Nice and simple so I don’t have to think. 16 years and all the associated stupidity. Love it.

That reminds me, need some new tyres, the current ones have got a little too slick.

Waves at Highlandman and MoreCashThanDash.

Am training up those newbies…

*trying to train up

The little man is now 3.5 years old…
He’s now riding his proper singlespeed bike and the sound of him laughing when he first got it was amazing. Bikes, Lego, ‘helping’ with DIY and gardening, it’s all good.
Doesn’t stop him being a little so-and-so sometimes, but it does make up for it.

If you think it needs to be reported, report it
Then HMRC can have a look into things.

Southwell area? Nothing to see here ;)
Have a few small b&bs, some pubs with accommodation, some air b&b places, glamping pods and a touring caravan site. Let me know if you bring bikes, I have some local knowledge.

Would think of Lincoln as possibly a nicer place to stay, and Nottingham has more options. Happy to be corrected on this.

If you’re stuck on neither one or the other have a look at Grantham too.

Am puzzled by the thought of a bank holiday weekend in Newark, but there you go. You often don’t appreciate what’s on your doorstep.

Don’t go down Tolney Lane.
There are a few sites round here for touring caravans, but no statics that I can think of.

You may be looking at a commute to Newark from Skegvegas.

There are a few budget hotels about. Nottingham etc isn’t that far.

Used to be a professional person scarer, letter writer, box ticker and admirer of spreadsheets.

Currently training others to do the above.

Also bike riding, bouldering and a dad.

6:45 on a December morning, discovered that the puddle was actually a collapsed sewer.
The black eye was still there over Christmas along with all the cuts/scrapes on my face. The broken tooth took 18months to be replaced because of all the restrictions from COVID.

I do now have nice new helmet and jacket and am on first name terms with all the staff in my dentist so not all bad.

Running a Pimusicbox with some sound card attached (hifiberry I think), optical out into a Denon box.
Quite easy to use, works off a usb things, network drive, Spotify, other streaming sites, AirPlay etc.

Got a web based interface and I think you can use some app based remote.

Think I found it off another thread on here a while ago

Have an ish suitable Genesis cdf waiting to be sold.
Suitable as in about the right size of gate, but would need a tensioner, it’s a complete bike, and would like a little more than your budget for it. Really should get an ad on the classifieds…

Also have a dmr hub with an eno and 26” rim attached. Just can’t seem to shift the eno!

Watching thread with interest – broke my ankle 4 years ago, and now have little to no cartilage in the joint :/

Contemplating what to do, as it’s starting to cause me more trouble… just don’t want to loose the ability to mountain bike, climbing/bouldering and hill walking.

@montgomery

that looks suspiciously like a bike I sold many many years ago… gold attitude frame with Hope C2s

got me feeling all nostalgic

I used bar tape, as I had some sitting around. Worked okay, and softened things a bit, but be prepared to get very good at re-wrapping the tape.

Have spotted things like this: soft commercial cushion thing but had the bar tape so didn’t bother.

Clicky as you walk along? It’s a sign for everyone else to get get out the way :D

Good luck!

Return to Hope by Michael Clark[/url], on Flickr

Had my Swift since 2008, and it’s still my go to bike.
Did have gears on it for a while, but back to the singlespeed now.

:D

I have an Alpine 160 and a Swift.
The Swift will happily manage a day in the Dark Peak with rigid forks and single speed. It was good fun when I last took it, but I would usually take the Alpine.

After many years of being singlespeed the swift has a 1×10 set up as I broke myself last year. It works well as 1×10. I have to say it feels like I’m cheating and it’ll go back to 32/16 as soon as I can manage it.

I’ve done a few bits of stop-motion with Lego. Really should do some more.
I used a camera, tripod and a remote shutter release to keep everything in the same place. The most difficult bit is keeping your hands out of shot.
Then all the images onto a computer and used QuickTime to convert it to a video. Then play around with it in iMovie. I’m sure there must be a better way to do it, but it works.

Walked for the first time without crutches or a massive plastic boot after breaking my ankle back in September. Had a quick pootle on my bike just because (not allowed with the ankle thing). Then got scared at the total lack of power from one leg.
Now wrapping stuff and drinking wine.
Quite a nice day really.

Had a set of 2010 Talas R 36s… Didn’t like the feel of them, how they sat into the travel if I had them adjusted to move nicely etcetera and didn’t use the travel adjust that much.
I had a chat with the people at TF Tuned for their advice. I was asked about the bike they would be on, my riding style, weight, where I liked to ride and what I wanted from them. Then sent them off To be converted to Van R.
A little extra weight behind them, but not that noticeable. The main difference is how much better they work. I thought it was well worth the cost of conversion.

3 weeks into broken ankle (not broken whilst on the bike).
The worst bit so far has been 2 weeks in hospital waiting for swelling to go down before an op to fix it. I got told I wasn’t allowed to race wheelchairs, which made me sad.

hmmm redtube…maybe save that for a treat later.
I like the notes thing. Im right next to the notes trolly, and im getting quite irritated at the bloke opposite doing 2am calls on speakerphone :evil:

Got some friends popping in later so will do the dead body thing and let you know how it goes :D

Bike Verbier booked again.
Amazing trails that I love, and new ones thrown in.

I’ve got something built up into a time capsule type thing from a Raspberry Pi and a western digital disk.
Seems to have worked very well for the last year or so, and have the disk partitioned so I have a separate network storage thing too.

Had a problem that resulted in no heating for my flat back in Feb/March this year. The landlord, lettings agency and flat management company wouldn’t do anything. From more recent experience it seems that all three parties don’t know how to pick up the phone and talk to each other.

The local authority environmental health people fixed the problem, charged everyone else for the work done, and I got a months worth of rent back. I was very careful to keep within my side of the contract, and quote bits of it back to them along with the relevant laws to make sure they knew I understood what I was entitled to (heating and hot water!) and they should be fixing it ASAP.

I now have two weeks left on my contract and far more stories of their incompetence. The most amusing is them trying to arrange a viewing for a potential new tenant by text message…

These are from the town my parents live in. Going back to have a look tomorrow. From previous experience, the trails may be a little damp but far more interesting.

story on the beeb

brambles, yep lots of those, a few trees have fallen because of the rain and the nettles will still be out in force.

I run my Alpine with 2.4 Rubber Queens. They’re probably a bit bigger than most 650b tyres 8O

Assured Shorthold tenancy here too.
I had no heating or hot water for five weeks, mainly because the four (yes this is way too many) other groups involved seemed unable to talk to each other, to carry out a very simple task (cut some holes in the celling). The only reason I now have my heating back is because of an enforcement order brought in by the local council, and them doing the work too!

I’ve got back a month of rent, and told that if I wanted any more I would have to take legal action. I only got this because I went through the tenancy agreement, and all the laws to do with it, wrote them a nice letter and bugged them in a nice way every day until it was fixed. That and staying within my side of the agreement.

Shelter and citizens advice would be good places for info, and in my case the environmental health people at the local council :)

I thought about it for at least 30 seconds…
I booked a holiday in the south of France, and left all the rain/snow/cold to have a great weekend doing what I love (riding my bike).

Nuke from these parts was there, and I even got cake! thank you Ed for sorting that out :)

Sunshine and views:
[/url]
IMG_0702[/url] by Mike Clark[/url], on Flickr

Don’t talk to me about #!*$ing boilers. I’m currently the one suffering because as they are meant to, my landlord sent someone round to do a gas safety check.
The nice gas safety man drank my coffee and told me about a new part of the gas safety regulations. These say he has to inspect the full length of the flue. You can’t do this in my flat, as it’s boxed in and goes through a communal area of the block.
He switched my boiler off, as he can’t declare it safe. I’m now trying to push the fact they are in breach of the tenancy agreement as the building management company won’t get off their arse to do 10 mins work so I can have an inspected (and safe) boiler for heating and hot water.
Don’t worry, I have somewhere else to go with heating and hot water.

I did the silly thing and took a singlespeed to the Dark Peak. Lots of fun :-)
Quite a few others out enjoying the sun.

Looks at picture with a very familiar looking bike in… Goes off to look at bank balance :(

I guess I did have 2 weeks there last summer.

I live and work in the city centre.
Yes, some of the local inhabitants are ‘interesting’, and it does have possibly more than its fair share of concrete monstrosities… But there are always good and bad bits in each city. Plus I’ve only heard 1 person being shot so it can’t be that bad ;-)

Will have to find my bikes and look up natsmtb.. Do they let in singlespeeders?

I had a set of TALAS 36.
Back in April I had them converted to vanillas. The bike feels so much better, I’m far happier and faster riding the bike now.
Save your money and go for the floats or a set of vans.

Follow the Southwell trail from Kirklington to the White post roundabout or as far as you can past Farnsfield, then there must be some way of getting to the bit from Rainworth without too much traffic. You could cut across the Hexgreave estate for a bit?

or, follow the minor roads through (or trail to) Bilsthorpe, then through Sherwood pines?

That bit of the A617 is not something I would like to experience too much on a bike. Having said that I do see people riding it, just not at commuter o’clock.

Yes I have had that before, but as above they are the only train operator that I know of that will let you book a space online.
I’ve had a space “reserved” for me within the 5 minutes it took the train to arrive at the station.
I’ve also had to wait about 2hrs on Doncaster station because of this…
Every company will have jobsworths, sometimes you complain and get free stuff, sometimes you don’t.

It’s not quite as much fun as taking a bike between Kings Cross and Victoria on the tube :)

[/url]
IMG_2534[/url] by Mike Clark[/url], on Flickr

Yes the Alpine is fun, a lot of fun :D
Yes you can ride xc on it if you really want to, but that’s not what it’s for. As above if you like the big miles xc and climbing look elsewhere. The alpine is far more fun on big mountain rides, knowing that you’re taking it up one side of a massive mountain in the middle of nowhere to ride down some endless singletrack on the other side.

For some kind of comparison, I know it’s no faster than a rigid singlespeed on xc stuff :)

Nope, not put off at all IFonly :) speeded up a bit in the last few years (not that you seemed that slow!), but its a bit easier on a bike built for it… just need to learn to be happy with the wheels off the ground.
Am amazed that Lucy & Phil still manage to find so many good trails. Every year is a different mix of riding, always great!

wl, looking forward to it. will have to see this new style of helmet too, but think I may need a more conventional style!

11th to 25th August :)
I can’t wait! I feel like a little kid waiting, so I think the next few months may drag a little…

Just booking up my 4th trip with Bike Verbier. 4th trip out there on my own. Love it :)
Only problem of bike holidays on your own is traveling by yourself with a bike can be such a faff.

Did you get your back wheel sorted after Verbier?