It’s really good to have alternative drinks in the house. My go tos are soda or tonic water with angostura bitters (I know there is alcohol in them but a dash of bitters is fine by me). Or roibos tea as an evening drink without caffeine.

The other thing that has helped me a lot is early morning rides and needing to be fresh for them.

Linked to that, wearing a Garmin watch the whole time has really shown me the impact of even a couple of beers. Resting heart rate is 47-50 in the morning after no alcohol or 55-57 after two beers. Similarly Garmin’s body battery score is way better after no booze and decent sleep. I find it very hard to ignore that direct evidence of the health benefits of less drinking – more so than general health advice.

Thanks for that – looks like a great trip!

Like others, if I was buying an expensive road bike I’d get one with discs, mainly to have the option of upgrading to some silly carbon rims. Plus summer in the UK still involves rain

The pricing of all the QBP brands (Surly, Salsa, All City) seems to have gone totally crazy.

The really big, really low resolution avatar pics are properly not good when browsing on a phone.

Look up the rotafix method which uses the bike frame as a chain whip. You put a cloth around the B&B and then wrap the chain around the cog so that as you turn the wheel it unscrew. Hard to explain without a picture! Works really well.

The only thing is to triple check you have wrapped the chain the right way so that the cog is unscrewing- there is so much leverage that you can strip the hub if you use this method to tighten a cog and overdo it.

Thanks everyone for confirming what I thought – they’re having a laugh! I was ex petting something well under 2k so glad to hear it was in the right area. I would diy it if I had the time but will look for a cheaper local handyman or builder.

whatyadoinsucka – that’s exactly what I thought. It’s almost at the level I could do most of the work myself, but if I did that it would take about three years and end up a bit wonky.

Rockhopper – it’s only the electronic controller for the heating in that room. The manifold is in the hallway, otherwise I’d understand the costs.

So far it confirms what I thought!

Great work. Personally I would replace the front set of handlebars if they are aluminium (can;t quite tell from the pics). A friend did up a nice old bike and then hit the deck in traffic when the handlebar sheared…

On a bike? One of the remote corners of scotland. Its about as far as you can get from a road in Europe.

Love scotland but don’t really think anywhere there is remote compared to bits of the real north of Europe. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Finnish Lapland. Most remote place I have been was 50km from the nearest road (directly back where we had come from). Closest road apart from that was about 120km.

I probably should have said that our dog is totally awesome – big dog character in a small package. All terriers have a stubborn streak, but ours has none of the snappiness some breeds have and completely loves children, people and other dogs.

I’ve got a Lakeland, which is a very similar breed, and she would fit all your criteria. However, she’d also fit some others like having highly selective deafness, a strong independent streak, and a fondness for rolling in poo. Guess that a lot of Welshies will share those as well…

Mine is the one with airbags! Good fun bivvy trip this summer when the trails were dry and the air was warm!

Don't see what the issue is with using a normal mudguard. A p clip on each side at the bottom of the lower for the mudguard strut to screw on to and then use zip ties or another P clip around the bridge, with the mudguard running under the bridge. Job done!

I spent six weeks walking the high route in the pyrenees a few years ago and it was great. If you want to be in the big mountains then the French side is much better. As someone said above, the Spanish side is very arid because it's in the rain shadow so a lot less going on. If you are happy with the smaller hills then both sides of the border the Basque country is pretty similar. I really liked Luchon – not too touristy considering it's a resort town and excellent access to the mountains as explained above.

Collie corss something would be good – good amount of energy but a bit calmer if it's crossed with something sensible! I used to have a collie x lab who could do lots of exercise and wasn't too bonkers after the age of two or so.

Told you so.

But even the people who say they are good pedals are saying they only last a year and need to be maintained every couple of months – doesn't sound very good to me! Think I'll stick with my ATACs whcih are good for my knees, still clip in the mud and snow and have no accidental unclipping with the tiny added bonus that they don;t break or need more maintenance that a trophy wife!

I bought them for my touring bike as I hate propper guards with a passion (shocking looks, disproportionate weight, noisy, not exactly aero, snap-tastic, need adjusting ecary time the bike gets clattered in the rack).

I didn't have any of those problems with my SKS chromoplastics attached to proper mudguard eyes, apart from the aero point, but when I'm commuting in the rain and wind with a bunch of stuff I'm more worried about being dry than being aero. Looks are for you to decide, but I quite like the look of bikes that have been well designed for their function.

I've got one of Sam's Singulars with a Phil EBB and it's been fine. Haven't tried sliding dropouts though so a bit of a one-sided opinion!

I was going to say exactly what Haribo said – not worth chucking a sickie

Get stronger! The classic winter fixed gearing for old timers training was around 70 inches (42:16 is a good ratio), which I find lets you get up hills if you are strong enough for them and gives a nice spinning cadence on the flats. Used to be called "evens" since you are doing pedalling 100rpm at 20mph.

Slush puppy beer is good.

The frozen beer thing happened to me once while sleeping in a tent in Lapland – the beer was in the tent too, as was the champagne that froze solid. Luckily my sleeping bag was good!

I can think of other native protein sources from back in the day – walnuts and beans for starters. I think veganism is a very modern fad, but suspect that for most of history most people lived a fairly vegetarian diet because of the difficulty or expense of killing lots of meat.

I've got a singular and it's lovely! A bit more pricey than some others though. Check the geometry of the different models – Singulars have longer headtubes which I need as I have ultra long legs (6'4" with 37.5" inseam) and so need the bars pretty high without a massive spacer stack

Six months isn't too bad and it sounds like your last period out of work got pretty stressful, so I'd stay in the job, save as much as possible in that time and look for something better.

I'd take a look at Bristol – culture is covered, good weather and riding, near the sea, Exmoor and Dartmoor, financial industry and less than two hours on the train to London. That;s where I'd go if I wasn't tied to being in London

I've got a fair bit of experience of cooking reindeer, which is quite similar to venison. The meat is generally very lean so needs a bit of care when you're cooking it. If it is a roasting joint then it should have a bit more fat, but I wouldn't roast it uncovered. The last piece I roasted I smeared with oil, salt, pepper and herbs then put in a roasting dish with a rack to keep it off the bottom. Put a glass of red wine in the bottom with some rosemary and juniper berries and then loosely cover with tin foil. Roast on a low heat for a couple of hours and the job's a good un! Had a lovely medium rare joint when I did it.

When we roast reindeer in Finland it is usually in a sealed plastic bag (some special one that is heat proof) with some liquid and herbs and then roasted for about six hours at 90 degrees C. Mind you we have a wood fired stove with an oven so it's a bit easier to do that!

I have some of their shorts and they're ace – good cut if you are relatively slim and athletic, technical fabrics, cheaper than rapha, nicer than mtb kit. Mind you I ride a fixed gear in London so that might affect what you think of my opinion!

Get the road morph if you plan to go up to 100psi regularly cos that's what it's for. Streets ahead of any mini pump I've had and has got to 120psi pretty easily

Wouldn't it be easier to machine or buy a new sliding dropout with a hanger? I think the issue with your idea is that there is nothing to stop the derailleur mount rotating relative to the axle, which could cause some issues.

I've got a crosscheck and found that the TT is quite long for a given size. Mind you, I'm mostly legs so that's probably part of it. Check the geo against your pomp and you'll be sure on sizing. I think it's a good all round bike – been using it as a commuter (fixed) for a year and a half and it's comfy, solid and good with stuff on the racks. Haven't had a touring load on it though. The paint job is tough as old boots. I've also had it set up with 1.8" bonty XRs, which only have a few mmm of clearance at each end but are fine in dryish conditions. Makes the bike a bit of a monster truck which is great fun. They are really versatile as well – I've had mine set up fixed, SS and 1×9. It's currently in SS CX mode for a cross race tomorrow.

Having said all that, if the Singular Peregrine was available in my size then I'd get that. Discs are so much better for general use (I've got a disc fork on my cross check) and the ability to take bigger tyres and have more mud clearace would make it a much better UK monster crosser. Plus it looks lovely!

I had them on my CX bike thinking that they'd be good all round bars and make the bike better for taking onto singletrack. They are great for the second half of that, but pretty useless for the first half in my experience. The drop position is great, but needs to be high (so you'll probably need a new stem) and the brake levers need to be set quite low. That made the hoods very uncomfortable for any decent distance, partly because of the flare and partly because they were so low that there wasn't a nice flat transition from bar to hood. For me that meant that the bars didn't meet my needs.

I'd look at either a pair of classic bend, shallow drop bars in the widest width (I think Deda make some) or look at Nitto Randonneurs, which is what I've got. Classic bend, a tiny bit of flare that helps with wrist clearance in the drops and generally very comfortable and well made. Not hugely shallow though.

I feed my lakeland terrier bakers with some bread and marge or some leftovers every now and then. My sister's a vet and she feeds her dog the same diet, so I think it's ok. I guess the more expensive foods might be worthwhile if you've got a dog with a sensitive stomach or soemthing but I think most hardy dog breeds will be fine on this. Terriers are essentially mongrels that have been bred to be tough and would often have lived on farms etc so they'll be fine with most things.

Whilst we like the idea of grain free food, there is thought that dogs in the wild ultimately do have grain as part of their diet – from the stomach contents of their prey.

I can understand this in theory, but it's a long time since domestic dogs lived this way. They've been dependent on humans for a long, long time and have evolved accordingly. I think it's a mistake to compare domestic dogs to wild dogs. I spend a lot of time in lapland in a village with a pack of reindeer herding dogs who live a very traditional life – they sleep outside when it's minus 20 and work for their living. The herders there boil the bones before they feed them to the dogs.

Just to add a bit m,ore – I've got a cross check with a winwood carbon disc fork. Very versatile bike that I have used for winter commuting, fixed and with guards and racks, "monstercorss" with 1.8" tyres, both singlespeed and 1×9, and now setting up with CX tyres and singlespeed for some cross racing this winter. Nice comfy ride for road commuting and good and nippy handling off road. Not the lightest frame ever, but that's only an issue if you are racing IMO.

Planet X Uncle John gets good reviews and has disc mounts. Personally, having ridden my cross check on various bits of singletrack and for winter commuting with and without a front disc brake, I wouldn't get a bike without disc mounts for the uses you envisage. You might not need them for cross racing, but they make messing about in the woods a lot more fun and they make stopping in the rain on the road a much nicer experience!

Just to add to what people have said, but chainline and q factor are different and are basically unrelated. Q factor is the gap between the pedals and you can measure the outside of one crank arm at the pedal thread to the outside of the other one to get a measurement for it. Chainline is the distance between the niddle of the chain and the centreline of the bike. You can have many different chainlines for the cranks with the same q factor – e.g. you could run a set of triple cranks and use the middle or outer positions for the chainring. That would give different chainlines but the same q factor. It looks like your crank setup will have a normal mountain bike q factor, so pretty much any singspeed crank set up normally should be about right. Check manufacturer sepcs against your measured q factor to be sure. Standard SS chainline is 52mm which is probably what you'd get if you shifted the chainring to the middle position on your thorn.

Just had a look on STW Trail Guide, maybe delete "North" and spin round the M25 to the North Downs. That 68km route looks like a day out.

It is – just did it at the weekend with a bit extra tacked on and it was properly good. Most of the good singletrack is on pitch hill, holmbury hill and leith hill, but there's lots of good bridelway on the way there and back. Just be aware that the maps in the trail guide are mixed up, so if you want to do the long route then you need to click the link for the medium map. If you haven't riddent the north downs before then I strongly recommend them!

I saw the film in the cinema – thought it was ok, but nothing special to be honest. Nothing about it really stood out for me, although the two lead actors were good in their roles.

Just be aware that disc tabs put a fair bit of force on the fork blade which the pomp fork wouldn't have been designed for. I'm sure it's stout and might be fine, but it would suck if the disk ripped the front of one blade off while going down a hill! When I was thinking of doing the same thing Dave Yates advised me strongly against it and I trust his opintion.

I bought a nashbar carbon disc form from the states for my cross check which does the job – it's the same as the much more expensive winwood you can buy over here. Only thing is that they wanted a ridculous amount of money for international postage so had to get a mate to bring it back. If I was you I'd buy Sam's fork.

Oddjob

Unless you are getting hydraulic brakes, I would say don't bother. I spent a lot of time and effort building up a drop bar road rat and it is very heavy and rather dissapointing. The total is less than the sum of the parts and the BB7 brakes are more trouble than they are worth.

My experience of putting a road BB7 on the front of my crosscheck was very different. Excellent braking and very easy to keep the BB7 working well.

Oil industry seems the obvious choice in Aberdeen, but I guess you are looking there? Doesn't have to be an engineering post – do they have general graduate schemes?

If you just want a job quick then do you have to mention your degree? Sounds like you've been working in a bike shop all the way through so why not use that experience to get the job and leave your degree off the form. It's not lying, since you haven't falsified the information that got you the job, and you aren't obliged to put every bit of info about yourself on a job application.