We’ve also got a GSD. Obviously depends where you live, bit for us it’s absolutely the fastest way to do the majority of our journeys. School run, shopping, nipping across town, weekend family jaunts.

There’s plenty of cheaper options that in my mind would offer all the same benefits in terms of using your car less.

Ironically the thing we still use our car most for is our dog, who won’t go on the Tern. We could get a trailer but haven’t yet, just feels a bit too much faff and yet another bulky thing to store.

Storage is the main thing to consider. We keep ours in the hallway and have grown to live with it. If we ever move house I’ll make sure we’ve got a garage or dedicated space at the front of the house.

Not sure I know what it means?

O Sole Mio (aka just one Cornetto)

I tell the kids when they play the tune that means they’ve sold out

The van in question chucks out so much smoke it probably has its own private hole in the ozone layer

As soon as knog come out with an android version I’ll be getting one (possibly more)

Around 70kph I think coming down Arthur’s Pass in New Zealand. Panniers fell off when I hit a bump and I had to walk a long way back to find them.

The same day I set my mileage record in one day too which was 190km. Tailwind and 1000m drop in elevation helped somewhat!

Which brand do you have? @eyepic

I was thinking of getting one for my sister. Can you look at the camera from more than one phone?

I’ve just got a new bike with XT 12spd. 10-51 cassette, first time I’ve had one that big. I must say I find it quite a clunky shift compared to what I’ve had before. Is that normal? Is SRAM or xtr any better?

Some pranksters mowed a giant penis into the lawn of the Royal Crescent leading up to King Charles coronation this weekend ? pic.twitter.com/9DU5cv0EIa

— Jordin Roussell (@jordinjroussell) May 5, 2023

I barely use Facebook but I do use Instagram

The ads are pretty well targeted for me and rarely do I find it annoying or obtrusive unlike Facebook

However I’m not really one for impulse buying so they don’t really work on me

What would actually be a useful feature is if it showed me ads targeted for someone else who I need to buy a gift for (i.e. my wife!)

That might save me some stress at Christmas time!

Swanage

Actually this is where we are right now! It’s great, weather has been a bit pants but otherwise loving it. Corfe castle and steam train the highlight so far.

Mumbles / Gower is awesome, went there in half term earlier this year

Lovely beaches (we lucked out with the weather)
Arcade in mumbles was great fun too
Water park in Swansea with tubes etc
Some excellent food & coffee in the area too

@teadrinker

Having dithered about buying a frame from biketart like you and building it up I’ve just ordered one of the discount XT builds from Sigma! Not really my style to order OTP but couldn’t get anywhere near that price. NBD incoming!!

Teadrinker do post a pic of your bike when it’s built up

I’ve got my finger hovering over the button to buy an arc frame…

Very timely for me, I’ve even thought about starting my own thread. The last week has been a rollercoaster.

My dad is just coming up to 80 and his mental capacity is rapidly declining, most likely dementia but he’s refused anything which might give us a diagnosis.

No POA because he’s a stubborn fool. We’ve tried so many times and sadly we’re past the point now, he no longer has the capacity/attention span to understand it.

Last week he has a visit from a PCSO who has had ‘reports’ (plural) from neighbours that he shouldn’t be on the road. He’s basically been told to stop immediately, he’s not legal and will be in big trouble if he’s caught.

Knowing he was just going to ignore them and drive anyway, me and my sister paid him a surprise visit last week and immobilised his car for him.

He then vowed to dis-own us (but has thankfully calmed down a little)

It’s been fun!

Now trying to organise some basic care for him at home. Considering moving him across the country to be nearer to us.

This is all new territory for me. The next X years are going to be quite testing I think!

Cheers for the replies. I’d figured it would be awkward, just wondered if anyone had actually tried. It would open up so many more possible adventures.

Factoring in the shitness of UK trains and the high chance of some calamity happening on the way just isn’t worth it, especially with kids in tow.

Anyone with a GSD (or similar) had any success taking their bike on a train?

We’re vaguely considering a family holiday where the bike comes with us. May or may not be a crazy idea.

Before we got our own, we hired one in London and had a blast.

Ours has the clubhouse and stormbox which adds a fair bit of bulk, and maybe makes it too big for the bike storage compartment on a train

Is there really any point in keeping 10 speed?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/T9kxRVwUctthNAAu6

Tiny one I spotted on a dog walk through combe dingle (Not showing the pic for some reason)

Tricky one. Is there another employee you can trust to discretely speak to? It’s possible they might know something you don’t, to either confirm your suspicions or vice versa.

Either way I would request a face to face chat on their first day back to check on their ‘recovery’ and just be up front that your suspicions were raised.

I bought some TRP mini-Vs and levers for my ‘cross bike which I use almost daily around town.

Far better than the cantis which I had before, wish I’d discovered them sooner.

They also have a button to slacken the cable like the tektros. It’s all very well designed and nicely made, super impressed with TRP.

Such a brilliant game

Was in 6th at the time, my mate lived in the house opposite school, we used to run across and play it religiously at break times, leaving the house precisely 3 seconds before the next lesson

The single player was just as good as the multilayer imo, not many games can boast that

Really enjoyed The Menu

My favourite line:
“My art turns to shit inside your body”

He’s got a point!

Knives Out 2 (Glass Onion) was pretty poor and even more of a celeb-fest than the first, which I quite enjoyed

If you don’t mind sacrificing a bit of range you can do it on the cheap with your existing 9spd mech and shifter

11-40 cassette £22
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124224189258

Goat link £5
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115512783694

Narrow wide chainring £9
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154747425386

I used this exact combo on my wife’s town bike and it works a treat

Although the microshift setup above looks like a great option

The YHA just over from Pen Y Fan is a nice spot

That Scott Rao video is great, not quite the charismatic delivery of James Hoffman but a much better explanation of what the bloom is for

There’s different filters which give you longer/shorter brew times. I wouldn’t go too coarse on the grind.

The James Hoffman vids are worth a look if you’ve not already seen them

Bit of a wildcard entry…

https://www.cyclesolutions.co.uk/components/pedals-cleats/vp-components-vp831p-city-grip-tape-pedals–916-inch__26889

Have these exact pedals on my cargo bike. They are fairly thin profile, plastic body, and grippy but shin friendly. The body is no bigger than the ones on my 6yo daughter’s islabike.

The only thing is the grippy stuff might not work so well in mud.

What an awesome awesome adventure

We had similar ideas too, having a big trip before our eldest started at school, not specifically Canada although that would have been a great option

That would have been in 2021 so COVID stopped that happening :-(

Do it!

I’ve been to BC many years ago, did all the usual hotspots, has an amazing time. I’ve always been drawn back to Vancouver as a place to live.

Recent GSD buyer here. Loving it so far. I’m yet to meet a GSD owner who regrets buying one.

They are quite hard to get hold of right now due to high demand. I got mine from Surge who give you 10% of the bike price to spend on accessories. Mine is the S00 in sage green, still in stock by the looks of it.

There are definitely other decent options out there (benno, bergamot etc), but the belt drive and small wheels swung it.

An update from the Kyiv bakery I mentioned a couple of pages back. On Christmas day they reached their crowdfund target for a new generator!

You've bought a generator for us!

We raised the required amount via PayPal and UA bank account. We are proud to know that we deserve your trust. pic.twitter.com/EOvkPuyvIv

— Good Bread (@GoodBreadKyiv) December 26, 2022

On the subject of Bakhmut, they have been delivering bread there recently. That is 700km from Kyiv…

The 'Good bread' team was in Bakhmut. Listen to this sound. We were in Bakhmut for three hours, and during this time sounds of shelling didn’t stop.#Бахмут #bakhmut pic.twitter.com/1zyqKZ5xti

— Good Bread (@GoodBreadKyiv) November 15, 2022

We’re with MandS and have bike cover as an extra on our home insurance

Renewal this year was about £650 for the whole lot. The bike cover part is about £275 of that.

The only thing you have to specify is the value of your most expensive bike, which for us is £6k. All bikes are covered up to that value in the house/shed, out of the house, either locked or in our possession, and in the car.

I didn’t have have to tell them any details of the bikes, how they are stored or even how many bikes we have. They weren’t even fussy about security details, locks etc.

Definitely seems too good to be true! I asked lots of questions about many different scenarios, trying to find where the exclusions were, as I just couldn’t quite believe it was that simple. The guy on the phone assured everything was covered.

As a precaution I’ve got photos, frame numbers, receipts etc squirrelled away.

Hope I never have to use it!

Here’s a worthy cause I thought I would share with you guys.

This bakery in Kyiv, originally set up to help people with learning difficulties, is now baking bread for free to give to the front line and areas devastated by the war. They are baking between blackouts and then literally risking their lives delivering it. Humbling stuff.

https://instagram.com/goodbread_fromgoodpeople
https://eng.goodbread.com.ua/

Right now they are crowdfunding for a generator so they can keep baking through power cuts.

https://send.monobank.ua/jar/8YPxVCi1RT

I’ve had a similar run this year. 42 also. Actually I’ve been a bit better recently, mainly I think due to external factors that have changed things at work. Enough to temporarily alleviate some boredom and get me out of the rut my mind was in.

January/February is the worst time for me. I’m trying to figure out what I need to change to not restart the whole cycle again.

I can empathise a lot with other things you are saying, especially as I seen to have regressed to a teenager when left to my own devices. Mostly I feel lonely and unhappy, in spite of not really having anything to complain about!

I’ve used 3dprint-uk.co.uk for making things on a few occasions. Sounds like they would do exactly what you need and it didn’t cost that much, have placed small orders with them.

They build using SLS which is nylon. Same stuff that was used extensively for prototyping when i was at Dyson.

It was the best option in terms if strength/stability/cost compared to other methods, although I’ll admit there may well be other processes that have overtaken in recent years. I’ve got bits that have been in daily use for 5 years that are still going strong.

One thing to bear in mind, you are paying for overall space taken up within the machine, rather than volume of material in your part. so if your parts are hollow, nesting them together can be very cost effective. So that part would be expensive to print on its own, but if you need other stuff, anything you put inside is effectively free. Also thickness Vs cost is not really a consideration.

I have the police approved 3 bike one

No chance of getting 3 29ers in there I’m afraid. Since it’s 6′ long a 29er only goes in with the bars turned slightly. Even 3 smaller bike was a tangle.

I wish they’d make a longer version of the police one as it’s too short for my cargo bike. Looking at this I don’t fancy getting the basic 29er one! Also two padlocks is a bit of a faff to get in and out.

Better still, Asgard could sell an embiggening kit to make it longer!

Looks great, that’s a lot of bike for the money and definitely a better alternative to the radwagon. Sensible wheel sizes too.

Mind you it’s 2.2m long, that’ll be a bugger to store unless you’ve got a garage.

What on earth…

I used to work in there in R&D

This will be one of those products that everyone except 2 or 3 people in the whole company knows deep-down is a terrible idea, and still just plough on towards production piling loads of money into it

They’ll design themselves into impossible knots, then the blamegame ensues when it inevitably doesn’t do what they wanted right at the start when it was a pencil sketch

To be fair it was a fun job for a while and I got to work on some cool stuff, but the ratio of good products to turkeys was pretty stark

Dishpatch (mentioned above) is excellent, we’ve used them maybe a dozen times as our “posh meal out” substitute (because young kids).

They’ve all been exceptionally good and a few times the portions have been so generous it’s fed us for two meals.

Basically they’re high end meal kits from some decent London restaurants. We’ve bought a few as gifts for people too.

Ps. If anyone fancies trying it I might be able to get us both a voucher code for referring someone.

So…

In my quest to buy something that wasn’t a Tern, I’ve ended up with … drumroll…

A Tern!

Decided to follow the crowd and get a GSD, 1 week in and I’m very happy with it.

With 2 kids we realised there wasn’t much point in buying a bike that we’d soon outgrow.

Over half term we went to London and hired a GSD to get around on. Never thought I’d say this, but it made going to London a fantastic family holiday.

But, as expected storage is the main issue and for the time being it’s in the hallway, but I’ll look into getting a shed for it.

I did look at some of the other brands, but liked the idea of small wheels and belt drive.

I bought it from Surge and with their 10% deal it came in at roughly £6k all in, doubling my record for amount spent on a bike!

I’ve got a Beeline Velo and really like it. I mainly just want navigation with minimal other faff, and it does that pretty well.

I used it for a week of cycling around London with the family and it was great.

The route finding is pretty reliable and it’ll reroute as you go. It’s also nice that it includes cycle lanes and avoids busy roads etc.

The main drawbacks I’ve found are:

No elevation in the route planning or ride history. Apparently it’s a feature they are working on.

The basic display does mean some limitations of what it can show you, so complicated junctions require a bit of care to make sure you don’t go the wrong way.

There’s no internal compass to know which way you are pointing, but once you are moving it works it out. So when you set off you need to make sure you don’t set off in the wrong direction!

Overall it’s a good bit of kit and does what I need. It’s certainly well worth the money.