo the front too).

Anyone in doubt – get one.

Ignore above, got it out!!!

Ok chaps, so at long last I’m getting around to trying to go tubeless.

I bought the Stans kit with the normal rim strip which has a bleeding presto valve. Don’t like the things, but hey ho.

So I’ve got as far as putting the sealant in and now need to launch he Airshot at it, my Joeblow track pump definitely isn’t up to it.

However, I don’t have a valve core removal tool which the Airshot must connect into? Ie I need to remove the valve core before I can use it. Do I just yank out the middle with a pair of pliers?? Don’t want to try and end up ruining the rim strip, help is appreciated!!

Thought it was just me that wears them! Got a pair of Decathlon ones over the winter, helps as I always wear trousers when out on my bike, really like them and would never go without.

Thanks for the advice chaps. Looks like I’ll have to hang fire for the moment and save up a bit more cash and wait till a time when I’m not away most weekends.

As above, you might need to think about the rating of the boiler – if getting an additional (or larger) boiler then your gas service pipe up to the meter might need to be upgraded. Ask your supplier for a GT1 check and they will give you the capacity of the pipework, if you are lucky you might be able to get away with a bigger meter (U16). Send me an email for more info if you need it.

Kielder 101km on 5th September?

Cancelled Sky a month ago and have been trying to see if I can survive on 3G. Apart from having to add a bit extra data to my mobile (sim only), it’s not been too bad but not really viable long term. Swaying towards BT at the moment but deals seem to be changing all the time. Not in a rush to switch but will probably sign up next week as I’m happy with their £7.50 a month for 17mbps unlimited + £16.99 for the phone line.

Carlos, what is the black box that downloads for TV?

I will never forget a primary school educational trip to a nearby sewage works.

Never.

My dad had been on statins for about a year and then watched them hairy bikers diet program and they came off them, he had been told he’d be on them for the rest of his days so was more than a bit surprised!

Almost immediately he took up running, eating properly and making a proper effort of it. His doctor did eventually take him off them but left him in no doubt that it was more risky if he didn’t keep up the exercise/good food than not changing his lifestyle.

He’s never looked back.

But then these days, he does make a habit of saying that it’s far easier to avoid having a Mars bar than slogging it out for a 30 minute run afterwards….

FFS wear your seat belts people, it’s not difficult.

17 year old apprentice from my office was killed 2 weeks ago in a car accident too, not wearing a seat belt. Utterly idiotic thing to do, properly winds me up.

Thanks, I thought that was the case. I’m after a Granite Chief. I’m in Sunderland so Wiltshire’s not exactly close, will be a couple of months until I can afford a new bike though so will maybe need to arrange a road trip sometime…

I’ve entered, I suppose more in the hope that it’ll persuade me to get out more to get fitter in time for it……

I only have a hardtail, with 100mm fork, some videos I’ve seen show it to be really rough, already started saving for a FS, I don’t know if that’s an essential?

I’ll just be happy to get round without getting stopped/diverted back, we’ll see how it goes!

Thanks for the heads up about the Rose – has gone to the top of my WANT list, maybe have to wait a couple of months though :( Also wish it had a 1×10 option though.

First time I heard about this I’d been reading about a guy who refused to answer the question, and they’d refused to give him his money.