Endura do a Shacket, a lined jacket. Last year they were checked pattern, this year they are plain. I have one and use it all the time over a base layer

I reckon someone needs to persuade him to write a book, 35 chapters, each chapter focussing on his TdF wins.

No regrets here, the opposite in fact. I bought a Whyte E160RSX 18 months ago because all my mates had full fat bikes and it has been brilliant, revitalizing my riding at the ripe age of 69 (not that I needed revitalizing, I’m always up for a ride). Done 4000 odd k since I got it with no problems or issues. Before I got it I was getting sucked into gravel biking, easy MTB pootling without really recognizing it was an age/energy level thing. Since getting it I’ve been back into big rocks, tech etc. It’s also changed my winter riding after reading Ben’s test of a range of winter bike options about a year ago. He came to the conclusion that you can just ride through the depths of winter mud and that’s what I did last year with all the storms. Came out of winter in a much better mental state than usual thanks to the fact that even awful weather can’t stop the MTB fun. Considering selling my non bikes now

Since I mulleted my ebike it feels more agile but doesn’t roll over stuff as well as a 29″ back wheel, noticeable if you ride rocky stuff. Being over 6′ I was happy with the larger wheel but love the liveliness of the mullet

For me it depends on the trails I enjoy, mostly rocky Peaks, Lakes etc so a 150mm travel fs. Since I got old and slow a fs ebike allows me to carry on throwing myself down rocky chutes for a few more years.

I still love riding round the woods, towpath pootling, bimbling etc and have bikes for those days but them rocky trails are what excite me so my fave has to be my ebike

I got some spanky carbon wheels for my ebike recently, fitted in a hurry the night before a ride and forgot to fit the magnet on the rotor. Discovered my error at the trailhead. Used the magnet from my camelbak ziptied to the rotor. It actually worked

Wales, a beautiful country with rubbish access

Likewise I wouldn’t have chosen it but it came on a bike I bought over a year ago and now I love the ‘free from cables’ performance (not just because of internal routing) that I’m spending silly money replacing a knackered dropper with an AXS reverb

I got the MT500 ones with the D30 knuckle guards to protect my poor fingers from hostile overgrowth. They don’t work, or rather they protect the knuckles where your fingers join your hands but then use a thin material that even soft spikey stuff can penetrate on the fingers

The roadie’s on the A6 thing has been going on long before heavy traffic, kept up out of habit/tradition

@johndoh, commiserations for your toms and chillis, mine are going nowhere this year, first time ever

Silver lining? All the €¢¥#wits have gone abroad leaving the trails blocked only by nettles and brambles. Admittedly a pessimistic cynic’s silver lining but…

AXS with Shimano XT cassette here, works better than the (admittedly worn) full sram set up I had before

Just had my best winter ever (30+ years biking in all seasons) by ignoring the conditions and just riding my ebike. The bike has survived with a quick hose then stored indoors to dry and the biking definitely put the fun back into functional rides

Have you got any tokens in there? I had one work loose and rattle once, took a bit of head scratching to work out what it was

I have exactly this wheelset on my gravel bike with 40mm Ramblers, it’s fine

It has a live location function where you can allow another user to view where you are. I use it for my wife when I go biking. Handy for keeping track of your kids/teenagers too

Squished a slug on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. That woke me up

My anecdote. Whyte E160, Bosch motor, 3000k through the last wet year I used it to beat the mud/slop and just get out anyway (Thanks Singletrack, your recommendation in a bike test a year ago). No issues yet

My mother was a nurse and had a medical book with a picture of the back of someone’s head that had a hole about 10cm diameter and you could see their brain

I still use a couple of Cateye Velo Wireless on a couple of bikes, simple and reliable

I guess it could be an issue when your rim wears through

Joshvegas I agree it’s people we are complaining about, not dogs. Same as the idiots with noise cancelling headphones that you can sit behind shouting at the top of your voice. However too many dog owners on here seem to want to excuse antisocial behaviour because dogs are involved

I’m with the OP. Too many irresponsible people who have got dogs as fur babies that they cannot/won’t control are making the outdoors a pain for anyone on a bike. I like dogs, don’t own one but too many people excuse their behavior when we are really talking about dogs that are out of control. My neighbour has a huge fluffy teddy bear of a dog which she thinks is ok to blunder round our garden and I’m a miserable sod cos I object. My sister has a large, nervous Alsatian/husky cross that chases hares, horses, reacts aggressively when scared. According to my sis this is acceptable because it’s highly strung! The attitude seems to be “I want so I can have and everybody else can just suck it up”

Hi Drac, respect and thanks for your years of service. I retired early from a stressful job working with abused teenagers and found even after I left that I couldn’t forget what I had experienced, it would go round in my head as if I were still at work. I set up psychotherapy sessions and used them to offload, and my therapist suggested techniques to help me move on. If you find yourself in the same situation can I suggest you do something similar for yourself

Singletrack and MBUK, breakfast is not the same without them. Much prefer STW but it doesn’t last enough breakfasts so I used to choose between MBR and MBUK. MBR folded and MBUK got harder and harder to find so I subscribe now

I ride both bikes and ebikes. I always find it a bit of a quandary at this time of year, just as the weather warms the vegetation goes into overdrive and I spend much of this season with lacerated arms and legs so much as I’d like shorts and tee shirts I usually end up in longs to avoid the ‘self harmer’ look. And I haven’t even mentioned the wet slappers after it has rained

Go for a ride, take your rear wheel out when you are furthest from home and it will dismantle itself. Works especially well if you remove your wheel in heather or any other vegetation

Go see Jedi

I once had to do a presentation to the director of education and about 100 other headteachers etc. Rode there, snapped my chain, fixed it, cleaned hands when I got there and did the presentation. Afterwards I looked in the mirror and I looked like I had escaped from a strangling, oily marks around my neck when I put my helmet back on

The Only Ones, much better than a lot of their post-punk/new wave contemporaries but never broke through, gave up disillusioned

Don’t worry, you will escape and life will get better

Anywhere between 40-60k around the local woods linking together the best bits (flowy or steep or techy or all 3), lately I’ve been taking a flask to sit on a hilltop with a coffee and have a me moment.

Occasional jaunts to the Peaks or Woburn to ride with my son and a few multi day trips to Scotland, the Lakes etc

My wife loves to watch Glow Up, a bake off style make up prog on BBC3. This week the contestants had to make up the cast of a girl power style musical about Henry VIII’s 6 wives that’s currently running in the West End

Yesterday we had a full day of rain despite high pressure. Today is forecast dry, it’s been raining for the last 2 hours. Even when indicators say dry it rains. JUST STOP!

Rain

Spent all last week hoping for drier trails this week with the forecast high pressure but instead it’s rained heavily all day and the trails will be worse again. This week I am finding it hard to cope, it’s the hope that’s killed me

Left my phone on a picnic bench in the woods, included in the case was my card, driving licence and a £20 note. When I returned it had gone but there was a note with a phone number. Called the number and collected my phone from a lovely woman and her 2 dogs. I wasn’t too worried as I generally find people are decent and honest but her kindness didn’t half avoided a whole lot of faff and stress. Took her some flowers and cake+dog treats the next day

This is not disproportionate…

The current trend in littering the forests around N Notts. It started in lockdown with idiots fixing plastic marge tubs etc to trees and then filling them with bread for the birds. Bread is bad for them, there’s plenty of natural food in the forest and after a day or two you have a soggy rotting tub of plastic fixed to the tree. Now 3 years on they just look awful. So I removed them.

Then there’s the attention seeking trend that my wife tells me are “random acts of kindness”. Yesterday I found a white knitted teddy bear on a plastic bag with a card informing me that “wise people never stop learning”(whereas thickos litter the forest) hanging on a tree. Later dangling from a branch, a bracelet of artificial flowers! Go back to your urban environment with your random plastic crap and leave the natural environment alone!

I’m still cross even after spending the last 24hrs ranting to anyone who would listen (yeah I know, my poor wife)

Got a cheap USE from my lbs (they had had it in stock for about a decade). Does just what I need it for, takes the sting out of my gravel rides