Aparently I’m the dead spit of that chap in Daft Punk.

here

Been here 2 years and haven’t tired of looking out of the door in a morning yet.

Slept with the first 4 on the first date!

Presumably the other 3, grumpy,bashful and doc weren’t up for it? :roll:

You think it’s confusing in the UK. Here in Spain there are many sections of road where on a long hill there is a lane for slow vehicles with an overtaking lane. The vehicles using this overtaking lane must not drop below 70kph but the maximum speed limit os 80kph, so you have a 10kph window in which to drive. A road locally had a temporary limit of 60kph but kept the 70 minimum on a hill which is obviously impossible to achieve.

I live in Southern Cataluña, some thoughts. If your son is set on working in Barcelona, he won’t have a big issue only speaking Spanish, its a very cosmopolitan city, Catalan is more widely spoken in rural areas. Where we live is very Catalan but we are learning Castillano, most of our friends indulge us and we get by. Like most big cities, Barcelona is expensive to live in but public transport is very good so it may be worth looking outside the city centre for accommodation. Good advice above about getting an NIE and fiscal number just in case. Bear in mind that if he wants to do a full year rather than a summer job, it can be quite cold here, Dec Jan and Feb average 10-15° so he’ll need a coat.

About 10 mins drive to Millhouse, pub is on the main road A628 and backs onto the Trans Pennine Trail which is a nice walk from Dunford Bridge.

Depends which side of Holmfirth you are but the Huntsman in Millhouse Green is very dog friendly and does a nice Sunday lunch. 6 hand pull real ales and nice folk. Proper old fashioned local pub.

As it was a Clio, surprised you didn’t ask if their names were Papa and Nicole.

Surely any brand of asspresso will do.

Thanks for the recommendation Leigh, hope to see you again in May.
I’ve tweaked the route for this year which makes it almost entirely downhill.
Moses, the 2017 route is on my Wikiloc page, I’ll email you the link.
For members of Cyclinguk, formerly the CTC, the January magazine carries a trip report, available within the next week.

Rusty, it was a grand trip. It was advertised on Bearbones forum due to the nature of the route. I’ve had a few interested in this year, it works well as a group ride or as Dave Barter put it, a sort of 2 wheeled slinky with the group riding at their own pace and meeting up for cafe stops and at the end of the day. The photos were posted HERE
Looking like were starting on the 11th of May, there are flights back to Manchester on the 20th with Easyjet.

Was the headset new on the new build? If they have been loose for a while or on another bike, the balls in the bearing races can “slump” into bearing surfaces causing them to fall one way or the other when tightened. It’s difficult to diagnose but can cause the symptoms you are experiencing.

What about Spain in May? Weather usually good, riding fab. A group of us did this Spanish C2C[/url]Not my writing but I organised it. I am doing it again in May this year, you’d be welcome to join us. Riding wasn’t too technical but not suitable for a road bike.

Spain is quite a big place, we live in Cataluña, New Years Day we were walking in the snow in the Pyrenees, yesterday it was 20 degrees, today 11 and raining.
If you are talking about Southern Spain, Andalucia or the Costa del Sol, Easter can be the ideal time to visit, not too hot and humid.

End of a front fork?
Let me guess, I was just riding along.
Couple of wraps of duct tape should sort it, no need to go mad given the life expectancy of the rider.

Sorry to rain on your parade chilled, I was looking at the Tallboy and the pic shows 1×11 drivetrain but the description refers to 3×10 XT cranks vs Raceface on the pic. I’d be on the phone to check asap if it bothers you.

do not for the love of god do this!* check your rim first as they have handy max pressure settings, 40 psi plus on most modern tubeless rims, will have you covered in spaff, deaf and wondering why the surrounding area looks its been visited by a crack squad of bukake ninjas

*this is also the reason a lot of people say that tubeless systems are crap etc…. the lack of blokes reading instructions is amazing

The lack of blokes reading the original post is also alarming, the OP stated they are using a Shimano MT68 rim which has a max pressure of 58psi and a Smorgasbord tyre which can go up to 65psi. I’m not advocating keeping the pressure at 40+ but have found this method works on non UST tyres.

Some tyres that are not specifically tubeless ready need a bit more work. I’ve found Smorgasbords a bit variable but if you put plenty of fluid in, pump them up to 40+psi then do the panning for gold trick, the fluid is forced into any capilliary leaks in the sidewall. It’s usually the porosity of the sidewall that causes slow depressurisation, assuming there are no leaks around the valve and the tape is on correctly.

I think if I gave details I’d be giving too much away

I don’t take the pictures though,

Are you a nipple fluffer? Not sure if thats a job, may be something I’ve dreamt 8O

There are dozens of olive varieties, we farm arbequina olives which are relatively small and sharp tasting. They are much loved around Cataluña but I find them too bitter. They do however make a nice peppery oil which is what ours are processed into. Prices are good this year as they are in short supply due to the dry spring. Our local supermarket sells olives in anchovy oil which are lovely.

There may not be much of it but at least the quality of daylight is better, we’ve been in the UK for 2 days now and not seen the slightest hint of sunshine. Ticking off the hours until we’re back on the ferry.
Hope the New Year brings your plans to fruition.

Mattoab, I do have a Spanish bank account which we use day to day but given our pension payments are in Sterling, we have them paid into a UK bank then periodically transfer to Spain.
The bank has our Spanish address and has this year sent stuff to this address, getting it sent to a UK address would be far too messy and wouldn’t really solve the problem short term.

someone needs to check what the hell was going on with the 35 year Contador in the Vuelta this year

It occurred to me that the Vuelta this year was Bertie’s equivalent of a footballer’s benefit match from a dope testing point of view. He stayed just off the daily podium apart from the last competitive day on the Angrilu, thus avoiding having to take a test immediately after the stage. His overall result was also under the radar although he did make it onto the podium in Madrid due to a team combativity award or some such nonsense. The air time and adoration he received for his performance totally eclipsed Froomes win, his interview on Spanish tv actually blocked out the winners podium presentations and speeches. I commented at the time that I was sure that the Angrilu sample that he gave will never see the light of day, provided he retires and stays that way.

Now they know where you live. Not sure if that’s a good thing. Maybe worth letting the Christmas rush die down and try again if you want to actually come face to face with your local agent, assuming they actually exist.

Apropos of nothing, 2 days after this test Chris Froome had his end of stage medical test done in our camper van. Not sure the dehydration reason holds water (sic) as the riders have unlimited water available to drink prior to the test, essentially to make them need a wee. I really hope nothing comes of this,I was in the vacinity of him for quite a while at the time and he really seemed to have a bad cough following the wet weather during the last week of the Vuelta.

Rohloff disc hubs only have 4 bolts. No problem unless it’s a front brake then of course you’ll die.

I’d have thought that the purpose of a record shop is to stock hits and misses. :-)

Good idea but the joke is that he lives on the moon, or alternatively in a box in Hermes’ returns dept.

This reinvestment of compo scheme definitely has legs. It could turn into a crypto currency, maybe called Shitcoin?

Off to Gran Canaria next month, Freemotion were recommended on here for bike hire and have bases in most of the resorts. They do road and mountainbike hire and guiding for both. We’re road riding for 3 days.

While he’s checking the contract, I’d suggest he reads the bit about residual value and given that he’s got an Alfa, probably get him a piggy bank for Christmas.

Guess they’ll have a nationwide festival of traditional Lapp dancing.

Poolman, yes I think it is 5 years for permanent residency and 10 if you want to apply for citizenship. We got health insurance via the bank, a provider called Adeslas but it’s €150 a month for the 2 of us. The Capsalut system is better and allows you to go to local GPs rather than pitching up at the hospital with non urgent stuff. If you have been working officially for more than 3 months and pay autonomo, you can apply for yourself and spouse to receive this benefit. MrsPB is working at a local language school with school kids to improve their English as they need a good standard to apply for University. She is Tefl qualified and was a teacher in the UK for 30 years so it’s right up her calle.

We’ve lived in Cataluña for 2 and a bit years, the leave vote happened 10 months after we arrived. We immediately applied for Residencia but our status cannot move beyond this for several years. Being “retired” but under the actual retirement age here, we had to take out private medical cover. Mrs PB has now got a part time job teaching English and pays tax and autonomo so once she has 3 months of contributions, we can drop the private cover and go onto the public healthcare Capsalut. The biggest changes we’re facing are the 30+% depreciation in Sterling and the possible independance of Cataluña but the lifestyle and weather outweigh these inconveniences. Can’t envisage returning to live in the UK anytime soon.

Why is Froome less likely to win the Giro followd by the tour compared to the tour followed by the vuelta as this year?

Conventional wisdom says that the Tour is in a different league regarding daily speed and that there is a threat of losing time every single day. Also all the top teams put their A teams into the tour so the depth of competition is greater. If the likes of Doumoulin & Quintana sit out the Giro, they will be fresher. Very few serious GC riders would chose to sit out the Tour to be fresher for the Vuelta.
This year’s Vuelta bucked the trend of the past as every day seemed to be flat out on very steep roads that could and did cost major time losses, the Tour, however, was a bit of a snooze fest.

It’s a calender based thing here in S Cataluña, on the 1st of October the winter coats come out together with hats, long trousers, gloves,scarves. Cyclists wear windproof jackets, bib longs and face masks or buffs pulled up to guard against the threat of certain pneumonia caused by breathing in air at a temperature below 20° As the actual temperature here didn’t drop below 20 until early Nov, we continued to wear shorts and t shirts, much to the dismay of anyone that saw us.

Do you work in fr0sty’s office?

The Garmin Edge Touring does round trip routing and can be recharged on the go, it’s a third of the price of the 1000. The setup I have which allows you to ride indefinitely without the need for mains topups is as follows. Shimano or similar hub dynamo as long as it generates 3W, wired to a Kemo switch/rectifier unit (available from Maplins for not much) then via a smallish power bank which allows pass through charging to the gps usb port. Using this setup I also power a Revo dynamo light so can switch from charging the power bank to a direct feed to the light for night riding or tunnels. Beware though, the Touring’s usb port is notoriously flimsy so use tlc, there are relatively few power banks that do pass through, read the spec carefully. Brands such as Porta Pow, Anker and the Maplin Juice Cube do on certain models. Theres much more chat about this on Bearbones forum.

We saw the low temp warning light in the car for the first time yesterday. Once the sun was out it climbed to 15° and was clear as a bell. Last week we walked up the more modest 1,000m mountain which is the highest point of the range in front of our house. It was nice to go straight from the house, a round trip of 20km.
On your recommendation Tony, we are going to do B&B next year, we’ve applied for a tourist licence and should find out next week. We’re picking up a couple of smaller sized bikes when we are back in the UK at Christmas so will be able to offer hire of a full range of decent road or mountainbikes. I will also be doing guiding, both for our visitors and a local Casa Rural which has been a yoga retreat for the last 15 years. Yoga holiday co link.
Hope the building work goes well.

Added the link, sorry. The detailled spec is correct, just feels wrong to advertise it as Ultegra with only 3 components that are 6800.They call it an Ultegra mix :lol: