If I were a vape user, I’d seriously be rethinking it. This doesn’t appear to be a “no side effects seen”, although it could possibly argued that vaping is still better than smoking. Not sure if that’s a great comparison, but there you go.

One of the problems is that all the various ingredients e-cigs are not properly regulated – in US, UK or EU. Mainly the regulations are around advertising, nicotine levels, and (in some instances) what flavors are allowed.

Massachusetts just declared public health emergency, placing this in the same bucket as the opiates problem in the US: https://www.mass.gov/guides/declaration-of-public-health-emergency

Diet Dr Pepper or Diet A&W root beer. Unfortunately can’t find either in the UK, so must load up in the US.

That was a lot of fun to watch, and not normally the kind of stuff I would watch. Thanks!

Can someone post a link to one of the Deore -> GXP adapters? I’m not sure what they look like. Just a set of shims to shim the axel size?

I know nothing about jigsaw massagering, but I also feel I’d probably _not_ want to use a second-hand power massager of any kind 😱

Thanks for all the tips! Playing with View Ranger now. Per above – very good, but “free” maps require a subscription upgrade to use. I went ahead and bought north of Scotland maps for under ten quid for testing.

OSMAnd seems available on iOs – https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/osmand-maps-travel-navigate/id934850257 – haven’t downloaded it yet. Also seems to be behind the Android version feature-wiser at least a little bit (https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-ios-2-9-released)

I used it for awhile, with my turbo trainer. So the app only – not with their custom stationary bike.

If you like spinning classes (I do), it’s pretty good. Better than any of the local gym spinning classes I’ve done, with the exception of the (kind of competitor to) Flywheel classes I did in NYC.

I eventually dropped it because I was focusing more on structured training. But I do see the value – if you are a spinning class aficionado as opposed to a cyclist, it’s priced competitively to the spinning studios that are popping up in all the trendy cities.

Planet Money podcast did a segment about something similar. Although value of your items seems a bit high for this.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/04/27/606528176/episode-838-a-series-of-mysterious-packages?t=1566971745006

@Drac got there before me.

Lawn Darts?

Or more helpful – Cornhole.

True the wheel and keep riding.

Indeed – having read his various posts and replies on the forum for years, @Scotroutes is like human OS map of Scotland!

I know the area a bit – we have a holiday home in FA, so I use that as a base for rides – but obviously not to the same extent as Scotroutes! Chapeau, truly!

Awesome info – thanks! Bonus – potential middle-aged stunt MTB extra.

I’ll think about direction – agree re Corrieyarrick, but goal was to make the harder (albeit shorter) day day 1, with a long/mostly flat GGW ride back to FA. Need to think some more on that.

Ta! Day 1 route planned to be FA -> Kinloch Laggan (via Corrieyarrick) -> then on via River/Loch Pattack.

Next question: Any preference from Loch Pattack to Ben Alder – via Bealach Beithe and the wee lochan there, or Bealach Dubh/Bealach Cumhann?

From Ben Alder it was Corrour -> Loch Treig -> Larraig Leacach -> Spean Bridge -> Back to FA via the GGW

Some thoughts in Velonews recently: https://www.velonews.com/2019/06/technical-faq/technical-faq-feedback-on-lightning-strikes-and-junior-gears_495393

For my own story – was in a race a couple of months ago, when a lightning storm hit (West Texas). I was caught out on course – no shelter anywhere, the trail was a river, lightning hitting the canyon rim all around me. I wasn’t sure whether to keep going and try to get back to safety, or stop and hunker down and hope I didn’t get hit.

I’m sure this is psychosomatic – but I have metal plates in my left arm from a half-pipe incident in my teens, and my arm was going all tingly while the lighting was all around…

Joking aside – people do die in lightning storms, it is a real risk. If you can get to shelter, do. If you can’t, try to get low. Or take the Chicken Run advice:

Probably a stupid question, but even though it’s new have you a) done whatever zeroing required, and b) changed the battery? My Garmin Vectors are notorious for giving random readings when I haven’t zero’d them or changed the battery in awhile.

#EDIT – OK I see they are rechargeable. Still – recalibrate, and maybe check firmware is up to date?

As per above – its really unlikely you’ll need to charge on the go. How many hours do you get between charges now? I have an Ultegra Di2 system from 2012-ish, and go months between charges. And I’m lazy and shift all the time – because I can!

Really, you should be good, but worth doing some testing before-hand and just get an idea how long until the system is at half charge or whatever, and extrapolate from that. It’ll probably be well in excess of 60 hours of riding time.

Ned Overend weighs in:

Q&A: Why Ned Overend is excited about NICA and e-bikes

Movistar doing their typical “teamwork”

As a native Austinite this is amaaaazing news! “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”

Posted as a USA supporter…

Absolutely loving it. Me and my USA / UK dual citizen daughters looking forward to watching the USA stuff England on Tuesday 😜😎 Rapinoe gets our vote already for golden boot

Not sure if they do everything you are looking for, but worth checking out Yellow Jersey Cycle Insurance.

Nope – Singlespeed

@nobody:

with hydraulic brakes under £1k is almost impossible. I still can’t believe that I was early to spot the Charge Grinduro editions at Wiggle for ~£510 back in 2017, but failed to spot the brakes were “proper hydraulic” TRP Hylex and so didn’t snap one up! 😆

I bought mine here in the USA in early 2017 at $799 thinking that was a damn good price. Then they dropped to $599 – I should have bought another one, just because.

Horribly blingy graphics and the cranks are made of cheese, but otherwise what a stonking deal that bike was. Shame they don’t do it anymore, but getting great use out of mine. In fact, doing a gravel race on it this Saturday!

Budget: As cheap as poss. Say under US$400. Quite a bit under if poss.

Rear: 135×10 if poss – otherwise I _think_ I can upgrade the axel on my DT240s to 142

I’ll check those three manufacturers – thanks.

Whoosh. :-)

@chief – Uh, no. I think rain/mud defers to the “common sense / don’t be a dick” real world usage.

IMBA code clearly states downhill gives way to uphill, unless the trail is marked as one-way. This has been the case since I started MTB’ing in the 80s.

https://www.imba.com/sites/default/files/Team_IMBA/RulesOfTheTrail.pdf

Having said that – common sense and generally not being a dick should prevail in the real world, and everyone should be willing to yield/stop no matter which way they are going.

First – absolutely NO on the WD-40 – it breaks down oil.

Second – per a couple of other folks above… Let it cool down, fill it with oil properly, see if it works. I ran our old B&Q mower down to no oil (yes, I too am an idiot) – until it seized. I let it cool for a few hours, filled it up, used it for another 2-3 years before the plastic main body finally disintegrated.

@Frank & @jobro – funnily enough, I have in the shed on a spare bike an _original_ pair of MTB SPDs – the first pair sold to anyone in Texas, in 1990. Those still work, but I have gone through at least two XTR pedal sets since then.

@molgrips – check your messages.

@bigyin – lol! As mentioned – I’m pretty useless with anything mechanical. The pedals have been serviced (in a shop), but honestly it probably has been two years.

And that’s two years of racing and bikepacking abuse across two continents in horrid wet Scottish or gritty dry Texas conditions. So definitely on me if failure was due to lack of proper maintenance.

Now just trying to figure out best replacement option. Probably some cheap (nearly disposable) 520s, since they’ll be subjected to a similar maintenance and abuse schedule.

It is! Photo is turned around, but yes it’s the right hand pedal.

Ok thanks. Looking on various sites – for XTR M9100 there seems to be two codes – 9100 and 9100S1. Visually they seem the same. Which should I order for a replacement pedal?

I know nothing about wheels – so this may not be of any use… But I had a really old set of 240s that wouldn’t _normally_ take a 15mm conversion, but this sleeve + different bearings did the trick for me:

https://www.wmsracing.com/wmsweb/AXL15-WMS-15mm-Axle-Conversion-kit-DT-Swiss-240-front-QR-hub-6-bolt-disc.html

Would that work for your 350 front hub?

One of my favourite stories to read the kids. Totally agree with Captain it seemed like a bit of an excuse – one of my fave bits was “…and he drank all Daddy”s beer…”. I also thought it a bit suspect that the milkman would apparently come into the house (“it can’t be the milkman as he’s already been today”)…

Very sad – her stories brought a lot of joy to our family.

TransferWise – like PayPal – have their own internal accounts you can store money in. Is it possible she transferred from Nationwide to her TransferWise account, without then moving it from there to her Canadian account?

As above – transfers are usually not more than a day.

Whatever you do don’t buy the base model Mac mini. We’ve had a couple of older Mac mini’s and super happy with them, so I went cheap and bought my daughter the base mini when her previous Mac finally gave up the ghost. Current generation base mini is almost unusably slow – even for simple browsing and MS Office – and is nearly impossible to upgrade.

Quite literally just spent last 3 days cycling there.

Echoing CaptainF – Vegas is a sh*thole but the cycling is good. I did west side – Blue Diamond and environs. Also – if you want a change, worth doing the “Red Rock Canyon Scenic Loop” road ride.

Trailforks app is your friend. Having lived in SE Asia I’d say Lotus is slightly overrated, but still well worth a visit.

Have fun!