^^^ (ianpv)
slight thread hijack but i’m off out there next week with family but got a couple of days allowed on the bike.

Planning on riding Sa calobra from Acudia, is it better to go up into the mountains from the Pollenca road and then down Sa Batalla on the return, or up Sa Batalla and down past the luc monastry to pollenca on the return

thanks

cool that’s good, actually I think its pretty rare I’d need 10 hours, and a piggyback battery thing would sort that as mentioned above.

Just need to wait for Handtec to get some back in stock now …

road.

Found a place in Pollensa that says all theirs are set up UK style and they can deliver to Alcudia so will probably use them.

If it gets plastered over really the cable should be properly removed or at least isolated.

would it be ok to disconnect the cable to the light at the fused connection unit(obviously turning mains power off first!, then just plaster over?) Does that class as properly isolated?

Although just found you can get plaster board mounting recessed backboxes so shouldn’t be too difficult to fit that. I never knew they existed as all the ones ive seen in the past have been attached to wooden batons :oops:

Thinking of getting a 520 but just got a few map questions. ….

Does the 520 do routable maps?

Do the newer OS 1:50k look maps on the talkytoaster website work on the 520, or do I have to stick with the older ones?

thanks all, meet and greet it is then! Had forgotten about the return flight and meet and greet definitely makes sense with kids for that as its quite late at night.

Yeah bikes fine on the funicular

Camping Le versoyen is nice, close to the big supermarket. Opposite end of town to the funicular bit it’s only a 5 minute ride to it. Funicular takes about 10 mins to get to arc 1600.

There’s other places you can ride from bourg as well, la plagne is just hop across on the cable car from les arcs. Tignes if you have a car and I th ink there’s some other places too if you have a car

I’m sure I’ve had new bolts in the past with some dried blue stuff pre applied that looked like threadlock.

How would this work then?

Can’t remember what the bolts came with, might not have been bike stuff but I’m 99.999999% sure they had blue stuff on the threads out the box.

Never ever ever ever mention there is a place called Peppa Pig World

Don’t even mention anything that sounds like peppa pig world!

I asked mine if she fancied going to Papplewick pumping station to see the steam engine ( well more for my benefit than hers obviously, but had to get the little on one side so the wife couldn’t argue with my idea).

Sadly she translated Papplewick pumping station into Peppa Pig pumpkin station and got so excited about Peppa Pig with pumpkins that I didn’t have the heart to actually take her there for her to discover it was just a smelly steam engine :D

what you can do if you have a yahoo account is use the ‘disposable’ emails that link to your account. Then each time you want prime just make up a new disposable email and use that to sign up to amazon and you will get a free prime trial available again.

heres a really bad photo of it! Blurry as camera had been in my sweaty jersey back pocket and had condensation on the lens!!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22750089@N02/24586133290/in/dateposted-public/

It’s a Focus mares from wiggle , can’t remember the exact size I ordered will, I’m never any good at knowing stuff like that but…

Just did a quick measure for you.
Seat tube – Bb centre to top tube centre = 51cm
Top tube -Seat tube centre to head tube centre = 53.5cm
Stem – centre bolt to bars centre = 9cm

I’m about 173cm tall, and my 3 year old is probably about average height in her class. She was nearly three and a half when I was in France with her.

The cross bike I have is shorter than my normal road bike, don’t think it would work on that…and I wouldn’t want to mount it on my nice carbon road frame anyway!

One thing to check is if the front clamp will fit on the frame. There’s very little height too clamp round on the head tube of some drop bar frames.

I’ve mounted my weeride on the cross bike and its pretty comfy, can’t do as tight a turn as on the mountain bike but that’s never really been a problem when actually riding. I prefer it to the mountain bike and went on some 2 hour rides with a 3 year old last summer in France.

Guess it all depends on you bike set up and body height, reach etc

Just read some reviews, that Evoc bag looks good…. and a Seasucker mount could mean flying with the bike and using a hire car would be a feasable option for a family holiday as i can take the bike out and fold bag up in the car so theres room for all the other luggage

are the Evoc ones good for road bikes too, or would you look at a hard box?

yeah dont mind road riding, just need somewhere with readily available hire as probably wont be able to take my bike as well as all the other stuff for wife and kids.

Lake Garda looks nice, will check out malaga and costa blanca too, thanks

does it have the cheery bip-bop bip-bop sounding indicator noise :D Made me smile first time i heard that, better than the boring tick-tick of normal ones! Those quirky French…

i ride in the lakes all the time, never had a problem with Kankku. Seen them a few times on the parkamoor dexcent but they’ve always been friendly.

A few of the staff they’ve had as driving guides over the the years have been keen mountain bikers as well

try Kankku in the Lakes (windermere). They do a self drive safari landrover type thing where you get the vehicle and just head off on your own

http://www.kankku.co.uk/safari.html

Yeah my garmin speed and cadence sensor works with the Bkool simulator. Garmin HR works as well.

so just check all the things with bluetooth in the name for driver updates? That could be it, i think i only updated the N7260 one.

Do i just rely on the ‘check for driver updates’ button in the device properties or do i have to trawl the internet for the manufacturers sites?

i liked the one we tested!

Bought a berlingo instead though as we could get the pram in without folding it down. We got a 1.6hdi berlingo which is same engine as in the C3 picasso. Had it 3 years no, no problems at all with it.

Some models of the C3 picasso have rear seats that can slide forwards which is good to increase your boot space if you need it. (well they did 3 years ago so i assume they still do)

well it didnt go quite as planned :oops:!!

Started the windows 10 install and it gavem em the options of keeping everything, something else, or keeping nothing.

Yes i selected keep nothing, thinking ah new laptop, nothing i need on it, this will be a better install! Didnt realise i’d then have no drivers or software for things like trackpad, sd card reader, dvd burner. There is a driver and application disc but i though this will lead to me messing things up big time, so i restored 8.1 again!

Todays task was to install windows 10 (keeping all the preintstalled stuff) at work where there’s less distractions from kids / wife and i could leave it chuntering away but went and brought the wrong charger in for it Doh.

How do i know whether to install 32 bit or 64 bit windows 10, its giving me a choice!

Spec is

Intel ® Core (TM) i3-4010U Processor
Windows 8.1
NVIDIA ® GeForce ® GT 745m DirectX ® 11 graphics
500GB hybrid hard drive including cache (8 GB flash memory)
4GB RAM
39.6 cm/15, 6 “multi-touch HD display

If you fancy a Bkool trainer keep looking on their Facebook page as this is where they tend to post the special offers.

Not sure of monthly cost it’s all on their website though. Mine came with a year included , after that I **think** it’s about 7-8 quid, but they will roll over months that you don’t use it. At the moment without the sub it’s useless as it just has minimal resistance when it’s not doing a workout. When trainerroad get their link up sorted though you’ll be able to use them without a Bkool subscription.

If you buy new from bkool i think you get a year included, if you buy from a shop Eg wiggle I don’t think you get the subscription which is why their prices are lower.

I’m just on basic plusnet broadband and live in a rural area and can stream the videos in normal quality with spotify music streaming as well no problem. It struggles on high quality though so you might need faster broadband if that bothers you. Think my speed about is 5mbps. The 3d graphics option instead of video uses less broadband but my old laptop (10 year old) won’t run the 3d stuff. Have seen it working though and it’s pretty impressive on high detail level. Theres a setting to match real weather, so if it’s raining, snowing or dark where you are doing the route (route location, not your location) then that’s the weather it shows on the screen. Halloween weekend had rides with gravestones, pumpkins and ghostly spectators as the scenery!

If you lose connection or the video freezes, just keep pedalling, all your power output / speed / cadence / time etc will still be showing live on the screen, and will upload ok to the Bkool website when you finish. Mine only stopped when I tried a ride on high quality video, kept jumping all the time but I just rode it anyway as it was my first league ride and wasn’t sure if you could have another attempt (which you can)

Depends on your budget.

I got a Bkool one about a month ago as there was a good offer on them. Its a VR type one where you can ride real videos or 3D computer simulated rides and resistance automatically changes as you go up hills. You can also race against other people / computer bots or your own times.

Previously had a bog standard one with trainerroad and sufferfest videos which was ok, but still quite often felt a lack of motivation to use it.

With the new VR Bkool one, i’ve done 13 sessions on it in the last 4 weeks and actually look forward to it if i cant get out on the bike for a proper ride.

Bkool do a free 30 day trial. Downside is cost. They are about £400 for the new model although you can pay in installments. I got one of the old models as they were selling them off for £200 with a years subscription to the video service, but having used it for a month i think if i was buying now and there were no cheap older models available i’d go for the new one as it’d still be worth it for the use i’m getting from it and the ‘fun’ factor in using it compared to a bog standard trainer.

It doesnt work with trainerroad at the moment (not that i’m that bothred as the bkool simulator is very good), but trainerroad say they are working on it to get it up and running with their software.

After looking at trainers for the last few weeks. Decided to try the Bkool Pro trainer on this 30 day trial. The videos do look interesting and the smart resistance that will work with TrainerRoad.

Dont think the trainerroad / bkool interface is completely sorted yet but apparently they (trainerroad) are working on it:
http://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/201697324-Bkool-Electronic-Trainers

Also when you get it and start using the simulator its not completely obvious how to set up rides! Theres rides listed that are ‘live’ ie in warm up or underway and you can join any of these and race other people straight away.

If you want to actually do a route in the Bkool database Eg Col du Glandon or something you have to go on the Bkool website, search for it then schedule it (basically put what computer opponenets you want in, and the date you want to do it. You can put any date in but still do it at any time before that date). Best thing to do is have a play on the website and download the simulator program before you actually get the trainer. Make an account then search for rides you fancy doing and either schedule them, or do what i do and add a load to your ‘favourites’ then you can ride these anytime you want from the simulator program.

Sounds complicated but once you get the hang of how it works its dead easy.

Cyclechat Bkool forum has lots of people doing leagues / races that you can join. Just join the forum and post up and people will add you to the leagues (currently theres a mountain goat league (alps sort of climbs), a 100 uk hills climb league and a chaingang live racing thing each week. And a newly formed ‘alpine moose’ league for the less fit hill climbers!
http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/team-bkool-cyclechat.144689/page-541

thanks :-)

Have a look at the Bkool trainers. They have either computer graphics simulated or real video rides, you can make your own routes up or ride any of the already uploaded ones on the website .

Can ride solo or race against computer bots, other bkool members or your own previous times. They also have leagues with live racing. Theres quite a community on the cyclechat bkool forum if you want to have a read and get an idea of what the races are like.

If you order from bkool they do a 30 day free trial

Another question!

The concrete garages are a bit ugly so in my application I was going to say it will be rendered and part clad in slate block slips to make it match the house better.

If I get approval is there a time limit from when I start (ie when garage is built by the manufacturers assembly guys) to when it’s finished (ie rendered and clad by me). I mean can I drag the rendering and cladding bit out for a few months? A year?

Cheers footflaps, I think I could do the site plan OK after seeing yours.

Is there any free online design program to get a more professional look than graph paper?

Although it would probably be quicker using graph paper by the time I’ve learnt how to use some new program!

I’ve got the slightly older version, I use it indoors no problem, the elastogel roller makes it fairly quiet.

Selling it though as got a Bkool trainer now which is a bit louder but has an interactive simulator that runs on the laptop

It’s in the classifieds just search for turbo trainer or pm me if interested, got trainer with 8 resistance levels, riser block and some sufferfest videos.

Do chromebooks run all android apps? Or is it a completely different system

Yeah it adjusts automatically. You can do velodrome races and it will ease off the resistance if you are drafting someone. Or ride one of the previous uploaded video routes Eg an alpine pass and it will adjust resistance according to the hill.

Can even make you own route from a gpx file, upload it and the software will generate a simulated scenery to ride through but alter resistance on the hills.

Also as mentioned, race others live or previous best times, or race against computer opponents.

Mine came yesterday just set it up and had a quick play, definitely the best indoor turbo experience I’ve had. Doesn’t beat outside, but quite looking forward to some miserable weather now so I can get on it!

That Dcrainmaker bloke seemed to think they were ok, and they’ve now done an update to th Ant+ side of it so it will work with trainerroad as well. There is a newer model but thats £450

And according to the email they sent me it also includes 12 months premium simulator subscription

slight thread hijack, sorry!

Slowjo –

Don’t ignore the Bkool. I have had mine a year now and really love it.

which model have you got? I’m just looking at the Bkool ones after i got an email offer for the Classic model. Think this is being discontinued but at £210 its way cheaper than the pro model and there doesnt seem to be much difference apart from the pro is slightly quieter and has the slide out supports

not sure how they decide who gets it. Have you signed up as a member (its free), or just to the email list?

Offer is valid until 27th, i’ll have a think over next 24hrs if i’m going to order one, if not i can forward you the email and you can and use it. I wont forward it right now as i’m not sure if its limited or specifically linked to each email.