Best just keep quiet about the rest of the forest then. Despite what mctrailrider would have you believe, there’s a lot more to pitmedden than the DH tracks ?

Does posting on STW not count for anything these days? ?

Agreed, it would be nice to have some roots in. My partner is racing it again – we think she might have the most amount of female podiums of anyone (we think, we haven’t checked, but no one else will either).

She’s looking forward to it although she has chosen her Vanquish over my new ti thing which is a bit upsetting. It has been settled for a few weeks so guaranteed a wash out as well ?

Have WTB fixed their tubeless fit again yet? It seemed to be people complained they were tight, so they made them less tight, and they became a pain to seat instead.

I switched to Hutchinson (or Pirelli, made by Hutchinson) – made in France for those who care, very easy to mount, very easy to seat with just a track pump. The compressor doesn’t get used much these days. Great puncture protection, and a range of tread patterns to suit what you want to do.

Caracal is very fast, Touareg is kind of all round sort of thing, Tundra is more aggressive but still fairly fast. They do come up a bit big, 40mm tyre can measure 42-43 quite easily.

Then there are the four or so tread patterns from Pirelli too if none of the Hutchinsons suit.

The BBC article alone is full of motonormativity (!) – it took them 45 minutes to decide someone travelling 55mph in a 20 was guilty. ‘It wouldn’t have happened if he had been driving 30’ – in a 20. And that was from the judge..

I have a Buzz Cargo and couldn’t be happier with the range, I’m not sure what people are doing with them to get 140 miles range. I think my long term averages is 3.2m/kWh which is a theoretical 246 miles. Most trips in summer are 3.5-4+ depending on speed. Regen is a big boost as it’s so heavy, it really drags power back in. Slower speed up and down gives the best range. There are people on the owners group getting 340+, but that will be slower. Often from Norway so I guess they drive a bit more chilled!

If you are comparing it to cars, efficiency could be better (we are usually +0.5-1m/kWh in our Soul) but essentially, it’s a van. Compare it against other vans and they don’t come close. We had an E-Expert for two years before this and it was terrible, tons of errors and getting sub 100 miles in winter.

I don’t think they do but it might be worth checking if the Maxus Edeliver 5 or 7 are made in an MPV?

We just flew to Oslo, rented a great wee Buzz Cargo from a place in central Oslo, spent a few nights in a hotel on the edge of town, riding bikes then coming into town to eat. Then we drove up to Nesbyen for the rest of the week in an Airbnb. Hotel was £90 a night, air BnB £65. Full 7 days rental for the van was £550 including enhanced insurance. So the basics of the holiday were cheaper than our usual 2hr drive to Aviemore. Everything else was pretty expensive mind, but we didn’t do much except riding, walking and swimming that were all free except the days guiding with Any Excuse To Ride, which was well worth it. We usually hate cities but Oslo was actually really nice, the riding on the edge of town is perfect for us, a 7k ‘high burnside’ style downhill ending in a lake swim. Yes please ? Looking forward to going back. If you do end up renting a car or van don’t bother with anything non electric, I’m not sure they have any petrol stations left.

Banshee Paradox

It’s certainly one of the nicest cities in the UK for sure. Generally speaking we are happier and nicer up here I would say. When my mum still lived down near Stratford upon Avon where I grew up and I would go back ‘home’ to visit it really struck me how rude, or rather just kind of nothing people are, in shops, bars, driving etc. And the same when I went down to a trade show in the midlands in Feb. It’s grim down south 🤣 I guess we haven’t fully had 14 years of Tory rule. And the lower population density gives you a bit more room to breathe.

I do really notice the litter though, no idea if it’s the same down south. There is pretty much a web of plastic in every gutter/hedge/field/beach.

Anyone mentioned temperature kettles yet?

Who needs actual boiling water? And it seems to boil for about 2 mins on most kettles before flipping off. Ours has 70, 80, 90 and 100. 80 makes a great aeropress that’s ready to drink, even if you are boiling pasta etc 90 is grand. Ours was cheap and is 7 years old (we got it when we moved house)

For anyone interested in numbers here’s a plug for this again:

https://ourworldindata.org/

Fife, Scotland. It’s lovely here.

Not much to add to your bag advice, but we have been in Oslo/Nesbyen this week and it has been everything from 25 degrees and sunny to 8 and raining with low single digits over night, fresh snow on the far high tops. So I would say pack for everything 😜

Torbole is really nice, I went when I was a kid. Really good riding, and rented a Scott full suspension that was like my one at home but it had hydraulic brakes n all, while I was still on V brakes. They were of course set up EU, and on the last day I went OTB coming round a switchback to find walkers.

Also got a rude hoody from one of the bike shops, Mekkes(?!)

I can’t repeat it on here.

The members are missing out some diamond chat.

Unless you are doing 200 miles+, you wouldn’t even need to think about going near a charger with either a Kona or a Niro.

In the real world they are good for 220-275 miles year round, unless you drive like a beller.

It’s just the orange one, I thought the seat mast was medium/small kinda size, but couldn’t see a size in the listing. They don’t come up very often

There is actually what looks like a small or medium Vanquish on eBay just now, if you wanted to split the frame out. Never seen a cracked one, except where my partner dropped hers on a very sharp bit of the turbo trainer 😬 And we had it fixed.

I would love to design him a custom Downshift, he would be a lucky boy! Raced to a bronze at loch ore SXC I have you know

The base spec (new) Orbea Laufey with a light set of wheels chucked on?

Hey all, just a heads up for anyone going through similar stuff. After dealing with carpel tunnel issues since new year, making work very difficult and riding of any kind nearly impossible. No physio was helping, I was doing all the right things but nothing was improving it, just getting worse. They sent me for an MRI scan and it came back with loads of fluid/inflammation in the tunnels, and got sent to see a rheumatologist. First appointment with him on Tuesday gone, and with a bit of poking/ultrasound etc he diagnosed it as Psoriatic Arthritis. So that’s a great thing to be told at 38 when you service suspension for a living and spend all your spare time riding bikes. I got given a steroid injection into what was currently the worse wrist, yesterday (day after) I couldn’t move it but settling down now. Back in two weeks for the other wrist and a closer look at extra bloods and to discuss what I want to do about it. Sadly looking at lifestyle adjustments I already do most of them, diet is good, exercise a lot, sleep well, non smoker, low drinker (now cut out totally) so I’m not sure where I have to go except drugs.

So I guess my point is, sometimes your carpel tunnel syndrome isn’t just a normal ouch thing that just needs physio or surgery

My current pick is Dainese Trail Skin Lite – the ones with the green detail. Light enough to pedal for hours, stay up, don’t scuff your knee pads. Available very cheap from the importer.

https://shop.windwave.co.uk/rider-protection/body-armour/dainese-trail-skins-lite-mountain-bike-knee-pads-pair__10727

https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy

Big ups to Hannah Ritchie

If you have the time/information about your house play around for yourself on here and see what you come out with:

https://heatpunk.co.uk/home

We weren’t using them but during our Alpacker trip we saw plenty of chargers in the mountains, most mid sized villages/towns had a few.

Zapmap is global at least to some degree, not sure if it includes everything. It certainly doesn’t here. Have a zoom around where you are going and see what comes up.

If you get a choice of car it could make quite a big difference to how easy it is, ask on here or the EV thread

The Hope T47 chart/fitting instructions are good for this. In short, whatever size it is there will be an easy solution, but as mentioned it will involve spacers to get centred most likely

That shouldn’t happen but I would think it will be sorted fast. I had charging bugs with our Peugeot van that shouldn’t have happened, and were still there a year later.

Does any of the above advice apply if you are a bike shop? 😁

If Hutchinson are too hard to get, I’d just go with a pair of Wicked Wills

I’m using Hutchinson Wyrms front and rear, seems great so far. Also had a lot of time on a pair of Krakens which were a bit ‘fast’ for me up front, then a Griffus front Kraken rear which I preferred pre Wyrms.

The Wyrms even say Downcountry on the packet 🤣

I have a Morefine which is our TV pc, the best way to describe them is ‘fairly quality China’

But it has been great, good enough that it can play a bunch of my up to semi recent steam games on.

I hadn’t seen they had posted that here, but yeah that’s who we have already messaged for a few days guiding 😁

The hotel we are looking at is on the north side just next to the smaller of the two lakes. Right by a massive carpark for walking/riding etc.

We will be taking our trail bikes, light enough to ride all day and down for most stuff. We have found a Buzz Cargo to rent so it will be just like being at home 😁

Surprised to see no other love for Wonky, it’s really nice, they offer light medium and dark roasts, and a whole lot of other stuff we don’t know because we don’t buy it. An aeropress and a £50 burr grinder, at work and home. Bosh and made in a few seconds, especially with a temperature kettle.

We buy from one of a few local roasters for posh ‘weekend coffee’ – usually Unorthodox.

Then for through the week beans we get a bag from Wonky Coffee (formally Odd Coffee Co) delivered every few weeks. They buy up waste from other coffee brands and re sell it. Sometimes varies a bit being made of random stuff, but it’s much closer to the small roasters in quality than the supermarket bags it replaced cost wise.

Looks like we have taken it off the site, likely to stop it selling while it was on eBay perhaps (I’m not in charge of that bit!)

But these are the pictures we used for the listing:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3u3eVoqZQm/?igsh=enA0eHIyMWZid2Vn

They are actually really nice frames, not super heavy for something that aggressive. It would need lighter tyres though, DD Assegais front and rear 😬

Very different to the pine mountain. The bidding was started at £999, and I wouldn’t say we were happy to let it go for that… But you know, we need the space!

I have a Buzz Cargo, got it end of July last year. So I can chat about the platform, range and drive feel but not the cabin finish or the rear seats, although we did test drive the car version. Why would you not book a test drive for long enough to test the range? We did 20 miles in the first test, it was winter and dark, managed over 3m/kWh, which compared to the E-Expert we had at the time was amazing. 3 is ‘best conditions 40mph summer run’ number in the Peugeot.

Second test drive was in the cargo and arranged through the commercial side, I told them I needed to load test it fully (stick bikes in it!) then do a full range test. I picked it up with 80% in -3 degrees, returned it at the end of the day having driven over 135 miles. From memory about 15% left. 3m/kWh again. Mix of dual, motorway, a roads, town etc.

If you want to test it fully just book a day, they should accommodate. Take the family away, pack some miles in, do some charging, whatever. They might even let you keep it overnight if you ask nicely.

I would like it to be a bit bigger in the back, but everything else has been spot on. Summer was 3.5-4.5m/kWh. Charging is fast – drove back from Core bike show in 7 degrees, 355 miles with a single 40min charge stop and 25% remaining when I got back. Having a slightly faster 11kw AC charger is great for charging while you ride, if you can find the right kind of post. Comrie Croft is great for that 😁

The only other thing on your radar should be the E-Custom Tourino, but they seem to have forgotten about launching that. They said it would launch late 23.

Don’t go near any of the Peugeot group ones. It was really pants. Would have been easier to live with if we had a home charger, but it was near enough use it, you charge it. Driving to test the Buzz, a cold frosty start and 50% ISH on the battery, it made it 10 miles to the dealer and back and was nearly in the red. Terrible range estimation too.

Unless anyone wants a medium El Roy for £999 🤷 Great bike,  silly cheap, no biters on eBay last two weeks

We (Pedals) don’t do Marin any more – but Soul Cycles just round the corner from us do 👍

If it makes you feel any better, I’m listing our excess stock on eBay and struggling to achieve anywhere near cost price for it. Do I get a prize? Cos I’m certainly not getting the cash. Please can I have a prize.

Dragon Soop

I have ridden them for about three years now. Like all Hutchinsons french made tyres the tubeless fit is great, easy to inflate at home with a track pump no bother. Nice supple side walls and fantastic grip on wet roots/rocks etc. The tread itself isn’t as deep as something like a Magic Mary so in deep mud it won’t be as good. But for an all round trail/fun tyre they are great.

It strays into plantation a bit but don’t forget North Third is also lovely good fun, and very low.

You picking on Fife Scotroutes 😜

There can be a fair bit of litter, but nothing like Edinburgh is now. It’s grim down here. ‘what has happened to people’ etc.