Not bad here in central Oslo last night

Lillehammer could be a good alternative, especially given the state of the Norwegian kroner.

You can fly to Oslo and take the train there direct from the airport. There are several good places to stay, and the Hammer does full board which can work out as a very good deal. You could then just take the local bus either up to the huge cross country area, or to Hafjell for downhill – it’s only small but it’s a great place for kids.

Alternatively there are plenty of places to stay in Hafjell itself which would make it much easier to get to the slopes. I don’t know if they still have the same deal but the Hafjell Hotel used to do an offer that was full board for the entire family with kids under 16 staying, and eating, free. Nothing fancy, but absolutely fine – our kids loved it

If you want to go all-out on cross country there’s always Pellestova, up on the plateau. I’ve never stayed there, but definitely will one day.

The great thing about cross country round there is that you’re up high, on the plateau, not down in the bottom of a dark valley as is all too often the case with XC in the alps. The ski area is huge, and connects across to Sjusjøen and other places.

That’s fantastic! And reassuring to see from that screenshot you posted that ‘all parts can be individually replaced when damaged or worn and are in stock at all times’…

Calorie labelling on menus has little impact on consumer behaviour, but may lead to beneficial reformulation of the food itself.

No amount of advertising & education is going to help if there isn’t the infrastructure in place to start with.

Spot-on @Dickyboy – and this applies just as much to diet as it does to physical activity.

I think that was my point

@anagallis_arvensis: Based on your post on the ‘Unspoken battles with your other half…’ thread my wife thinks you and I are the same person, so it’s good to see that we agree :-)

Not *only* skinny people @anagallis_argensis, but your sample is clearly not representative of the general population so there’s some sort of skew going on.

@anagallis_arvensis I suspect there may be some selection bias in your population sample…

@tjagain – part of the answer is about the difference between evidence at individual and population level. Your big bike ride represents pretty unusual behaviour, so those kinds of effects don’t show up across a population where very few people are that active. There’s also evidence (such as that from John Speakman) that shows very limited changes in physical activity levels over time, and some studies have shown an activity homeostasis effect where high levels of activity in one part of people’s lives are compensated for by sedentary behaviour at other times and/or adaptations in basal metabolic rate.

However, those studies mostly involve small numbers of people, and as I said above they tend to be based on a narrowly conceptualised model of cause and effect. So I agree with you – physical activity is not only hugely valuable in and of itself, it is also an important factor in energy balance and thus weight status.

Thanks @Kramer.

The Foresight report from 2007 was called ‘Tackling Obesities‘. At the time I thought this use of the plural was a silly conceit, but I now think it’s spot-on. Just as we use the word ‘cancer’ in the singular to refer to multiple different conditions, with different risk factors, natural histories, treatments, and outcomes, so obesity is in fact a multitude of different manifestations of a wide range of behavioural, genetic, physiological and other factors.

There is @Kramer, but one aspect of the failure to engage meaningfully with complexity that I referred to earlier is that much public health research persists in applying linear models of cause and effect to complex causal pathways strewn with feedback, adaptations, and non-linear interactions, and fails to take account of Rose’s prevention paradox.

I won’t bore you with details of my epistemological concerns about the evidence base, but even if increased activity really does have little effect on overall energy expenditure part of the response should be to tackle the environmental factors that promote adaptive homeostatic sedentary behaviours.

@nickc – I agree about diets, food science, and food environments, but while I accept that there is disagreement about physical activity (PA) trends there is good evidence of declines in PA and increases in sedentary behaviour over recent decades

I’m confused @zilog6128 – it seems that you agree with me about (1) the absurdity of lack of willpower as an explanation for obesity, and (2) the importance of the obesogenic environment. Apologies if I have missed something here…

Fair point about the Rodgers et al paper @zilog6128. However, I’ve been working on obesity for almost 20 years but both Boyd Swinburn and Bill Dietz, who co-authored that paper, have been in this game for much longer. I’m not going to rely on an appeal to authority so by all means challenge their conclusion, but if you wish to argue that mass decreases in willpower are indeed a plausible explanation for the global obesity epidemic please provide evidence to back up your claim.

There is overwhelming evidence that education and other interventions that rely on personal agency are ineffective at tackling obesity at population level. There are, of course, some individuals who are exceptions to this, but obesity is not fundamentally a knowledge-deficit problem – it is, as @Kramer and others have made clear, an environmental problem that results from obesogenic physical, economic, social, and policy environments.

If the obesity epidemic was driven by a lack of willpower we would have seen reductions in willpower across populations commensurate with the growth of the epidemic; we have not. The rise in obesity over recent decades has predominantly been driven by changes in environments, largely driven by corporate actors, not by a collective loss of moral fibre or increase in stupidity.

Simplistic responses focused on small numbers of actions have failed and will continue to fail; obesity is a complex problem driven by multiple interacting factors. Reversing the trends in a way that no country on the planet has yet achieved requires engaging with this complexity, acknowledging the magnitude of the challenge, internalising the harmful externalities generated by many corporations within the food and physical activity systems, and accepting that the dominant approach of attempting individual level behaviour change is only able to make a tiny dent while also widening health inequalities. We need major structural responses to these and linked problems, such as those of air pollution and environmental degradation, if we are to have any chance of reversing this hugely harmful and growing epidemic.

So the answer to the original question of ‘what can be done to encourage healthy living’ is to stop trying to ‘encourage’ it and to start addressing the multiple problems with the environments that overwhelmingly shape our behaviours.

Good spot @bikesandboots! He, or a relative, also lets apartments…

No idea what’s wrong with your amp, but I know where I’d send it! I had a problem with my Naim NAP 140 just this week, and John Jackson at JJS Thatcham did a same-day repair for a very reasonable price. If you give him a call on Monday morning I’m sure he’ll be able to advise.

Paypal has it’s advantages for us but there’s honestly not a great deal in it. Just use whatever payment method is best for you.

Thanks @Mark, good to know.

Sounds good!

Is Paypal better for you? If so I’ll use that next time.

Tickets bought. Good to see you’ve cut out the middleman – I trust that means more money in the STW coffers.

My town bike is a supremely tatty old Genesis Day One built up from the parts bin as a flat bar single speed with pizza rack, dynamo hub, and v-brakes.

I love it! I suspect any similar steel bikes would be just as good, but if it gets stolen I will replace it as soon as I can with another one.

Thanks Mark, good luck with all this.

I just tried posting a photo to the Unfortunate business names thread. I was optimistic as it gave me a different dialogue box from over the weekend, and appeared to accept the file, but once I submitted it the post was filled up with code, and no photo…

Edit: Tried posting a photo but it’s still not working…

@pisco: unable to upload a picture on the fancy editor. It says to make sure it’s under a certain size and a certain type – my pictures (I’ve tried a few) are compliant, yet are still not accepted.

Same problem here. I get a pop-up message saying ‘The image could not be uploaded. Please check that it is a valid JPEG, PNG, or GIF file and that the file size is no larger than 10 MB‘. The image meets  these criteria but I get this message every time. I’ve tried both Safari and Chrome on a MacBook running Sonoma 14.5.

@airvent do you mean that you’d be surprised if any bike company saw it as worth attending?

If so I take your point, but when I last went along with my son in 2018 loads of them did as it was packed and buzzy, and there were big stands with all kinds of bikes and gear on display. There was barely any of that this year – it just felt really small and pointless.

My son is now in his 20s and looking to buy a bike. He had assumed he’d be able to check out a decent variety of trail bikes, but he’ll probably find a better selection at a decent bike shop!

@chakaping – it is definitely *possible* to spend significant money on running, but much harder than it is for cycling!

And you’re right about MTB of course :-)

I strongly recommend running, but it will take a while to build up fitness and even at your tender age that needs to be done slowly… I was getting injured every couple of months until I started doing run/walk – 3 mins run, 1 min walk – with my Garmin watch providing the alerts. I’m almost 60 but I haven’t had a serious injury in the 2 years since I started run/walk, and have now built up sufficient fitness that I have mostly dropped the walking and just run through. When I started running I couldn’t see myself being able to run 5k in under 3o mins, but I now manage it in under 25. I don’t care about my speed, but I find it inspiring to see shorter times as an indicator of increasing fitness.

Last year’s running shoe models can be found for much less than the latest ones. Running costs nothing compared to cycling – you can buy full running kit from Decathlon for the less than the cost of a cassette!

Most of all, have fun – the first 2k are always horrible, but it gets better after that :-)

a polished emulsion of blue cat excrement, with some flung up the bottom portion of walls for good measure

Thank you @submarined – genuinely laughing at loud at that!

How about something like a Vardag or an Övik from Fjällräven?

As someone whose feet are wide enough to obviate the need for snowshoes this thread is wonderfully reassuring….

Normal Altra aren’t wide enough for me, but luckily they do a 2E in some styles. My Brooks Adrenaline are 4E, and I’d also vouch for the 2E Inov-8 shoes in their new range, although I had to go up a full size.

I suspect they’re not quite what you’re after, but other shoes you might want to consider include the Meindl Comfort Fit range, and Blundstone – their half sizes increase the width but not the length.

Good luck!!

Tinbred I bought from someone on here at least 15 years ago, and it was far from new then – still going strong.

Tickets bought. This could get expensive…

Excellent review, many thanks!

Congratulations Gary!

Happy to have been able to contribute to the fund. Many thanks to Mark and colleagues for organising this.

Not relevant for your trip, but I want to walk the Shikoku pilgrimage route when I’ve retired – I’d happily do it sooner but can’t get the time off!

We did a single blinded brewing time trial a while back and ended up at 3.5 mins for Twinings strong English breakfast tea, so as Cougar says these things are amenable to science.

My theory, not yet tested, is that the reason the first cup of tea after a gap (such as sleeping) tastes better than subsequent cups is because there are taste buds specifically allocated to tea flavour which get saturated after the first mug.

The dropper post I ordered from Wiggle over the weekend arrived yesterday.

(and for the record it was my (excellent) LBS that suggested I buy it from Wiggle as they couldn’t source one through their supplier)

Thanks @nickjb. I’ve just ordered it (using a credit card) – fingers crossed!

Thanks @GeForceJunky – but sadly it’s 30.9mm