I like the idea, but don’t like the glasses, sadly. Much as I dislike Planet X, their Metis EVO look spot on! I’ll try them and report back…

Good luck. I think I need to do the same – been drinking a lot more than usual during coronatimes and I’m feeling it. Energy levels are down massively this past week and I’m fed up with it. Went off drinking altogether last autumn as all the lovely bocks we get just weren’t hitting the spot. Still have about 150 bottles of various different beers in the garage and really need to get that number down – and keep it down.

Yep, tried them, but they’re still massive compared with a few years back, sadly.

Yep, had no end of problems with WTBs. Wouldn’t countenance using their tyres or rims ever again.
When I lived on Deeside I got on really well with Panaracer tyres. And Maxxis High Rollers. No idea if you can still get them, though.

Non clicker for the same reason as @Kerley up there. But I only ever use the handbrake on the ferry, leave it in gear everywhere else.

Most of the German Radlers are excellent, if you can get them over there? Warsteiner do a decent zero alcohol one, but the 2% one is better. Amstel (yes, I know that they’re Dutch) have a great one that’s like drinking a fruit pastille. Their zero sugar one is vile, though.

The Austrian and German borders can be a funny one, tbh. Into Austria from Germany, I’ve never seen that policed. Into Austria from Czech there’ll be a few Austrian polis a few metres down the road. Austria from Slovenia feels like a proper hard border at the best of times, polis with guns, most folk get waved through but the odd car gets pulled to the side. Into Germany from Austria can be an absolute nightmare as well, especially at that corner by Salzburg. Been pulled over there before and the polis were not particularly friendly.

I swapped a yellow Colour Concept GTI for a pair of Halo wheels, some Rock Shox Toras, and a pair of Avid Juicys. I’ve still got them whereas the GTI got scrapped YEARS ago.

Always caught me out when I was in England, and still catches me out when I’m in Germany at the weekend. The one thing that bothered me more than anything was restricted hours for buying alcohol, though. Here in the Netherlands I’ll do my shopping after I’ve dropped the kids off at school. Sometimes there’s nice beer on offer, and sometimes I buy it. At half past eight in the morning. Nobody bats an eyelid. Compare that to trying to buy a bottle of wine in Scotland at one minute to ten in the morning and the shame klaxon goes off. Ridiculous.

I’ve hated SRAM ever since I smacked my nads off the stem of my new SRAM equipped Foxy in 2010, because I needed to change down a few gears on an uphill and naturally used my thumb to push the closest lever. Like I’d been doing on Shimano for 15 or 16 years. Bike stopped dead, because I had actually changed up. Because SRAM.
Bought a set of XT shifters and an XT rear mech and never had that trouble again. I hate SRAM.

Halfords Advanced is great for the money. Mastergrip stuff, occasionally in Costco, is well priced and robust as well. Hazet have a lower priced line that’s good, and you can get it from Autodoc provided you don’t mind waiting.

Good to hear that they’ve upped their game – they were atrocious for me a few years ago!

Is it being broadcast anywhere? I was supposed to be at either Le Mans, the Oldtimer GP, Gatebil, or the DTM this weekend so I could do with a motorsport fix…

I wrote a while back that Boost was making me pigeon toed and was told I was talking bollocks. Funnily enough I have the same problem as you…

I’m sorry for your loss. I’d drive. We live just north of Amsterdam and have done Munich to here in a day before. The borders between NL and Germany are open again, and you’re basically on the same road the whole way once you’re past Utrecht. The only stumbling block is the ferry, as both of them are sitting at Ijmuiden just now.

I’ve got them at both ends on my Scandal. They’re fine!

Jonno, I’d be interested in that if OP isn’t!

Another vote for Bolle and Decathlon.

I’ve found that Polaroid do good shades, too. Bought a pair for $20 in Curaçao last year and they were perfect for the mountain biking I did there.

You aren’t wrong:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ladies-Apollo-Outback-gt18-mountain-bike-18-Frame-12-gears-not-used-in-years-/324183056617?nav=SEARCH

That’s close to its new price in 1994!

I’ve found that getting fit again isn’t nearly as much of a problem as shifting the weight, sadly. As for getting fit again? Time on the bike, basically.

I quite like my Scandal, so I was hoping this was going to be a new steel 29er hardtail from them.

I feel your pain, though. Tried to return something a while back and gave up. It’ll sit in my shed until it’s useful, and I won’t use Planet X again…

Every single new piece of information I read about this shocks the hell out of me. Yesterday #defundthepolice was trending, so I got to reading about that, and it appears that cities and states have budgets, obviously, and that 50% of those is routinely for the police. Like, WTAF? I cannot imagine how much better things could be there if much of that could be funnelled into worthwhile community stuff instead. Treat the cause, not the symptoms.

I love XT. I’ve had some that’s still going strong after fifteen years. XTR shifters are lovely, but the XTR front mech I had disintegrated after a few years.

Is this a WTB rim thing? I’ve ended up buckling a WTB rim recently trying to get a rear tyre on, and almost launched my front one after three attempts and a bust thumb.
Never had comparable problems with Alex, Mavic, or Mondraker own brand rims. Horrible. Will probably replace my front wheel rather than struggling with trying to change the next front tyre.

We’ve had a T4 for five years now, one of the last of the short nose ones. I’ve seen plenty crusty ones in my time but never anything structural. Run, and run away fast!

Another vote for the Vax fake Dyson thing. And Henry. Henries are ridiculously robust and suck up EVERYTHING.

Bought a rear wheel off their .nl site last night, didn’t realize until today that they’re actually German. Not expecting to see it for two weeks now, and kinda miffed about it. Not that that’s much help to you…
However, have you checked your junk folder? I think my confirmation email was in German, and my email used to be set up that anything not in English went straight to junk. Annoying when you live in the Netherlands!

I like Helvetica, but Eurostile Extended is THE cannondale typeface as far as I’m concerned.

I’m 6’2″ and on a large Scandal. It feels pretty much spot on with a right short stem.

Yes! I think a DS is a perfect candidate for electrification. It’s supposed to be elegant and graceful and refined.
An FJ40 or a Classic Range Rover would be good, too. Because the engine is just a tool in those, really.
I’ve seen aircooled Porsches electrified, and that’s just utter sacrilege.

That is one boring little car. Christ, at 22 I was driving a Golf GTI…

Some americanisms I can get behind, like zs in place of ss as that’s how it’s pronounced in ‘realize’ and the like, but their inability to spell or pronounce aluminium correctly is properly rage-inducing for me. If they dropped that i from every other -ium in the periodic table then at least there would be some logic to it. But they haven’t, so there isn’t.

Damn! Just as it was getting interesting!

Scotroutes, is that I joke I’m too stupid to understand? I definitely spelled it correctly!

Anyway, I’m back on it. Watching it is boring but listening is better!

Love that! Waiting on a decent pile of stuff from Bike Discount for my youngest’s Rockrider. It’s already got mid ’90s V brake levers and micro shift rapid fire which worked great for the eldest but he’s a lot less slight than the youngest. Have some Avid V brakes sitting, and I’ll be changing bars, stem, pedals, and maybe the saddle when it all turns up.

It’s painfully American. I want to love watching it but they just pronounced aluminium incorrectly and that was the final straw. I’ll try again closer to the launch…

Hardly been off mine these past six months or so. I was finding it just a touch too harsh so swapped the lock ons for some slide on with hairspray ones, and I’ve replaced the Fizik saddle with a digital camo Charge Spoon which feels like it’s made a huge difference. Tempted to try it on a set of 27½ plus size wheels and tyres if it doesn’t actually make a lasting improvement.
It’s taken a bit of tweaking here and there but I’m really enjoying it.
Think my total spend is still under £500, and there’s no way I could buy anything comparable for that.

Ohhh, fun, kinda flawed but brilliant?

Mondraker!

A Kona of some description
GT Zaskar
Raleigh Burner
Agreed about Cove just for the names!

Be prepared to put in the work, honestly. You’ll hear of magic bullets and 90 days to fluency and honestly it’s bullshit. Why do you want to learn another language, and what do you want to use it for? These sound the same, but they aren’t. I’ve lived in the Netherlands for three and a half years now and I am still nowhere close to fluent. I can get by, I don’t have a problem in shops or cafes, but I can’t always find the words I need and end up talking around the problem. I’m like a four year old trapped in an adult’s mind, almost. Or maybe the other way around. So be prepared to be frustrated!
Before we came here I hit Duolingo hard, maybe three months before? It’s good for building your vocabulary quickly, and for setting out some useful phrases, but it has its limitations.
We started with lessons two weeks after we got here, which we’re still doing. I thought I’d be fluent after a year! Ha!
Babbel is a good app once you have a bit of grounding, for instant recall. You will need that if you’re ever planning on speaking to people! I don’t really get on with the app, though.
Netflix with subtitles is good, and that works both ways! Archer with Dutch subtitles is often unintentionally hilarious.
What are you really knowledgeable about? Grab some magazines or books on the subject in your chosen language. Likewise your favourite books – see if there’s a translation and get stuck in. Tintin is excellent in this respect – it’s a comic and it’s been translated into pretty much every major language, so you can have the English and your target language next to each other, panel by panel.
There are definitely more things to try, but that’s a good starter for now! Good luck. It’s tough, but soooooo rewarding.