Had mine done recently, woke up with fuzzy hearing so rang the surgery at 8am made an appointment for 11am same day, practice nurse had the obstruction out in about 10 minutes of warm water and syringing, totally cured. FOC,     did I mention I live in rural Cataluña?

Maybe contact the hire co. If it’s a reputable one, they’ll certainly have experience of dealing with this

Jeebus was that really 15 years ago?

My dearly departed mum would always look forward to her weekend treat dessert, a nice slice of Vendetta

More fog at the finish. Another epic stage, Spain really delivering this year

Wout Van Aert crashed and out on descent in  the Picos, sorry DrJ. Seems Red Bull doesn’t give you wings

that bloody celebration

Just worked it out , ever the corporate whore, “Red Bull gives you wings.” ?

Local time is UK time, it’s Portugal

I wasn’t looking at the cardboard box ;)

If those are your headphones, how big is your head?

Thanks for the replies, I’ll look at the Denon unless persuaded otherwise. Available locally for €259 seems reasonable for the spec. I thought something with built in streaming would save the faff of pairing Bluetooth

No, I live in Cataluña Spain but still rare outside the mountains

Not bike related but pretty bizarre. Driving close to home last week, saw a golden eagle sat on a wall by the road which took off as we passed. It had a large snake in its claws, think about 2 metres long. The snake was fighting pretty hard and wrapped itself around the eagle which promptly dropped it on the car, it made quite a thud. Would have made quite an insurance claim had we crashed.

Picos are a 4 hour drive from Santiago de Compostela, not exactly close

But close to Santander where the op is arriving Sunday morning. Reading the post might be useful

Drive into the Picos de Europa, take the cable car up from Fuente De and ride down. Lots of options on wikiloc.

E bikes and e scooters are banned on Spanish trains fwiw.

The last factor is a key entry point for psychology. “A lot of road safety issues, including DUI [drinking under the influence]

Freudian slip there🙄

MrsPB and I recently did a 10 hour train journey from home in Southern Cataluña to Cordoba, the bikes had to be bagged with wheels off. As we were riding home from Cordoba, we used some thin plastic sheeting. The bikes travelled free but had to be pre-booked but when we boarded the train, there didn’t seem to be any provision for them. The train manager told us to take them into the first class carriage where they were placed on the seats! I tried to blag seats with them but he wouldn’t play ball and we had to return to cattle class. Not bad for the €25 each we paid for the 750km trip.  The return took us 5 days riding on gravel trails and disused railway line,  a grand adventure.

What’s the betting that any substantial compensation sum will not be tax free? Also the legal bill for righting this wrong is it obscene.

I’ve read all of Iain Banks’ books but not read any of Iain M Banks’ books

Airline tickets, they used to be the foretaste of an adventure to come, now it’s a cat and mouse trial of gaming the baggage costs, finding a seat and the start of worrying about having forgotten some hidden details which means that you get rinsed for excess charges at 6am at the airport.

Oh, and the guilt that you really should be finding another way of travelling even though it would take 5 times longer and cost 3 times more

The Netherlands of all places!

Guessing you haven’t spent much time or had much contact with the Dutch

Nearest I’ve ever been to being beaten up was many years ago when I was entertaining Dutch colleagues in an Indian restaurant in Bradford. My colleague beckoned the waiter by calling “hey black boy” it took a lot of diplomacy to smooth that one out.

My fears of creaking bikes are not entirely unfounded, the last 3 instances have been due to cracked Ti frames, the last one had processed 2/3 of the way around the downtube just behind the headtube and was one bumpy downhill away from a catastrophic failure and probable injury. So I don’t consider being stressed about such issues unreasonable.

Thanks for the feedback,  I’ve had a play with the setup and it seems the Android Auto only works if the phone is connected with a cable despite the touchscreen recognising the phone via Bluetooth.  Is this normal? Tried a couple of searches on Google Maps and it gives me turn by turn voice guidance albeit in very  odd Spanish street naming! MrsPB has been less successful as her I Phone usb port is on the blink, she’s been wirelessly charging it for a few weeks but obviously that  doesn’t work for data transfer.

I live not far south of Barcelona and my choice would be spring, end march or April as the air quality is poor during the hot weather that can extend into October/November. MrsPB does the half marathon in Feb, the organisers definitely know when’s the best time to avoid pollution

I recently restored a 1980’s Peugeot to participate in the Spanish edition of L’Eroica which is held in a hilly part of La Rioja. I needed to find a lower bottom gear from the knee destroying 40/24 that was the norm way back when men were men. Getting the 5 speed freehub off required a tool that I couldn’t find for less than £30 and even then was a stab in the dark. The whole bike had only cost me £50. I scoured my parts bin and ended up changing the chainset instead for a 32/44

I had 3 Van Nicholas frames crack in the 10 years since the original purchase, all replaced under warranty but still costing me money as standards changed. They changed their policy each time I reported it from keep the frame, we agree based on the photos via send the whole frame back to the latest which was cut the frame up and send us proof. I live in Spain and each failure has been during a long bikepacking trip which was very annoying and costly to abort. They admitted that they had a design issue with the Zion frame and replaced it with a Rowtag gravel frame, let’s see if this is any better.

Yes, that unit of measurement took a bit of getting used to when we moved here 8 years ago. We had some flash flooding around here over the weekend, the problem is run off from ground which is baked hard from months of no rain. When we used to quote inches of rain in the UK I guess people get used to the concept that 4 inches of rain in a day is quite a lot without really understanding the test method.
Another difference in continental Europe is measuring vehicle fuel consumption in litres per 100km which means the lower the number, the more economical the vehicle rather than the higher the mpg the better.

Try Cafe du Cicliste which is the finish point of the Turin Nice Rally and relatively close to the airport, although if their clothing prices are anything to go by, they’ll probably charge you €200 for a designer Rapha item.

Just over the hill from where I live

https://i.imgur.com/UfzX21X.jpeg

I realise I’m pushing the capacity of the setup, it’s a big ask to have a range of 34-42 to 46-11 but the shifting issues occur in the mid range gears, I set the chain to run about 2cm from the top jockey wheel when in 34-11, a gear I never use as well as 46-42. The thought about Rival 11 and 22 mechs being different is a good one, I may try replacing the mech, they’re not massively more expensive than new jockey wheels.

Yes, inners and outers replaced with quality new. Forgot to say, I’ve also tried a new 11-36 SRAM cassette and the issue is still there. The B tension screw is set fine to get it into the 42t gear. The mech seems to be moving enough but hard to tell. I thought the top jockey should have minimal side to side play, really my question is are there alternatives that don’t move about 2mm side to side? I acknowledge the comments about the cassette being knackered but as I ride exclusively in Spain with dry conditions and look after my chain, it’s not as hard on kit as UK riding. The problem started immediately after going 2x not a gradual deterioration.

Substitute German Customer and Stanton for Anyone and Planet X and you’ve got their modus operandi for the last 20 years except that as far as I know,  none of the original brands subsequently came back to life. When a Ti frame I bought,which was branded as a pretty well known Dutch manufacturer but sold by PX, cracked after 3 years, I contacted the manufacturer and was sent a new one without quibble despite me having bought it for far less than RRP and them knowing this. I have subsequently had 2 more replacements in the 10 years since my original purchase. Each frame retails for well over €2,000 and yes, one can question why 3 frames have cracked over that time period but I cannot fault the honouring of their lifetime warranty. Surely anyone buying one of these passed off frames from Germany would have an initial warranty claim on them rather than Stanton, how the Germans deal with it risks their reputation not Stantons.

it looks like it’s Van Nicholas or nothing.

I’d go for the nothing option. I’ve had 3 VN frames crack at the headtube weld in 10 years. The last was a Zion Rohloff which had relatively little use. They replaced each one under warranty but this time they pretty well admitted that there was a design issue with the Zion and recommended I switch to the Rowtag gravel frame.  I was so fed up of the hassle, I agreed but had to foot the cost of building with conventional gearing. I have a theory that the reason Ti frames are so expensive is to build in a margin for the repacement cost of lifetime warranty.

5’11” large with a 100mm Redshift stem is spot on for me.

Looks like collarbone, shit shit shit. He’s in the ambulance

Sat in our camper by the stage 15km before Jaizkabel climb, currently pissing down. The descent to the finish is going to be a white knuckle ride. Forecast to ease up later but roads are going to be treacherous.

I live 2 hrs drive/train from Barcelona and visit fairly regularly for sporting events (participating). It’s worth pre-booking for a trip around the Sagrada Familia including the lift to the top of one of the towers. I’m usually a bit meh about such things but it really took my breath away. The Gaudi houses are nice but can be crowded which loses some of the quirkiness. The magic fountains at Montjuic are great in the evening. Otherwise it’s likely to be very smoggy in July, the anti-pollution measures taken recently haven’t had the slightest effect.

Specsavers do mine, no issues. They even have branches where I live in Spain, quick turnaround too