Racing as a pair. First event in about 10 years – so should be interesting! How about you?

Can’t wait – should be a good’un

We saw some of the racers making their way across Minch Moor yesterday. Looked pretty brutal – quite a few thousand yard stares in evidence!

I’ve only used them on a couple of occasions, but found them very helpful. They went out of their way to help me figure out which bits and pieces I needed to convert my Roadrat to Alfine gearing. I’d happily use them again.

Here’s my faithful rat. It’s now my daily commuter and is equipped with less fancy, but more practical Ortlieb panniers:

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Roadrat[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Winter Roadrat[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

GrahamS: Blue Steel!

I’m not a RTOS programmer, but I do write a lot of concurrent code. My starting point was “Principles of Concurrent and Distributed Programming” by M. Ben Ari. It’s a pretty dry academic text, but it covers the fundamentals and a number of use cases. From there I mostly taught myself by experimenting.

You might want to look into the latest fad of writing parallel code on graphics cards as it uses the same concepts.

This is an old video, but with a valuable lesson!

Cougar – I play using the Feed-the-beast mod packs. It comes with a modification called “Not Enough Items” which allows you to search for recipes within the game. Very handy.

Minecraft is one of my favourite ways to waste time. I’ve built everything from cliff-side evil lairs to nuclear reactors, from automated quarrying and refining factories to farms and bakeries. My current world has an epic solar-powered treehouse atop a giant redwood tree and a mid-sized farm infested with cats.

J

This is precisely the reason I refuse to buy Garmin maps any more. I got stung trying to move my GB maps from an old eTrex unit to a new one. Garmin weren’t interested in helping at all. There’s no way I was going to spend another few hundred pounds on a replacement, so I just downloaded the Open Streetmap files from here. They’re excellent – Garmin can get stuffed.

Snowage in Scotlandshire…

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Snowy Tampie climb[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Winter Roadrat[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Heckler in snow[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Snowy Fatty[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

An novel idea, but I’m not sure it has any advantages over a good set of lights. If it could be reprogrammed to project rudey swears on the road I might be interested.

I have Alfine-8 on my Cotic Roadrat and it has been flawless. So far it’s been used for touring, so I have a relatively small chainring to cope with hills when fully laden. The gear spread seems fine to me, but I’m not too worried about running out of gears at the top end. The ‘rat will soon be used for a commuter, so I’ll perhaps look into a larger chainring to steepen the gears a little bit.

As for maintenance, I just dunk the innards into an oil bath every 6 months (easy job when you’ve got the hang of it). Mine has now got just short of 3,000km on it and it’s still running great.

Not sure they’ll hit your £100 target, but I like Benro tripods. You might find them at that price on eBay or similar.

Corrr – that’s very nice. Enjoy!

edlong – completely agree. Learning how to look should be a fundamental.

That article is a must-read. I’ve certainly changed my approach when using junctions in the car. Takes maybe a second longer to assess the road fully, but if it avoids an accident it’s well worth it.

Canon AE-1 for me too… still have mine!

I have a spare 10-speed chain and have been pricing up a Cotic Soul to go with it….

I did this on my Rat when I first got it (Marathon 35 tyres, Chromoplastic guards, Shimano front mech). The only way I could make it work is by making up a spacer between the chainstay bridge and the mudguard. Even then it was a bit of a bodge and the mech was constantly catching the mud guard.

I switched to Alfine after a year or so – much nicer!

I’m sticking with 4. From past experience moving to v5 will mean Adobe will then push me to upgrade to the subscription creative suite too.

One of these:
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Nukeproof Mega AM[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

… and one of these:
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Fatty![/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

… and one of these!
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Winter Roadrat[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

That’s exactly what I do when I’m riding alone. I just enjoy pootling round exploring the hills/woods. Probably much easier up here in Scotlandshire. I almost always log to a GPS too so that I can map things out and easily plan new routes when riding with other people.

I mostly measure gravity, enjoy it and get paid. So that’s good.

I’ll echo what randomjeremy said. I ran nitro car for a while (Traxxas Revo) and it was great fun. However I did seem to spend more time fixing and tuning it than driving it. If I was buying again I’d go electric.

cookeaa: very good. Hadn’t seen that before.

This thread is great. Here’s a few of my randoms:

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Climbing Green Hill[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Dragon’s Tail[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Drop and Jump[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Log Ride[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Gas Drop[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

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Horse downhill[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

wwaswas: that’s more like it – a more balanced discussion. I suspect the Telegraph article was written purely to ignite argument. I doubt anyone could really be naive enough to think that all cyclists are head-down, lycra-clad thugs.

twoniner: loads of fun in about 30cm of snow at Glentress. It (or more precisely I) was defeated by 75cm-1m of snow on Cairn William but it was still fun!

Just after delivery last year:
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Fatty![/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

After a few months riding and a some upgrades:
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Snowy Fatty[/url] by jwrfooo[/url], on Flickr

Nice write-up. Looks like a great trip.

They are certainly slower to get up to speed and you do feel it on the climbs. However it’s not too onerous, just drop a gear and spin away and it’s fine. Whether this bothers you depends on your attitude to mountain biking. I don’t actually care how fast I’m going. I’m happy to pootle around, try to ride up something silly, try to ride down something tricky and generally have fun. Speed and efficiency don’t really come into the equation. Fun does – and in my opinion fat bikes are ace fun.

I have a kitchen full of parts taken from my trusty old Heckler. Waiting for Rocket frames to come into stock.

I tend to like fairly thick-soled shoes for riding flats. Waffle-soled Vans work well, but I stick to 5-10s these days as they seem more durable.

Completely agree. TFT are top of the tree for helping customers out.

My current teas-of-choice are Gunpowder Green (loose leaf in infuser, add water at around 70C, brew for 2 mins) and Russian Caravan (loose leaf in infuser, near boiling water, brew for about 4 mins).

J

Minecraft (with FTB mod) and Kerbal Space Program for me. Probably gives you a clue that I liked to play with Lego when I was growing up 😉

Broadly speaking there are 3 main categories you might be interested in.

Olympic target archery – recurve bows with sights, stabilisers etc, commonly shooting paper targets between 20-70m.

Compound archery – bows with cams and pulleys which make it far easier to hold at full draw. Again, paper targets at similar ranges.

Traditional archery – a stick with a bit of string on it. If we hit anything we’re pretty happy.