Thanks again guys, great advice.

On the trying to play like Marr thang, it’s more of someone I recognise as being a fantastic player playing the sort of stiff I enjoy listening too. If I could get somewhere remotly close too something resembling his playing, that’d be the pinnacle, not that I’m expecting to!

I’d be more than happy to be able to do a recognisable Dylan, Beatles or Oasis number a few months down the road!

Cheers for the pointers chaps.

When the idea did initially float into my head, I did assume that an electric with a headphone amp would get me somewhere near being able to strum out a nearly recognisable Marr or Squire riff a bit faster than going acucstic first (and indeed be more family and neighbor friendly!).

Go on @Edukator, I’m listening 🙂👍

I’m aware of the mahoosive mine field ahead to negotiate but I’ve a big birthday coming up.

Having never been musically inclined in my previous 4 decades, and bereft of any other answers to “so what do you want for your birthday then?”, I’m leaning towards asking for a first guitar.

There’s a seemingly well regarded LGS not very far away so I think I’ll be popping in to see what they say.

Knowing next to naff all about guitars, a little research tends to suggest an acoustic is best to start on.

Drradnouhht, parolor, auditorium are terms lost on me currently! I’d want something I’m hopefully going to still want to pick up in six months time, any thoughts on the below?

PRS Parlor

Is there any benefit of going electro-acustic on a first guitar?

Yamaha APX700II

Fender Mailbu

.

Since our daughter came along I’ve been almost exclusively a roadie. It’s at least 30 minutes drive to anything remotely hardtail worthy round here, to get a decent ride in, with all the requisite mountain bike phaffage, is half a day at least. It’s so much easier just to roll the road bike out of the shed and go!

My club has a no drop policy but with an ‘unwritten rule’ that you’re on your own within 10km to go back the meeting point. It’s rarely used, I’ve towed people back home and likewise, contrary to my protestations that I’ll be fine to roll home on my own, I’ve had a wheel to stick to when hanging out my arse!

We got the letter from ONS/Oxford, phoned up and have heard nothing yet.

I very interested to see if I’ve got any antibodies, I had the classic flu-but-not-flu symptoms back in December that floored me for a couple of weeks. Funnily enough a mate had been working in China in November/early December…

With any more than a couple of decent bikes specific bike insurance premiums are insane.

Nationwide house & contents here, really good cover including away from the home.

No mappage, but fill ya boots: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/

Dog and Gun was a great pub with oodles of character until a pubco brought it and ripped the soul out of the palace

FTFY Footflaps. It was an ‘orrible, smoked filled place before the smoking ban; your waterproof would stink for the rest of the week! Smoke free it was a brilliant place to spend an hour or several after coming of the hill, alas it’s been ‘improved’ and I won’t step foot in there again. Shame, Keswick beers are great.

EDIT: And the goulash was fantastic, not sure if they still do it?

Has anyone moved recently with >5k bikes in shed and got anywhere near £300?

🖐️ Went with Nationwide, all the bells and whistles (bar garden cover) and £12k worth of bikes between the shed and garage. A smidge over £300.

A big birthday bike for me would be something like a Ti bike from a small independent manufacturer, Enigma for instance. https://www.enigmabikes.com/pages/enigma-etape

We had a few days camping near Holt (great options for a nice café stop) a few weeks back, some lovely riding on the NCN30 to Blakeney.

On a similar thread a few days ago Nationwide was mentioned. No max limit on total bike value, bikes over £1k need to be listed as separate items, no stipulations on being stored in shed & garage. You do need a main current account or savings account with them to get a decent discount though.

you should double check for suitability when you get all the small print.you should double check for suitability when you get all the small print.

That’s the annoying part, the policy details on all the websites are woolly at best, and the call centre staff (not having ago at them, they’re only as good as the info in front of them) know little more. To have any real idea of what you’re actually covered for you have to pay for the policy and read the policy schedule!!

Went with nationwide recently. up to £5k cover on any single bike with no stipulations (which i thought was weird)

Cheers Tricky, I’ll give them a bell at lunch.

Go with the Skoda if you need an ice-scraper in the fuel cap or a free umbrella mind,

The little clip on the windscreen to hold parking tickets sold it for me!

Something like this do it? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283448454013

I was passed on my faux-commute (along a Tarmaced bridleway) yesterday by a fat knacker on an old MTB with a derestricted conversion kit going at a fair lick, must have been pushing 25mph; I wouldn’t have liked to see him have to stop quick-sharp!

I received an email this morning saying the request I sent to the global customer support has been sent to their UK distributor Lyon Equip., which is encouraging; I’ve had brilliant service from them re: MSR stoves & Therm-a-Rest in the past.

More great service from Lyon, received an email from them not long after hearing from Ortlieb, offering to send me 10mm adaptors free of charge. After confirming they’d fit my older QL1 system (they originally only accepted 8 or 11mm adaptors) the arrived in the post a wee while ago. Trying them they are a slight interference fit on the 10mm Tubus rack and provide a solid, secure fixing on to the rack, better than the newer ones on my wife’s bags.

you normally have gps turned off, but would like it to turn on automatically when you plug the phone into the car?

Yup, that’s it. I normally have Bluetooth and GPS off, more to prolong battery life than anything. It’s great AA turns on Bluetooth when plugged into the car, it’d be even greater if it did the same with GPS! I couldn’t find anything in the developer settings.

If you turn on the developer settings in Android Auto, you can have it set by the phone where it relies on the Sunrise/Sunset times.

Marvellous! Ta muchly for that Stumpy 👍

Now if you could let me know how to get it to turn on location when I plug the phone in, I’d be forever indebted to you!

Waze was brought by the big G sometime ago, more features are being ported over to Google Maps over time.

I use it mostly all the time for nav, works very well. Sometimes I can’t be arsed, or it’s not convenient when driving, to plug it in and use the inbuilt Sat Nav.

I pretty much only use android auto, never use the built in maps on my Skoda.

The only downside compared to the inbuilt Sat Nav is that you don’t get arrow pointers on the MaxiDot display on the instrument cluster.

I miss the outer pockets my old Karrimor Kalaharis have for tools and easy to get stuff

You can buy pockets to fit to Ortlieb bags: https://www.ortlieb.com/uk/outer-pocket+F91S

I’ve heard good reports about Ortlieb’s customer service, I’ll update here when they get back to me about sending some reducers for the mounting system for my new rack

I received an email this morning saying the request I sent to the global customer support has been sent to their UK distributor Lyon Equip., which is encouraging; I’ve had brilliant service from them re: MSR stoves & Therm-a-Rest in the past.

Was down there (not cycling) last week. By god it was busy. Almost like the entire country is holidaying in the UK! Lovely place though.

Indeed ☹️ We had a week down there booked for Easter and managed to rebook it for the last week in the school hols, having cancelled going to Switzerland this week.

Hopefully it’ll be a bit calmer by then 🤞

they also rattle a bit and one of the bottom mountings tore thru.

My wife’s new ones came with 10mm adaptors opposed to the 11mm ones that fit my OL1s. They fit into the hooks much more securely and mount on Tubus racks snugly. Heatshrink tubing gets around the loose fit of the older adaptors.

Lovely, cheers guys!

I’ve got an ageing 810 too, battery still not too bad but I’m willing to give a replacement a go when the time comes.

One thing worth noting is the aftermarket batteries aren’t as high capacity as the originals.

If you’re an experienced SMT repairer, it should be a doddle, shirley?

I’ve done Grizedale after getting across the lake on the launch, makes for a proper little adventure!

My wife did consider the UpSo bags but discounted them as being too expensive, I seem to remember them being priced a lot higher previously?

One thing to note is that they are sewn as opposed to being welded, thus not 100% waterproof.

You could also try Spa Cycles who do touring stuff.

Indeed, we were there picking up my wife’s Wayfarer on Friday. Alas I couldn’t pick up mine as the bastards had run out of frames 😠🤬

After waiting 5 weeks to get round to building it they went to the frame store only to find out they’d run out of 54s, the lad dealing with us said he’s only just started to look to see if they have any frames in stock before taking a deposit, probably only after a rather straight-to-the-point phone conversation I had with the boss 🙄

So I couldn’t recommend the place if you actually want what’s listed on the website, I’d hope SJS have a better idea of stock control!

70 litres is a lot of stuff on the back of the bike, is there an option to have a pair on the front and a pair of 40 regular ones to distribute the weight about the bike better?

I’ve got a pair of Ortlieb Classics I used for commuting daily for 4 years, still going strong and about to be brought back into service for touring. The Classic material is stiffer and holds its shape, makes packing easier than the Plus material that flops over.

I’ve heard good reports about Ortlieb’s customer service, I’ll update here when they get back to me about sending some reducers for the mounting system for my new rack! As ever, the go-to-cycle-emporium for all things touring, SJS sell whatever spares you’ll need (but I’m not going to fork out a £tenner for 8 small bits of plastic if Ortlieb are willing to send them to me, gratis!).

I have seen reports of the fixings on the latest generation, small self tapper screws and plastic ‘nuts’ coming loose (I’m inclined to Loctite my wife’s new set), apart from that it’s a better solution than the big captive nuts on the inside of my set from c-2008.

As for Vaude, I’ve no first hand experience but I’ve seen comments that the mounting system it’s as good as Ortlieb’s.

Every time I have had a cheap digital one they seem to flatten batteries. My digital mitutoyo at work seems.to always be ready for action.

El cheapo ones just turn off the display when you press the off button, where as in skookum Japanese ones the μc goes in to power saving sleep mode.

I’ve taken to popping the battery out of the shite, cheapest available on Farnell calipers my firm furnished me with.

PCM – edited so you can guess

Just to show that proper northern pies can be sofistkated

Lochinver larder pies – by post. Lovely things. Unfortunately there was a minimum order of a dozen so I had to have ten of them.

https://www.piesbypost.co.uk/

Bloody ‘el, they let you have Manchego that far north now! Well I’ll be jiggered!

There’s going to be dust, a hell of a lot of dust. Unless you fancy spending the whole of the two weeks with a bolster chisel and hammer.

The cheap Titan SDS drill off of there Screwfix did the job well enough when I did our kitchen last year.

Steak ‘n’ Ale in obvs, but PCM/POM???

Whats everyone else having then?

Quite possibly a pie now!

Having discounted Hammerhead over their lies and messing about the initial backers, together with the lack of sound alerts, I’m now looking at the Karoo 2 with interest as a replacement for my aging Edge 810…

When you use a contactless card every few transactions have to be authenticated by PIN

I’ve always understood this to be the case, but I can only remember one occasion in the last couple of years I’ve had to authenticate by PIN. Just about all our spends go on a John Lewis Mastercard, pay it off each month and we get a pile of JL/Waitrose vouchers through the letterbox each quarter. Do you have to do the PIN thing more frequently using a debit card?