I’m just about to buy a pair of the jeans. Hoping they’re as good as I’ve heard. I used to like going to the Hathersage shop as it’s round the corner, but this time I’m shopping online.

Another vote for Madison, not flappy at all. Had a pair for a few years now and they’re still fully waterproof. They even look ok.

That an airgun is “legal” isn’t important. It was being used ilegally, unless it was being fired on private land and you’re a paper target or a vermin species. Also certain types of conviction mean you can’t possess airguns at all. This can be investigated. This really needs to be treated seriously by you local force. It’s a specific offence to discharge an air gun within 50ft of the centre of a highway, since the van was driving on one it sounds like you have compelling evidence of an offence.Threatening someone with an air weapon to cause fear carries a max 10 year sentence. I hope you have more luck with the OIC.

We’ll not know until there’s a test case. However with regard to not being able to even push your bike due to “no person… shall bring or cause to be bought on to the access land a cycle…” I do like the idea of taking an islabike in a rucksack and testing that particular bylaw. In the States they have national parks where they require people carry their bikes when crossing, I have no problem with this. Although getting a bollocking from a ranger in a jeep for riding a pushbike is a bit “Chris Morris”.

“Thirty to forty group!’ yapped a piercing female voice. ‘Thirty to forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to forties!’

Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already appeared.

‘Arms bending and stretching!’ she rapped out. ‘Take your time by me. One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! …’ ”

Doesn’t sound like fun. But it is essential. I just hope they remember that the restrictions are to prevent a pandemic not simply for our (and the NHS’s) own good.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of bringing our last rescue dog home, she’s a bullmastiff we picked as company for our now eight year old dobe. They get on great. It’s no harder than having one big dog, but I think dog and bitch (provided they’re spayed/neutered) is the best as bitches normally are a little more chilled and will normally accept male dominance so you can leave them alone, feed together etc..
Besides I’ve got a dog to stand guard over both bikes now. Probably need another dog soon as I’m looking at fat bikes.
Seriously though, the food bill doubled, but mine eat from the butchers so already pretty expensive, and we had to buy another sofa as we didn’t all fit. The main benefit was my dobe was a bit reserved and aloof and since we got him a pal he seems to enjoy play a lot more.
Do it.

I usually apologise then keep doing whatever the hell I feel like doing. Civil Servant though.

I’d second the vote for Redwing, very sturdy, thicker leather than the Sargents and unlined apart from the toe box part of the boot. They do a brogue style boot which is very good looking.

Alfred Sargent, an old black pair of brogue boots with commando soles and a newer pair of the Kelso “veldtschoen” boots in brown. Totally un-killable, I expect to collect my pension still wearing them.
I did see an advert in one of the fixie magazines years ago for a pair of brogues fitted with SPDs, they looked pretty cool.

You might miss the drops on the long road slogs though. I bought a Rove to do what sounds like the same type of riding. I swapped from a rigid 29er and at first found the Rove pretty unstable, falling off on the moors a few times not being used to the riding position. I found experimenting with tyre selection sorted that out. I put some fairly nobbly 42c tyres on and have been happy ever since.

My LBS suggested putting 650b wheel on the Rove with proper MTB tyres for the sort of riding I do, like the Surly Straggler, that might be what you’re after?

I’ve got the Kona Rove AL, I’m running schwalbe smart sams 42c with mudguards. The FSA Vero compact has got me everywhere I’ve tried to go so far. Looking at the specs it appears I could get a pair of 650b wheels in the frame too, for more of a MTB feel.

I read Allen Carr’s “No More Hangovers” in one sitting the Tuesday before last. I haven’t touched a drink since and the strangest thing is I have no interest in, or cravings for, booze. I was drinking every day sometimes way too much. I worked out how much I spent on booze per month and it’s appalling, and has been getting slowly worse for about twenty years. Based on my spending, I should be able to buy my dream bike by the end of the year.

If you’re supplementing with vitamin D3 and calcium (or calcium rich foods) it’s a good idea to take vitamin K2 aswell, apparently it has a role to play in returning leached calcium back to the bone tissue. Healthy gut flora helps, something to do with the bacteria making the vit k from the leafy greens as @Malvern Rider mentioned.

Lost my dad to lung cancer when he was 54, he was positive he’d beat it until about a month before he died. In the last few months before he passed he talked about selling the business when he recovered and spending more time at home and going fishing. Sadly the nearest he got to fishing was being pushed along a river bank. I had to quit work and run the business until we could sell it. I knew he was in trouble when he stopped trying to return to work and help out.
The one thing I took from that awful year was that if I fancy a “fishing trip” I take one.

I’ve got a Maglite PRO LED takes two AA cells, It’s got a CREE LED and cost about £20 (TK MAXX, they had loads) it’s very good. I only use it for walking the dogs though, not sure if that’s considered “tactical”. I will say anything brighter would be a bit pointless, it’s nearly as powerful as my dodgy Chinese Magicshine knock-offs.

When I was a student I used to work weekends as security for Ryder Trucks. There was an old guy sleeping in a skip full of some sort of fabric off cuts in the car park of the factory next door. I used to take him soup out of the vending machine and have a chat to him, it was the coldest winter I can remember too. Not a nice way to exist. He certainly wasn’t any sort of scrounger. Someone must have noticed him as one weekend the skip had been fitted with a lock. Can’t have people sleeping in your waste rags.

I’ve two dogs a mastiff and a dobie, they’re in the house for about 7 to 8 hours alone weekdays. They seem perfectly happy and I imagine much happier than when they were lonely, abused and starving before I busted them out of dog jail. As posted above they sleep all day as far as I can tell from the weekends. Mastiffs seem pretty lazy too, great dogs if you’ve the space.

Used to use a mach 3, but they’re so expensive I switched to a Panasonic shaver (normal face type), almost as close if you do it every day.
Although there’s a lot less to shave off these days compared to twenty odd years ago when I started shaving my head.

I get this occasionally and bought a patella strap. Worked like magic. I sometimes have to wear it all the time, sometimes just on the bike but it really helped. I think my injury came from weightlifting rather than biking though.

Let David Paulides be your guide. Plenty of interviews on youtube.

I’ve just bought a Kona Rove AL, it was £599. Love it. I was commuting on a rigid 29er (charge cooker, with a carbon fork) but the Rove is a lot faster and climbs really well, which is a bonus as I live in Sheffield. It handles off road easily too, took it through a bog at the end of some singletrack with no problem at the weekend.

You did the right thing. She was either complicit in the wooing, or daft as a brush. You don’t want that in a partner. Also ten points for being as cool as you are about it, I would have turned my back at the two hour phone call.
I just got a new bike, I’d recommend that, it takes my mind off the boring non-bike real life crap.

Conti Race Kings.

Another Kona Rove AL here, with mudguards and 40c Smart Sams, gets me everywhere I’ve tried so far.

@trail_rat
I was going to either put BB7s,or the TRP spyres. I live in Sheffield at the top of one of the steepest hills and the Hayes brakes that came with the bike are a bit underpowered (I’m over 100kg) compared to the Deore Hydraulics on my rigid 29er that I’ve been riding for the last 18 months.
I’ve had a couple of “almost” crashes due to not being able to bleed off speed quickly enough, although that’s likely my poor riding not the bikes fault.

I bought a Kona Rove last week, first impressions were mixed due to last weeks bad weather. I took it out for a long ride on Saturday and only fell off once in a farmers field (it came with slick tires and I was clipped in). On the road it’s pretty quick (a lot faster without the head winds), feels stiff enough and the drive train seems OK for an entry level one. The brakes and tires are the first thing I’m changing, especially the brakes.
The thing is I’d wanted another Kona since my Unit was stolen, and fancied drop bars so it was an easy sale. Overall very happy with it.

Had to pedal down hill otherwise I’d have ground to a halt. Rain was fun, but warmer than yesterday’s ride.

Arvo Part, Fur Alina is a good starting place, but I like everything else too.
Max Richter is very good too, although both these artists are “modern classical”.

For older stuff try Albinoni, the Adagio in G is good if you get on with baroque, and if you find Part’s composition too gloomy.

I was blown off the road onto the pavement this morning, luckily not the other way into the traffic. Bit scary actually. The builders who witnessed it thought it was funny though. If it’s this windy in the evening I’m commuting via the pub/taxis.

The Rutland does nice grub and it’s pretty close to the train station.

The first episode I saw was the one where Jack accidentally eats Tam’s wedding ring before the big day and has to “pass” it into a bucket. I couldn’t decide if it was a comedy show or not as it was so dark and gloomy. I ended up buying all the DVDs. Absolute gold, and hidden away by the BBC, like Sixteen Storeys High, the Shaun Lock series, or Monkey Dust, both classics.

Three foot stick with a bottle of brake fluid at the end? Problem is you’d need to carry about fifty refills just for one of Sheffield’s racing hills.

Anyone mentioned the trail on Big Moor yet? You could start and finish in the Longshore carpark. It’s been resurfaced in (boggy) places and has a slightly technical side and a flat bridleway side, it comes in around ten miles I think, but I normally do it as part of a longer ride so not too sure of the distance.

I’ve got a fully rigid 29er and put a bigger crankset (48T) on it in, it’s pretty fast now but still fine off road. Sometimes I wish it had drops though, I get about two miles every night into the wind.

I’m glad the car full of young men who were trying to kill me and other road users tonight swerving around and shouting abuse at me were hampered by my stealthy ninja clothing and jumping onto the pavement.

Jonathan Coleclough
Andrew Chalk
William Basinski
Monos
Mirror

Low Light Mixes is a site that produces mixes of these sorts of artists by theme, pretty good stuff.

Hope not. My forks are scratched and I’m fat and live at the top of a hill. I do keep thinking about going back to steel.

Steely eyed, flat bellied, professional. Not pissy eyed, fat bellied, hysterical. That’s how you do it.

Another spoon fan. Got them on all my bikes, I’m quite a bit heavier than the op at 16 stones but I’ve never had a sore arse from all day rides over the moors etc.. I’d recommend the fabric covers over the leather though, the leather and faux leather ones tend to “grab” the seat of your shorts a bit so you have to shuffle about occasionally.

The real problem is surely the fact that we’re eating oil calories, when that runs out no more artificial growth of crops or humans.