We live in Southern Cataluña close to where the river Ebro runs out into the Mediterranean forming a large delta, earlier in the year we did a 50km ride which was nearly all off road on gravel tracks and the beach and my Garmin recorded an elevation gain of 33m, we had started at the bottom of some steps and finished at the top which accounted for nearly half the climbing! Don’t do strava so cannot post up route, sorry.

@mickmcd
Andy has retired and passed the tenancy on to Sam (fem) who used to do the Sunday lunches there. We were back briefly in Sept and things seem to be running as usual. Everyone there is very welcoming and a high proportion are into outdoorsy stuff. It must be getting close to Belgian Blue season which is a Bradfield beer, not what you were assuming.

Get yourself along to the Huntsman in Thurlstone, there’s always someone in there who rides or runs. I used to live in Millhouse but moved to Spain a year ago. I used to organise rides with Andy who was the landlord up until about a month ago. There’s a regular called Scott who is a keen rider and also came to Penistone from Wales although he’s from Glasgow. Good pint there as well. Tell them Duncan sent you!

Kamal Ahmed and Robert Peston, WHY and HOW

Just after the last ice age, my first job was selling BMW cars. This was in the days when they were a semi niche brand and kept on a tight allocation to minimise discounting. Even the radios were optional extras. I sold a mid range model at full price to a chap who owned a string of Chinese restaurants but spoke no English. Come the day of delivery, he rolled up carrying a Tesco carrier bag full of dog eared cash, clearly not declared to HMRC. Can’t quite remember how but he managed to leave the showroom in his new car before we had finished counting the money, it was about £20k. We added it up and he had overpaid by about £500. Being honest car dealers, we rang him once he had got home to explain the discrepancy. He was very apologetic and 20 minutes later appeared with another £500 to make up the shortfall, oh how we laughed.

As we live “off grid” we are currently speccing out a solar setup which will fulfill our demand throughout the year. Currently we have to run generators in the winter as the daylight hours and sunshine are insufficient. The consensus is that we need about 1500w of supply from 6 panels, a 24 volt storage system made up of 12 batteries each holding about 950mAh of juice and a 3000w rated inverter to turn this into 240V AC.
We’re told this will satisfy our demand, the greatest user of electricity being the washing machine, unless the weather is dull for 3-4 days consecutively.
Big difference to other calculations is that we live in S Cataluña where it’s sunny most of the time.

He’s been on 2 consecutive programmes tonight, getting work before the Brexiteers deport him.

A few years ago a mate and I decided to do a motorbike trip to the North Cape for no better reason than we were both owners of Aprilia Caponord bikes. Itinerary was meticulously planned as was the route, my mate was very excited about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights as we would be well beyond the Artic Circle, I explained that due to us travelling at the end of May, when we got that far north it wouldn’t actually be dark at that time of year. Bless.

What’s always bothered me about GK reviews is what quantity of flies and cowshit he must have swallowed over the years as his gob is constantly wide open. Did a mag shoot with him about 15 years ago (remember Maximum Mountainbike?) he was riding a Cannondale which had come out of the delivery box that morning, we got to a slippy off camber slate downhill and he came past me on foot having pulled the wrong brake and gone otb. It was set up US spec. AFAIK he lives about 10 miles from the SC importer Jungle, you do the maths.

Just had another guy come to talk about solar, even more confused now! You have to tread on eggshells so as not to appear either an easy touch or a know it all. All we want is a like for like quote but everyone has a different opinion as to what we need???
Forgot to say when you were talking about cars and tow bars, if the trailer is braked or carries over a certain weight, it will need to be “matriculated”
The 6 month thing on driving abroad seems very poorly policed, we have only just taken our camper van back to the UK to sell, we’ve been here just over a year. We know several people who have been driving UK registered cars here for years, they just take them back for MOT when it’s due.
Hope to see you soon.

A few ups and downs here in Southern Cataluña. We have finished harvesting the almonds, mainly because the crop was very poor due to the very dry summer. Bizarrely only the trees that we didn’t get round to pruning bore fruit and getting the nuts involved scrabbling around in the tops with a net underneath to catch them as they fell. Normally it’s just a matter of picking them a shoulder height. We have to use our high tech machine to remove the shell, this is a process called shucking and you feed them into a hopper then a revolving paddle hits the shell until the nut falls out. This halves the weight that is saleable but at least the shells make good kindling for the fire.
We have had a new wood burner fitted to replace the totally inadequate one we inherited. Hopefully this will give us the output we need in the 2-3months when it’s chilly here.
Unfortunately our solar power setup has chosen to fall over just as we get into the shorter days, one of the battery calls has failed and we cannot just stick another one into the line as they are connected in series and need to be balanced. We have decided to bite the bullet and get an improved system which will more than double our storage capacity and with the price of solar panels very low at the moment, we are looking at double the output there as well.
We’ve asked local suppliers to quote but each has their own view on what will work so it’s taking a bit of sorting out.
The problem with this is that we will need to transfer a chunk of money into Euros and the exchange rate is killing us. We paid for the house just over a year ago with the rate at 1.43 and now it’s rapidly moving towards parity.
At least the sun is shining today and there’s a public holiday tomorrow. Rally Cataluña comes past here on Friday so will be off there on the bike.
Still planning to have a trip up north to see you Spekkie but need to get our power requirements sorted first

Life’s a bitch, then you die.

Hi Spekkie, sorry to hear of your travails. We’re briefly back in the UK as we needed to get an mot on our VW camper and are leaving it here to sell. We stopped off in the Pyrenees last weekend as Mrs PB had entered a trail race in Rialp. She was talked into doing the 54km event which involved a 20km uphill to 2800m then up and down a ridge above the ski station of Espot. It was brutal and she came in just inside the 15 hour time limit. I managed to get to the 30km feed station and it was very cold and snowing on the tops. We fly back on Sunday and will be getting stuck into installing a log burner to replace the largely decorative one that had us shivering in Jan and Feb. We also need to upgrade our solar power capacity as the current setup is inadequate for the shorter sunlight hours in the winter. We have had a similar experience of having to get our faces known in our village in order to find reputable tradesmen. Once we are sorted with the heat and power upgrades, it would be nice to pop up and say hello.

The wind turbines were done by witch mag a while ago and wernt worth the outlay.

Probably a biased report as they interfered with their broomsticks.
I’m here all week.

Quite a lot of info imo. What make and model of gps are you using and what for I.e travelling about by car or biking off road. My guess is that the base mapping is the uk specific and reverts to sfa when off map. I blame brexit.

Get practicing and perhaps get your mates together and book a private group with Jedi at UK Bileskills ?

Surely there are many better exponents of this on STW?

Might be worth contacting a guy who posts as spekkie who, I think, is setting up a b&b near Ainsa in the Spanish Pyrenees. The zona zero trails here are good for the type of riding you are after.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England’s got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide…

Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician Sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law
Rock and Roller Cola wars, I can’t take it anymore

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on and on
And on and on and on and on…

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Apparently you can contact them via your smart phone and they will bring you some pads in an unlicensed minicab within 15 minutes.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, the round trip routing is usable “on the fly” you simply input the distance you want to ride and it offers you a number of options. I only recommended using wikiloc in tandem as it gives more route info so you know what To expect, especially off road.

I also have a Garmin Edge Touring, 1 of its features called round trip routing which allows you to input a desired length of route and it gives you recommendations starting from where you are or from another location. As always with garmin, the base mapping it comes with is rubbish but you can buy/download local mapping on micro SD cards. I had a similar situation when moving to Spain, I found that wikiloc gives you much more information on difficulty and type of routes, especially off road and it is dead easy to download routes to the gps.

Mid 90’s and I’m out on the mountain bike, lovely day in the woods near Machynlleth. Came down a track in a place called Artist’s Valley and had to get off to negotiate a couple of gates in a farm yard. Chap sat in a garden by the trail, had a chat about the weather, where I’d come from, where I was going etc. I’m thought the bloke looked a bit “lived in” even for a farmer with black long curly hair. Few weeks later I’m watching a rockumentary, seems I’d been chatting to Jimmy Page. Led Zep recorded a lot of their work at a farm near Mach and Robert Plant has/ had a house there.

Just after the last ice age I was on a school exchange trip to Heidelburg. Travel was by train which had individual compartments of 8 seats. Our host families had kindly made food for the return journey and we had naturally obtained the very exotic supply of fire crackers. As we pulled into Cologne station, I pushed a banger into a hard boiled egg, lit it and lobbed it out of the window, it landed on the counter of a paper kiosk on the platform, the image of the ensuing mess has stayed with me for the 40 years since.

I started a thread about the new FSA chainsets which are available with a 30/46 setup. Currently OEM on Willier cross bikes but hopefully soon to be available. Check my history as I’m too crap to post a link. Definitely hollow tech type but you may need an adapted for BB91.

One issue with Apple which I’m not sure has been discussed recently boiled my piss. Ive got an 80Mb Ipod classic whose sound gizmo has failed, OK so stuff breaks, it’s about 6 years old, I’ll get a new Touch. I’ve several radios and CD/Radio combos which have docking stations for said classic. New Touch is useless when connecting to these unless you buy their £25 connector which makes the IPod wobble about and looks as though it will break at any time, alternatively pay £35 for a wired one and have the IPod laid down on the radio which is also a bit crap. Any suggestions on this one?

Here daan saarf, its the beach festival of our local village where everyone decamps to the seaside which is about 10km away. Today was the children’s day which involved planting bouncy castles/slides half in the sea and letting the kids run riot. My wife was volunteering and was having kittens that the electrically powered fans which kept the things inflated were also half in the sea!! Luckily no-one was drowned or electrocuted. Tomorrow is dancing, starting at about midnight and Sunday there’s live music and a picnic for the grown-ups, unfortunately no bouncy castles. I’ll keep an eye out for the meteors, it’s been very clear the last few nights.

Can’t beat knee protectors and no gloves, guess you’re aiming for him to be a pro footballer not a concert pianist then :-)

On a brake related theme, I hope that those with Shimano Saint or Hope brakes are taking full advantage of their pad offer. Sintered for £2.99 a pair or 4 pairs for £19.99 thinking of moving to Hope on the strength of it :D

We’re they in separate bags? If so the picker has taken 2 rears out of the item location so you need to feel sorry for the next buyer who will get 2 fronts with hoses too short which is not fixable easily. I’m always nervous about buying anything with a stock level under 10 as they will either not have it or the remaining stock will have been robbed to fix another issue. It’s normal to shorten either front or rear hoses but not sending olives is a bit crap.

Can I advise against walking into a London pub and asking where you can get a good nosh, might not end well with the family in tow. :oops:

@pleader, yes it’s definitely a 30/46 as this is stamped on the outer chainring of the Jareen if you enlarge the photo. The 80mm BCD will entail special rings when they wear out which may be an issue but afaik 34 teeth is the minimum currently possible with current compact chainsets.
Given its a willier crosser should be electric motor compatible as well 8)

AFAIK Summit and CYB shop are owned by the same people, Joe Hayward and Tegid Humphreys, they also were part owners of the Holey Trail in Mach before it closed. Ignore me if this is way out of date but certainly used to be the case. I’d go to whichever was most convenient to your route, or phone first. There’s also a shop a bit further south of Aber called Cyclemart in Cilcennin, takes some finding though, assuming it’s still trading. There’s a decent shop in Rhayader, just down the road to the Élan Valley, should stock this type of kit. Also try the shop in Builth wells as you’ll be passing through, used to be owned by John Lloyd.

Hi Tony, we were in the UK last week so missed your post. Finally completed the sale of our house so had to go back to clear out a few bits and pieces and sign the contract. Got the final word whilst crossing into Spain at Vielha. So we’re now exclusively resident in Cataluña hooray!!
We’ve got a few visitors in August and Mrs PB has a 50km trail race in Rialp, middle of Sept. Thinking we might have a trip up to Ainsa at the end of Sept when it’s a bit cooler. There’s so much to fit in,some house renovations can start now we’ve got the cash from our house. The almond crop seems poor this year, apparently it goes in a 3 year cycle, last year was good. Hope your project is progressing well and the balls up with the Brexit and exchange rate hasn’t caused too many issues. Needless to say we won’t be turning the proceeds from our sale into euros anytime soon.

Hi Spekkie, mrs PB and I are going to the TDF tomorrow,riding up from Sort, if you’re about it’d be good to meet. I’ll be on a Litespeed road bike and she’ll be on her Focus. Probably dressed in Penya Ciclista Ribera D’Ebre kit.

[/quote]Plus there are some rocky trails on the route in pockets. Especially before Cuba

Bloody hell I knew it was a long race but hadn’t realised you had to cross the Caribbean 8O

Cheers all, used GPSies and it transferred fine, only issue now is the 620km off road with 13,000m climbing. :D Oh and there was snow at 2600m a couple of weeks ago.

Forecast says rain at the end of next week, just in time for my 400mile trip down the length of cataluña. Plenty of time for it to change though.

If they don’t let you back in can I have your house in Guaso? It’s been pretty hot here c:30 degrees for the last 2 weeks, could do with a bolt hole in the hills to cool down a bit. 8)

Just picked up the July edition of Bikes World, bargain at €1.95, and it includes a trail guide to a route starting in Ainsa which goes through your village. Hope you can cope with the crowds :-) I buy it as a way of improving my Spanish and building up a library of trails.

You’ll be lucky to get as far as jumps before the freehub gives up. Then try getting spares, the idiots at OO will not know which one fits and deny that they ever break.

Hi Tony, yes it’s TGM, also you might think about putting an apostrophe between the a and s in Andrea as it might seem to us pedants that you bat for the other side, and with a German to boot :-)