I’ve got a theory about Garmin.

They make a range of devices from consumer crap to top grade marine and aeronautics equipment.

Lloyds register the MCA and their equivalents would have an issue if Garmin pumped out Marine navigation equipment as bad as their sports kit.

My reckoning is they put their best development teams on the safety critical stuff; and their worst developers just end up working on the stuff where it doesn’t matter.

Lets face it with Consumer grade it isn’t critical that it works, all you lose is a fairly meaningless GPS trace of where you were; being lost in the middle of the Atlantic because of f***ing Garmin on the other hand is going to kill you.

I doubt a lot of those will be stopped by GDPR – that would primarly affect marketing from people that had got your email address some time in the past and had continued to use it.  They’d have asked for you to opt in and if you ignored them they have (as required) stopped marketing to you.

Since the GDPR effectively nullified any pre-existing opt-in/opt-out (since previous rules banned presumed consent but not consent by default) the spammers were suddenly faced with a situation where their business plan would lead them to hefty fines. It very much is the GDPR that’s done this.

The driver has taken the car to a coach works and turns out the bumper is cracked and the brake light is damaged – total estimate £1078

On first look that’s excessive however both time’s I’ve been bambi’ed the repair cost has been around the 800 quid mark, that’s with me finding the bits on ebay either 2nd hand or through resellers of look a like parts and me and dad swearing at and going in the huff with each other while fitting them.

Throw the time spent doing that in at commercial rates (varies depending on where they went anything upwards of 30 quid an hour)

If you’d hit me, I’d probably ask for the price of a new taillight, but bumpers are supposed to bump.

They aren’t though, these days they are flimsy plastic cowlings that cover the actual bumper which is a hefty great big bar of metal. The plastic acts are a barrier and shield, below 10mph and you’re probably ok, tap a sheep with it, and it’ll hopefully be ok; any faster the plastic is trashed as the metal bar whacks into the obstruction.

When bumpers were bumpers they were those big chrome or rubber covered metal bars on the outside of vehicles.

He can go to small claims court if he wants, but probably won’t get very far if you contest it

(wasn’t all my fault m’lud, I was riding along and he just stopped in the middle of the road etc etc)

Are you advocating a road user admit to careless cycling as part of a defence???
You’re required to leave enough of a gap between your vehicle and the one in front to allow for thinking and stopping time; in dry conditions that’s usually said to be 2 seconds for cars, although IIRC the stopping distances and times stated in cyclecraft are longer (presumably because historically bikes have terrible brakes)

Depends on what happens first; if got some shorts where the pad is still comfortable but there are transparent sections; which relegates them to use under other layers such as unpadded tights and under baggy shorts.

Basically I eek all the life they have out of them!

Annoyingly I bought 2 pairs of Lusson Carbon bib shorts for road use a couple of months back, one pair is starting to go transparent above the pad while the other is fine; I suspect they rubbed against my thick commuting rain jacket on a particularly manky audax a few weeks ago.

It looks and sounds stupid on any modern car not FIA/MSA log booked.

50 years of progression from inefficient dripping carbs to ECU managed direct injection and ignition meaning very little fuel should reach the exhausts to gain maximum road efficiency (rather than outright speed, power and torque of a competition car) and these eejits want to set fire to expensive fuel…

I’d probably still win best backfire with my 1980s motorhome if it came to a competition.

ach it’s like Daylight MOTs, UK Road traffic law allows you to operate a vehicle in daylight in a different condition of roadworthiness from at nighttime.

The German StVZO however appears to be stricter as you need lights and reflectors at all times

My Focus came with a sticker saying:

Something along the lines of

Your bike may not be road legal in your country, please check before use

And the German text said “This bike does not comply with StVZO do not use on the Road”, but that’s basically because it was sold without all the lights and reflectors required to make it compliant.

<span style=”text-align: left; color: #222222; text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-family: ‘Open Sans’; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; word-spacing: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: #eeeeee; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>Pants though. Pants are the big thing in Aviemore. Whenever there’s a new outlet opens the locals complain that there’s nowhere to buy pants (other than thermal or merino I guess)</span>

A nightmare I know.

Have you ever tried buying essential kit in Portree on a Friday morning?
Eejit here once forgot to pack casual trousers when heading for Harris and didn’t fancy hanging around the hostel in Leverburgh in soggy wet hiking trousers, or my works trousers.  I now have a pair of Edinburgh Woolen Mill Cords hidden away in the back of the wardrobe as it was all I could find.

Ok they’re not hidden and I still wear them.

+1 on both the Lezyne and Wahoo options

The only issue I have with my Wahoo Elmnt is the upload over Bluetooth is glacial, however the upload over WiFi is fantastic. The only other problem was when I changed my RWGPS password and never refreshed the link with Wahoo, the device doesn’t tell you about upload status so had to synch with phone over Bluetooth before I found out the link was failing.

Stated battery life of 10 hrs is realistic if you turn off the LEDs, don’t use the navigation and turn the backlight down; a full charge is about 30% of my PowerMonkey Explorer 2 and can be done when riding handy for 300Km+ Audaxes and multi-day MTB…

With the Lezyne Super Mini, the 20+ hr battery life is realistic, the navigation is breadcrumb only and don’t dare not pass the start point or it’ll tell you to turn round for the rest of the day.
The User interface isn’t ideal, the buttons change purpose, something I must reluctantly give Garmin credit for on the Fenix2 for getting right. Oh and being a lefty the buttons feel the wrong way round.

My bike phone doesn’t do GPS, Web, 3g or 4g, email, etc. but fits nicely in a small corner of a bag or back pocket and weighs about 30g… It is an ancient Nokia though. Sod taking an expensive smart phone out.

I’m one of many who have sworn to never buy Garmin again…

If this was 4wd it would be fekn awesum

I’ve had two experiences of the Panda 4×4

One was a colleagues car on a business trip, I was rather impressed with how it handled the long drag from Hermiston Gait to Dreghorn on the Edinburgh Bypass.

The Second was when everyone else was hammered and I got to drive one in rural Aberdeenshire to collect someone off a farm.

On the way out (I’m 6′ and the passenger is 6′ 2″) I was being encouraged to “test it out” (remember it’s not my car, and actually it wasn’t the passengers either, the owner just told me to take it (I do have 3rd party cover on other peoples cars)) so I was pushing it a bit including through the farm gate, across the mud and in front of the new passengers house.

New passenger was 6′ 5″ and sat in the back no problem (the reason he couldn’t drive wasn’t because he was hammered it was because he’s put his back out);

Now being double encouraged to test the thing out (I hadn’t stopped laughing from setting off) I was suddenly aware of a hand poking through from the back seat as I made use of the 4×4 through the farm gate, and hit the City button…

After straightening up from oversteering (note significant use of the 4×4) and turning city mode off it was a direct route back to the piss up.

The grin wore off after a few days.

Yes you can set it to charge at any point using the ICE.  But mpg drops to approx. 20-25mpg to do this.  You may recoup this by recharging on a motorway, knowing that you are going in to a town where there will be lots of start stop driving, but I would thought the chances of the cost of charging off the ICE v mpg saved in town would be next to zero.

Certainly I never bother charging mine this way, its just better to use ICE.

Hm, sounds a bit crap then, My brothers been driving (non-plugin) Toyota Hybrids for years and generally gets 60mpg which includes regenerative braking and charging off the ICE during driving.

A mate had a Volvo PHEV which got us from the Pier at Leverburgh (where there’s a charger) to Geocrab and back without turning the ICE on.

Had a quick skim of the specs; seems to indicate some form of battery charging while driving, so not being able to plug in very often isn’t as much of a limitation as it may sound if that’s the case.

You’re also likely to occasionally find a car park with charging facilities when you’re out and about.

If the tax saving is 200 quid a month just for taking this option, then the question is, are you going to spend 200 quid more a month by taking this option over another.

B&M Lights

I’m using a battery powered IXON IQ Premium; fantastic light beam though it wasn’t quite enough light to descend off Redstate Rigg into Gifford at any decent speed at half midnight at the weekend; but then neither was the magicshine job on full power that I use as a “full beam” option.

SJS sell various German lights, and should meet EU Standard Equivalence for traffic regs, or at least for another year; don’t understand why more shops don’t sell them TBH.

DLR’s are, and have always been, front only. If you have the rears on as well, they’re called sidelights. They’re just an LED version of what Scandinavian cars were doing for years with their headlights. That’s why they’re called Daylight Running Lights, they’re designed to make vehicles more visible approaching from a distance in all lighting conditions apart from twilight when auto-lighting should turn on the other lights. Except in fog, when auto-lights don’t function and should be overridden.

That’s odd because the SAAB 99 that brought them in had 4 light statuses for non-fog use.

1 – Daylights, Front and Rear Side Light bulbs with 21W filament on Front and 5w on Rear
2 – Sidelights, Front and Rear Side Light bulbs with 5w filament illuminated on both
3 – Headlights – Dipped beams, Front and Rear Side Light bulbs with 5w illuminated plus headlights on the 50w filament
4 – Headlights – Full beam, Front and rear side light bulbs at 5w, headlights on the 55/60w filament and what ever extra lights you had attached to the headlight relay illuminated (Optional “Extra” switch to control) (OE was rectangular Bosch despite the rest of the car being Hella)

Due to the headlight relay being linked to the ignition relay most people just put it in setting 3 and used 4 as and when required.

You’re possibly thinking of the non-Scandinavian approach to the UK daylight requirement that the EU banned; which was Dim Dip, where the headlights were dipped to half power in daylight rather than turned off.

back to the original topic, the worse indicator set ups are the ones where the indicators are on the inside of the headlamps, utterly hopeless on roundabouts.

If you want to eat cereal for breakfast pay attention to the portion size; you’ll soon discover that the 30/40g portion the details are provided for looks like bugger all for most of them.

Meanwhile the equivalent portion of Weetabix is 2 biscuits, or a pack of ready portioned Porridge, which bore you into eating no more than 1 portion!

Get an inline adjuster added next time you’re fighting with the recabling; until then undo the cable at the mech and swear profusely as it frays or snaps resulting in you needing to run new cables and retape the bars… I paid the extra for DI2 in the hope I can avoid this nightmare; battery life anxiety is so much better…

Dropping 4Kg over spring isn’t a huge target, and should be doable with a defict between 250 and 500, so unless you’re on the short side of average you shouldn’t need to put yourself into survival mode (which can be counter production).

I was able to lose between 500g and 1Kg a week by consuming around 1700Kcal a day.
with my daily requriement to maintain weight around the 2100 mark.

When a mate first started seeing his lass a good few years back, her oldest kid was uncontrollable, we took him to the football once and he had absolutely no focus, at one point he was swinging off the railings and easily found something else to mess around with after being told not to do that and dragged off them.

A few months after that Social work were involved due to an incident with his wee brother that saw an A&E visit, the kids being moved to their grandparents and some bizzare statements from the eldest.

It was a blessing in disguise for them as they identified that the kid had no focus, an extremely strong imagination and was borderline uncontrollable, identified what the problems were and got the family the support they needed to shift from just about coping with him to actually being able to manage him.

He still has his moments like getting so worked up about not going on a surprise trip somewhere that he couldn’t back down when he found out it was EuroDisney but since the diagnosis and the support being put in place he’s been much calmer, yes partly down to Ritalin but the difference is between learning nothing at school to being a top pupil, being able to go to the football and actually watch a match, and not getting fed up of Tetris after 5 seconds.

I was in contact with a number of kids at school (mid-90s) who got learnign support, mostly Dyslexic because learning support tried to help me with my terrible handwriting, but I recognized a lot of the disruptive kids behaviors.

It’s not uncommon to hear of kids who were a nightmare becoming rather good in their line of business, particularly offshore and a few of the disruptive kids at my school who’s behaviour I now recognize as probably being ADD or ADHD related went on to be pretty successful.

Don’t see any reason to visit inverness in that list of trail centres.

Or did you mean Golspie rather than Golfie?

Laggan and Glenlivet are better accessed from Aviemore area.

If you do go to Inverness then Balblair, Learnie and Goslpie (though that’s a bit of a drive)

Learnie and Glenlivet are very much XC.

The biggest problem I had with bottle return systems when I went on holiday to Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway last summer was that bottle I had on the train/boat that I’d bought in a shop in the previous country.

Also the stupid German multi-use bottle scheme being different from the single use scheme, single use bottles go back to any shop with a pfand machine, multi-use have to go back to the shop you bought it at, at the counter… or something.

Remember collecting Bru bottles way back… would stash enough of them to pay for a bottle before returning.

Had BB7 Roads with SRAM Force levers on a bike from 2011; once set up they’re fine, bit fiddly to get set right but way better than rim brakes when you’re out in the rain and grit.

Just got a new road bike with hydro discs and yes they feel much nicer to use but I’d still consider cable discs if I was after a cheaper set up.

it’s probably something incredibly simple like lower staffing costs because you can buy a decent sized family house in France for the price of a pokey wee flat in Methil.

See also Baltic Sea based manufacturing.

but of course the UK’s housing problem is the EUs fault…

Created a small toolkit using an old first Aid kit bag.

Multitool
zip ties
inflator head
co2 carts
tyre boots
chain links
etc.

fits in a jersey pocket so I could ditch the saddle bag for the puffer etc.

It now lives in the tool roll that came in my Osprey backpack, with a few extras in that roll but could still be extracted and shoved in a back pocket for when I don’t want to carry a full bag.

My friend has just bought an Arkose, it’s a lovely looking bike! The only downside is that it has a 12×100 thru axle at the front, which throws a bit of a spanner in the works if you want a hub dynamo or a pitlock security skewer.

SON Delux 12?

Most disc road bikes seem to be 12×100 and 12×142 now.

+1 for new rotors

I took the adapter approach, wish I hadn’t.

Heavy

Ugly

specific flush hex bolts they you’ll probably struggle to find replacements for when you inevitably have to cut them off

and the interface with the hub is a bit vauge too which results in some movement with the brake on (apparently this can be fixed with threadlock)

Also you need to use a Hollowtec BB Tool with a flat face to fit them (so the Park tool one that fits nicely on a torque wrench is out because the face is tapered), where as the normal center lock – lock ring is a different BB tool that probably has the same issues.

This is very possibly my solution to not wanting to spend 400 quid a year on spot tracking and not wanting to carry an expensive phone that will only run out of battery while doing epic DIY Audaxes…

Wear Size 42 in Addidas Terrex also wear size 42 in Lake.

Both known for being narrow fits

Nike 42s are like boats on me.

Got out yesterday afternoon after being sent home; live just north of the red warning zone

Not much snow really, bit draggy on the tracks

Having my Final Salary, Defined Benefit, retire at 60 pension frozen in 2008  and followed on with a Career Average, Defined Benefit, retire at the State Pension Age was an unfortunate and annoying change in employment terms.

I saw why the unions were striking but decided it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been and reasonably sensible…

What’s happening to the univeristies pension which appears to be going from a scheme similar to the NHS Scotland 1995 scheme to a defined contribution one with no safeguarding and is basically an epic gamble is ridiculous and well beyond acceptable change in terms.

1 – Are you a vegan? – Nuh
2 – Are you interested in vegan food/lifestyle? – Nuh
3 – Do you feel vegans are adequately provided for in the highlands? – Can’t answer that see 1
4 – Would you entertain eating in a vegan restaurant or cafe based in one of the popular highland destinations – Well I have no problem with stopping at the Pillars of Hercules near Falkland (vegetarian) or having a falafel wrap for lunch from a Moroccan Cafe near my work so unlikely to have a problem eating vegan food if it’s decent… But vegan food is just cardboard isn’t it?

Seriously – how fast do you have to be going round a roundabout to ‘nearly have it sideways’ in a modern car?! Winter tyres aren’t going to save you there, bud.

A good splash of oil or diseasel will do that nicely for you.

M+S marked tyres on the Motorhome all year.
Change the car tyres in mid-november when midday temperatures are around 5 and switch them back when I can smell them overheating in the spring.

Also ties in when I’m regularly heading into the chilly, snowbound north at the weekends rather than the temparate rainy, midge infested north at the weekends. Though since I’m near dundee that’s basically a trip out of town

on an open road one there’s nothing to stop any Tom, Dick, or Harriet from riding the same route at the same time on any road legal machine they want

Depending on the type of road closure order applied for, there may be no legit way to stop anyone just riding the route when it’s on “closed” roads.

An Act of Parliament as used by the Jim Clark and Mull motor rallies (when they ran) means the road is absolutely closed; likewise the road closures used on the Isle of Man. In those cases they are not public roads for the duration of the closure, and in particular on the isle of man they will jail you for breeching that in anyway (including walking on it during the closure). The signs put up are quire blunt about it.

A normal local council road closure only restricts the classes of vehicle that can use the road, so they aren’t actually road closures, just restrictions, this also means the road traffic act is not suspended, so you could still be done for an RTA offence such as careless/dangerous riding even if the road has been temporarily restricted to “cycles” (not sure of the class) and designated one way if a police officer or other reasonable person sees you as riding as such.

There’s also the new type of closure available in England (and Wales?) that is a full closure and suspension of the RTA available to local authorities.

If the RTA is suspended then the pedal assist needn’t stop at 15.5mph as you’re not covered by it and associated acts. Although the ACU as the government authorizer of Motorbike sport might take an interest in unsanctioned racing.

Had a shot on an E-MTB with “27.5Plus” tyres. Total hoot, only got 36Km out of it, heart rate never got out of zone one, and averaged 15mph;

Nearly spoilt all the strava segments I use to see how I’m doing though, thankfully I spotted the e-bike category in there.

On sportives, hm, depends on the sportive.
the more serious ones, at least have a gap, not so much for the people on eBikes but I can see a fuss being made when a group puts an ebike on the front to draft.
Then again when I did the Etape Loch Ness a few years ago, a good few people thanked me at the end for the tow I gave them along to fort Augustus; so maybe putting the fat boy with loads of leg power on the front is just as bad.

Depends on the car.

In both of my Toyotas 1st is useless on a damp road as you just wheel spin; so setting off in 2nd which isn’t that much longer than 1st helps.

Following from that it all depends on how much of the rev range you’re using.
The T-Sport red lines at 7500rpm and due to the VVTI and Lift doesn’t really tail off in power until you reach the limit.

This means that if I need to boot it out of for example a sliproad (of which there are plenty here due to a desire to save money) I can easily be doing 70 in 2nd or 3rd. At which point along with the sudden range anxiety caused by the fuel gauge dropping rapidly there is absolutely no point going to any other gear than 6th as Iv’e reached cruising speed.

For less extreme situations going through the all the gears is also sometimes pointless as the acceleration and gear profiles make 4th to 6th a comfortable change for the engine under more sedate driving.

Basically being a petrol with such a big rev range, the short shifts of a 6 speed box for road use are pointless.

Took me over a year, occasionally having to stop and read something simple.
Before I started I did ask through the form of a facebook post if anyone had read it and was told by someone that it took them a fortnight. When I finished the same person made me aware that at the time they read it they were incarcerated at her Majesties Pleasure…

Lots of characters, with multiple names (as is the Russian way, formal, patriarchal, pet and other forms of name) which are switched between as appropriate for the setting.

Much easier to read than Moby Dick though, persevered through that, it doesn’t help that Melville offered his opinions on what a Whale is every other chapter most of which goes against modern understanding (It’s a mammal not a fish). That said it’s a good story behind weak writing.

Kinnoul’s pretty much all Earth tracks cut out of grass and Mud except for the bike park which is Gravel.

it’s also only blind if you’re not local or you haven’t found a new trail that’s been cut out the week before.

Depends if being asleep in my seat on the Eurostar counts and what you mean by country since some sovereign states (The UK being one) are made up of countries…

Scotland, England, Netherlands, France (on E*), Belgium (on E*), (Stupid sleeper fare was 150 so just got the last day train and explored london between trains), Germany (I think it’s 3 states in there), Denmark, Sweden, Norway

So that’s 9 or 6?

Don’t see the need for full colour mapping if you’re following a predefined route.

The weakness of breadcrumb trails was demonstrated to me during the audax at a couple of junctions where roads slowly diverged racked up an extra couple of km through wrong slots, although at the Lezyne zoom level it was the braking time rather than the noticing time that was longest.

Can see it being a bigger problem on trails though or worse a big open rideable plateau.

I also follow the transcontinental and noticed the same. (you may have seen my post asking about them)

The downfalls of the Lezyne I bought as a “cheap” back up to my seemingly dying 510 I’ve found so far are:

Routes have to be loaded through phone, and only one at a time.
– No use when your battery runs out
– No use at the start of most MTB rides in Scotland
– No use at the start of a fair whack of road rides in Scotland
— because there’s never a data signal or WiFi when you need one

Following a route with cues you’d better not miss a waypoint otherwise you’re just going to be told how far away the start is
– so it doesn’t deal with that like a Garmin does

User Interface is a bit clumsy
The Start button is also the down button when you’re in a menu, and the top left and top right scroll through screens.
– I’ve also found this extra clumsy when working left handed. (Where as the button based interface on my Fenix watch works great left handed)

There is only 1 zoom level when following the breadcrumb trail, which thankfully you can do even when the cue’s are trying to tell you to go back to the start.

Obviously it doesn’t do the trail finding; that sounds like something someone needs to write as a killer app first, or an extension to trail forks?

also as I’ve been using it with the 510 at the same time I noticed if the Lezyne picked up my HRM before the 510 then the 510 wouldn’t connect to the HRM, but if the 510 went first then both would connect to it.

I’m also suspect of the elevation, as it got 1500 on an Audax last weekend while the Garmin got 2700; the official was just short of 2400m (no AAA points)

I’ve got an Elemnt Bolt on my wish list

and of course I’ve gone way off topic 😳

30:32 is a bit long for heavy laden touring.
That’s one of the reasons tourers have in the past used a mix of road and MTB components.

My Dawes Sardar has got a 22-34-44 on the front and I think 34-13 on the back (9 speed); at 50Kg (bike 18kg, luggage the rest) that needed a bit of pushing at times. (Although why I planned to do hills >20% I don’t kn… oh yeah I was following an NCN route)

I’ve not got one down to the wear markers yet.
With the detrius strewn, ruted and pot hole laden roads round here I’m lucky if I get 500Km before I slice the sidewall.

Although last night I managed to put a hole through my rear at 50Kmh, heard the tyre hit the stone (or what ever it was), heard the tube failing (think it’s gone through the hole), heard the air escaping…

Really like them, grippy, fast, comfy at 25mm, I need to move somewhere with good roads.

Have also been using GP4Seasons, wee bit less grip (but still I still crapped out of corners before any hint of traction loss), wee bit heavier (almost noticeable) and a fair bit longer lasting (very much noticeable). I did manage to run out of tread on the rear in about 3000Km… which since I’m in the high 80kgs is really good. Plenty of bruises on the hardshell casing but the sidewall was fine below that.

but I’ve got tubeless rims now, so thinking of moving on once my small stock is done (buying in Pairs made sense at the time, but this means I’ve got one brand new one waiting to be fitted)

I need new wheels for my rim braked road bike, because I’ve worn out the rear wheels rim in around 8000Km of use.

I’ve also had a rear rim fail on the brake trak during a long tour.

this indicates I drag the back brake far too much; but I’m also loath to spend loads of money on a wheel set that’ll need binned because I’m a jessie on the descents, when it could be a 30 quid rotor instead. (oh and brake pad life, I’ve just after 5000ish km changed the organic disc pads on my disc shod road bike (mostly used in winter rain); I think I had gone through 3 sets of rear and 1 set of front pads in that distance on the rim braked bike (mostly used in summer rain).

that said, sod buying a disc braked bike until things have calmed down and mavic know what to put on their neutral service cars (as this indicates an axle standard has been argued over and 3 are in use rather than 6)