If you're careful, you can rejoin them without bleeding at all. Make sure you don't let the ends point down or shake around.

Magura Blood is the same as something you can get from halfords, I think it is citroen suspension fluid or something. Some kind of mineral oil.

Joe

Unless you're going to be running in it, or need something that packs down light for some reason, I'd get something that is long and heavy, in the basic Gore-tex or similar, rather than fancy expensive lightweight stuff like Paclite / eVent. It'll just be more waterproof, and more durable. My big goretex jacket is about 15 years old now, and still stops rain getting in. It's been up lots of proper mountains too, not to mention being used as a bike waterproof in really bad weather, for canoeing and a ton of other things. You're probably looking at around £100 at most for something like this. Having a long jacket means you hardly ever need to bother with waterproof trousers either, which is nice.

Joe

We stayed in Chueca – had a quiet flat. I wouldn't stay there if you're homophobic, but otherwise it was nice – lots of nice shops (some of which weren't sex shops) and things but not too full on.

It is quite an expensive city, especially with the exchange rate. The people are famously rude, and don't expect people not to get annoyed with you if you don't speak much Spanish. There is nice enough food, although if either of you doesn't eat meat, I'd not bother going. We found the quality of ingredients etc. nothing like as good as in Italy, you can get better food in London without trying too hard.

If you really like art, then the museums are great, if you like old art, then the Prado is amazing, and the Reina Sofia is a very nice building, with some good more modern art in it. If you don't like art, you're probably looking at the wrong place to visit, at least as far as the major tourist attractions go.

Joe

I like Derbyshire. Personally I live in Belper – decent riding nearby, plus great road riding and trains to Derby & Nottingham.

If you want really big cities, then the outskirts of Manchester / Sheffield might be a better bet.

I personally wouldn't consider Staffordshire unless I really wanted to work in Birmingham – there are plenty of big cities near really nice countryside to explore before you move that way.

Joe

Schwalbe inner tubes have a special ridged lockring on the valve that means you can use the presta ones in schraeder holes. They don't cost much more than other brands either.

Joe

I've taken a sleeping bag, a 29" wheeled unicycle, a camelbak, tools, spare tyre tubes and cranks, a load of clothes, hiking boots, running shoes, big waterproofs and various other bits and pieces in a 90l one. As long as your tent isn't massive, then it should do the job. 90 litres is absolutely massive – you should go and look at one in the shops if you're not sure about whether your stuff will fit.

Joe

I have a North Face one – it wore out a bit after one trip, holes in it and stuff although that was a big 6 month trip and it got dragged around a bit / chucked onto several planes, on boats, buses etc.

For camping gear, assuming I have to carry it anywhere, I'd always prefer a rucksack – I've got a 75 litre rucksack, which can carry a 2 man tent, sleeping bag, thermarest, food and clothes for a week etc. The duffel bag is an absolute nightmare to carry when it is full, even for 2 people.

100 litres is massive by the way – you'd get a real load of gear in it. It is easy to pack though – just dump everything in without worrying.

If I don't have to carry it anywhere, i.e. car camping, then I wouldn't bother taking a fancy waterproof bag, I'd just stick it in any old bag / in the boot – you can usually pick up big bags from the market / cheap luggage shop.

The 100L one would be a nice bag for sailing + camping – although it'd have to be quite a big boat to have space to stick that big a bag in it.

Joe

Oh yeah, to the original person – if you want an iPhone you should get the 3GS – the compass has real potential to be useful for mapping / route following / route recording software once people update for it.

Joe

Am I still allowed to be annoyed at not being able to use an external GPS unit though?

It's because apple decided to lock down the bluetooth, so that applications basically can't use it (can't open RFCOMM connections), except for some Apple specific things (e.g. the new Bluetooth games network stuff). With a jailbroken iPhone, it might be possible. It might also be in a later firmware update – be surprising if it wasn't at some point, they seem to have been opening stuff up a bit recently.

Part of it is probably because they want to control exactly what hardware people can connect to it, forcing special Apple approved things that they make money on rather than letting anyone use a standard device.

Joe

Do you point at the obstacle, or at the direction you are going to avoid the obstacle? I've seen both, but maybe that was just a New Zealand thing?

Joe

How technical is it now? Still crazy hard, or worth mere mortals having a go?

Joe

I've used Deshaker with quite good results before:
http://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm

Works great for handheld pans / zooms, it'd be interesting to see if it worked on helmet cam videos.

Joe

Basically it's like all the time you're underwater, you're breathing out slowly, so you only breathe in when you turn your head. I like to let the air bubble out a bit harder each time my arms do a stroke. If you constantly breathe out a bit, you don't get water in your mouth, so you don't need to worry about closing your mouth tightly or anything.

So it's like:
Left side – Mouth out and breathe in.
Right side – breathe out underwater.
Left side – breathe out underwater
Right side – Mouth out and breathe in

If you're rolling your whole body naturally as you swim, you shouldn't have to turn your head too far to get a breath in.

Same for breaststroke too – breathe out underwater, breathe in on top of the water.

Joe

Assuming it is the same airport both ways, could you take it in a bag that packs down not too big and doesn't mind being rained on, and just find somewhere not too far from the airport to dump it?

I've done that in New Zealand – dumped a bag in a load of nettles the first point I got to the countryside. It may be harder in Switzerland though, I hear they're quite keen on tidying up!

I've also had success with informal left luggage – grab a meal in a bar, get chatting to them, ask if they could do you a favour and hang onto an empty bag for you for a few days, although I dunno if my language skills would be up to that in Europe.

The bad side of this idea is that you risk your bike getting squished by the luggage people when they put it on the plane.

I've heard of people flying on posh airlines (BA / Virgin etc.) who have gone on with just a bike, but I'm guessing Easyjet would just refuse to carry it.

Joe

I was in a similar situation when working in London, I've always been a bit too erratic to make it to a regular swimming club. That was why I got into the whole total immersion thing. In my case, I sucked so bad that it was really obvious the difference it made. A bonus is that you don't need to go super fast for a lot of the drills, so you can happily do them in the slower lanes.

Lanes at swimming pools are a right old hassle. There is always some super slow man swimming in the fast lane (it is always a man who thinks they are fast). At some pools they have a toe-touch convention, that if you touch the toes of the person in front they should let you past at the turn, but that often isn't the case, and you just have to repeatedly overtake them (some more aggressive swimmers will 'accidentally' crash into people to make the point). It is worth either pointing out to lifeguards if someone is blatantly in the wrong lane, or just suggesting to them that they might want to try the medium lane. I know where I used to swim in London, the lifeguards kept an eye out and came down to talk to people who were too slow for the fast lane or too fast for the medium or slow lanes.

Joe

Oh yeah, the other thing if you're planning on triathlons, is do some practice at proper swimming, outdoors rather than in the pool. It is worth getting used to swimming without the lane lines, having to look where you are going.

Open water swimming has the added benefit of being way more fun, and having scenery. And fun things like currents, tides, waves, wind and stuff like that, that make swimming so much more lively. It is also free, and you almost certainly live near a river / lake or the sea, where you can do it.

I like swimming breaststroke too – makes a nice change from crawl, and it is jolly useful outside when you're swimming in fast moving water / rapids, where you want to be able to choose to swim head up over the scary bits, or to see oncoming waves and dive through them.

Joe

To sort out technique, you want the total immersion book. It is genius. If you do what they say, you turn into a smooth, fish-like swimmer, you can go way faster for way less effort. It is a great way to piss off the macho-men who swim crawl at 2000 strokes a minute, you will overtake them easily at a nice comfortable stroke rate.

There is a triathlon version of the book too, I don't know how good that is though, it might be better if that's what you're targeting.

They also do weekend training camps, which from people I know who've gone are supposed to be very good, but are v.v. expensive.

The total immersion book also has a decent section on training. The key thing is don't just count the number of lengths – you'll just get good at plodding along for 100 lengths, but no faster. Most people training will do some kind of sets of repeated swimming at various intensities, with breaks in between. There are tons of websites with triathlon swim training example sets, which are worth reading. If you're having trouble with breathing / stroke, get the book and sort out your technique before you start doing any hard training though, or else you'll risk injury & make your current bad habits worse.

Joe

nosemineb – unfortunately I live in Nottingham, so getting to many fell races will be tricky, and Grassington is just a little far for a 1.2 mile race! I say race, it’s more about just surviving for me!

I’m planning to come last in this one, which is only about 45 mins drive from you:

http://www.runningwithdavid.com/section/events/derbys_fell/chevin_hill.php

It is not a very extreme route (880 feet of ascent), although thinking about it, riding up there last night it was pretty wet and slippy on the rocks and roots, and the trails are a bit overgrown and narrow, it is a bit harder to run there than it was earlier in the year.

Joe

Oh yeah, my front guard is sort of bent to get through, because of limited clearance, and the safety stays still worked, so I guess I’m the lucky one.

Joe

I’ve had something stick under an SKS mudguard and the quick release stays quick release. It meant the wheel suddenly slowed down and I sort of ground to a halt – like if the brake suddenly stuck half on, but no over the bar worries. It turned out to be one of those snap on plastic wrist bracelet things – it had somehow snapped onto my tyre. Removing it and putting the mudguard back in the clips everything was fine again.

Joe

You should be taking in 1g of carbs per kg of lean body weight for every hour you’re riding.

Surely it depends on how hard you’re riding, what you had for breakfast, how big a meal you’re going to have at the end etc etc.

I find the best thing is to eat whenever I feel like it, and stop and buy food if I need more than I take with me. Obviously not so good on a group ride, then you have to make sure you get a decent meal when you stop for lunch, and maybe take an extra mars bar just in case.

Joe

I wore normal clothes for riding in London and Nottingham, cos they were <10 miles, and pretty flat. Now though, with a 16 mile really quite hilly ride, I wear a cycling jersey, just to keep me slightly less sweaty, and it makes a big difference.

I’d agree that it is odd that some people feel they need to completely kit up just for a 5 mile or so pootle, must make it a pain to pop down the shops for something or whatever.

I don’t go out of my way to be ‘bikey’, but I do tend to turn up places on a bike (and there is usually one in my office), and some of my t-shirts are ones from bike/unicycle events.

The weirdest thing I’ve seen is the cycling fads that are either dead boring, bland and not really cycling related (Howies), or impractical to ride a bike in (jeans, messenger bags etc.) That is weird. At least if you’re going to wear special cycling clothes, wear ones that are practical to cycle in.

Joe

I ride a bike somewhere most days, although maybe 1 day a week it is just popping down the shops, or riding to the next town to swim in the river (about 6 miles or so) or something else slack.

I do tend to walk or run somewhere most days, a lot of evenings we do 5 to 10 mile walks, usually in a hurry because we start them too late. Oh yeah and swimming. I count days when I don’t do much biking as rest days though, as they don’t seem to tire me out in the same way.

I had what was supposed to be a sort of rest day on Saturday – turned out that I needed to pop down the sports centre in the morning to check out their hall, which is the other side of the hill, meaning 5 miles of riding including a detour to pick up a parcel, then once I got there, I figured I’d have a go at indoor swimming, not having swum in a pool for a few years, did some intervals and stuff, ended up swimming 2500 metres (pool swimming is somehow much easier than proper swimming with currents and things, although having to turn round all the time is a pain), then come the afternoon, we were off up to Black Rocks with climbing shoes and running shoes, and I was given the task of tiring out a very energetic 10 year old, which meant an hour and a half of climbing rock slabs / going headfirst through caves too big for me to sensibly fit and then running up the steepest slopes we could find until we got to the top of Bole Hill.

Joe

I’m guessing you’re doing that downhill on the way to work, ie. work in Belfast? Or are you just jolly fast? 12km of descent must be lovely of a morning.

What do the singlespeed people do about descents on hilly rides? Isn’t it annoying just spinning out? I know I spin out in 52×12 (or maybe it’s 54×12) on my short descents on my commute which has a similar amount of up & down to yours. I’d get annoyed having to ride a lower gear down the hills, more so if they were longer descents.

Joe

Might you need a new shifter for the triple, if so, they are dead expensive and a right hassle to change.

Joe

ing

Skateparks are different because they’re very common and a known risk that insurers etc. have done their maths on. I’m sure i saw some stats on them that said they’d actually discovered skateparks to be way less bad for injuries than football pitches.

Joe

I bivvied in random spots by the river – wherever i got to each night – always somewhere quiet, outside towns, away from houses.

Joe

Out of interest, how much does a cheap swimming wetsuit cost? I’m guessing I might want one come winter, but I’m also guessing they are v expensive? Also, how resilient are they to the odd scrape on a rock etc.?

Joe

Yes. It is silly fast.

41 hours 4 mins 22 seconds on a recumbent.

On a normal bike, 44 hours 4 mins 20 seconds.

Joe

It doesn’t look like it has multiple modes – it’s just a constant current 700ma driver isn’t it?

battery + to to ‘in+’, battery – to ‘in-‘, led -/+ to LED.

You’ll want to put the switch before this, in between the battery’s – terminal and the ‘in-‘ is normal I think.

I wouldn’t bother connecting to the ‘on/off’ terminal, as it says that if you don’t connect it, it will be always on, so you can just use the battery supply to switch it (or the switch you have put in).

Joe

I spent ages once convincing a security guy that an alley key set was not sharp after I accidentally left it in my carry on bag. I got it through in the end, but it is not worth the hassle.

Joe

I have one point on my commute where the road is narrow (just room for 2 lanes), there’s a completely blind corner, and it is on an uphill. At the corner it is if anything more narrow than normal, so I can’t ride far enough out that someone could safely pass.

So cars are coming down the hill at 40-45mph (40 limit), I’m riding my bike up the hill at about 12mph. Now, however far out in the road I ride, people will still try to overtake me right on the corner. It’s got a lower speed limit than the rest of this A road because it’s an accident blackspot, it has double white lines, it has ‘slow’ signs and ‘slow’ written on the road, it is just blatantly obviously a really dangerous place to overtake. People just won’t stop overtaking me there.

It occurs to me that a ‘stupid overtaking’ camera, would be dead easy to build, just stick a rear facing camera on that corner, aimed at the wrong lane, and fine/give points to everyone who does it. What a great way that would be to take some of Derbyshire’s finest drivers off the roads.

Joe

Blimey, some of the times on that site are really slow. How are people on road bikes taking more than 4 minutes for that?

Joe
(103rd out of 112 with a massive 5 mins 45 secs, although in my defence I was riding a Nokian Gazaloddi Downhill tyre, and only one of them)

Joe, am in the Hope Valley and been trying to find access to water. Swam Ullswater at the weekend and it was fantastic, but struggled to find water that was either permissible or accessible – would love to do more locally, would be great to join you on a swim some time – email in profile.

I hear that people have swum in parts of that end of the Derwent, although a) it is of disputed legality, and b)I think it is grade 2 and grade 3 water in parts – grade 2 is white water, 3 is scary white water that you quite likely don’t want to swim in, so you really need to walk any section before you swim it, and not go further downstream than you know.

The closest thing that the Wild Swimming book has to the Hope Valley is Chatsworth, which is well worth the bike over.

I work on the principle that if there’s a footpath next to it (so you have legal access to the bank), and there’s no signs saying ‘no swimming’, and it isn’t full of fishermen, then I’m happy to have a swim. I wouldn’t swim on a river with unknown access if people are fishing, just because I don’t want to get into arguments. It is amazing how many places there are to swim once you start thinking this way. If someone asks you to get out, just be polite and leave and you won’t have broken any laws.

I’m well up for swimming, but I’m a bit crazy busy most of this summer (till about September), so I’m kind of snatching a quick swim every so often when I have spare time / when I can convince whoever is visiting my house that they really should try river swimming or want a lovely walk along a river and weekday evenings if I’m early from work.

Joe

Whilst it is very sad that people drown in water sometimes, there’s a rather sad comment from the fire service there – 1 poor kid gets killed swimming, he says basically “I hope people won’t swim anywhere”. I bet he doesn’t say “I hope people won’t drive anywhere” every time there is a car crash?

Yes, do be careful, know the river, check it out, be sure know how you’re going to get out, how far you can swim, have an idea of the currents and water temperature, and don’t jump in anywhere you don’t know what is underneath, don’t run rapids unless you’re sure about what’s round the corner etc. But having said that, river swimming is relatively safe (safe enough that even with thousands of kids jumping in rivers every summer weekend, a death is rare enough to get reported in the press), and if you’re a strong swimmer there’s no reason not to do it, especially in summer when (contrary to what the fireman said) the water in smaller rivers is often toasty warm and not going to give anyone cold shock.

Joe

Also, just been out for a quick lunchtime swim, and the water here (Derbyshire) is super warm, warmer than ever. It’s a great week to get started on outdoor swimming. I swear it was as warm as a swimming pool. Totally lazy swim today, about 600m, all downstream in a nice smoothly flowing river.

Joe

The Daniel Start book is great – really inspiring, and the recommended places so far have been spot on.

Joe

http://www.salford.gov.uk/leisure/facilities/watersportscentre/openwaterswim.htm says you just have to register with them.

Having said that though, open water experience is very easy to get – just go to a river and swim some. You can either swim in cheeky places, or it is legal in rivers that are freely navigable by boat except for canals.

Some obvious spots are listed on these sites below – dunno if any are near you:
http://www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com/index.php?p=swimming_map
http://www.wildswimming.co.uk/map.html

There is a spot at Chatsworth which is *very* nice, free except for parking, and only has a chilled out current, so you don’t get too knackered doing out and back swims. It is in the Daniel Start ‘wild swimming’ book sold on that second site but is basically here: between the two weirs.

Joe

the question really is why didn’t they insure against a ‘no show’ from the wacko jacko?

or maybe they couldn’t get insured against the loss…

Famously not very reliable megastar, hasn’t done a concert for years, rumoured to be not very healthy, plus a legal battle from a rival promoter who claims they have exclusive rights. Potential losses of a no-show = millions. Because of that, no one would insure it, so they took the risk themselves. If they’d pulled it off, they’d have made zillions, as it is, they bear the cost.

Joe