I’m lucky enough that I can get to Carnaby St in about 35 minutes, and nerdy enough that this Speedy collab makes me excited, so I’m going to get up early to try and nab a Mercury model on Saturday.

I’ve read they’re not a ‘limited’ run, in that they will produce more – but it’ll be a bit like the silver snoopy models, 3 months of production and now rare as hens teeth.

Who knows, but I can’t see them being a general Swatch SKU forever.

I really enjoy some of the details, they’ve clearly had a lot of fun designing these. The ultraman hands, the Project Alaska subdial hands, the saturn rings. Lots of lovely little flairs.

Hmm, a plastic, cheap quartz speedy doesn’t do it for me. I feel like maybe I’ve lost touch with ‘fun’, but I’m just not excited by it. Maybe if it doesn’t feel light, cheap and, well, plastic…. But I suspect it will.

FWIW, it’s ‘bioceramic’ which is 2/3rs ceramic from memory, and 1/3rd plastic. So it’s a bit more special than a literal plastic watch. But equally – it’s £200 for a dot over 90 bezel. If that doesn’t make you excited then it’s understandable it’s not the watch for you haha

Other option is to put that extra a month aside into premium bonds* and enjoy whatever interest you manage to accumulate. Never know, might win the £10k prize. Most likely a few £25s here and there, but better than sitting around in the bank.

*or other investment vehicle, premium bonds value won’t ever go down though so good if you 100% need the money at a certain point.

I’ve worn my Explorer 1 almost every day since I’ve bought it. My Speedmaster gets a bit more action in the last 6 months but overwhelmingly my daily watch is the Explorer.

It’s definitely picked up its fair share of scratches. Not dings/dents, yet. The polished bezel is an absolute scratch magnet, but once you’ve got a few on there you get over it and it looks fine.

The clasp is fairly battered from laptop working and desks and stuff I guess. I’ve never noticeable bashed it, but theres a few deep scratches there. Same with the bracelet itself, plenty of wear there.

I really don’t mind though, the brushed design hides wear very well, and watches like this are meant to be worn. No safe queens here!

Thanks neilnevill, cb200 – I’ll have to find out what they accept. I’ll do that today.

Good tip going into the AD. A tenner is about what I’d expect to pay! I’ve seen some places quoting £60 per item or even some asking for a percentage of the items worth!

Has anyone got any experience getting valuations for their watches for insurance purposes?

Despite being insured for many years, my insurers are now asking for a valuation within 30 days. Nothing I enjoy more than being assigned work.

They make a good point, I love the current gen speedmasters and the details they have in the watches, but it is a massive shame they’re now over £5k. The £3k pricepoint was perfect for your first luxury ‘heavy hitter’ watch with ultimate bang for buck.

Unsure thats as true at £5,000. Lots out there for that money.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Tidal are slightly EQing their tracks as more bass = better quality to the layman, and their whole angle is “highest quality listening” or something, right.

Seems its confirmed here (or, at least confirmation you’re not alone thinking they bass boost):

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1075816-why-does-tidal-sound-worse-than-flac-testing-to-see-if-they-add-dsp/

Also, a lot of people have often accused tidal of “bass boosting” or adding DSP to their music to create a false illusion of increased clarity.

Something about TIDAL’s “Exclusive Mode” implementation causes audio to be altered. This would explain why a lot of people accuse TIDAL of adding DSP to their music. They aren’t, their player is just awful and alters the music because its bad.

“Shower of shenanigans” is very good

Reminder: This person is paid (by you!) to be the leader of this country. Leaders lead by example. It is their literal job to be squeaky clean.

You should be angry!

If you live in a high car crime area, and the car really is that attractive to thieves – then your only real defence is to put it in a garage so they don’t know where it’s kept.

If they want the car, they’ll break your windows at night and nick the keys. Keep them out of sight of any windows, but in sight downstairs – so they don’t come upstairs whilst you’re asleep looking for the keys.

If its a modern car that is a hot target then one of two things happen:

1: It’ll be joy ridden to death over the next few days until Police pick them up or its found in a ditch, in which case you won’t want it back anyway.

2: It’ll be chopped up for parts and shipped out of the country in a number of days. You’ll have the tracking to where it was taken apart, but the car will no longer exist.

If it’s a vintage car, whilst it may be stolen to order, you’re a bit better protected just by the nature of it being an older car oddly enough.

Older cars stick out more, and are harder to shift. Criminals tend to ‘specialise’ in in-demand models only (Range Rovers, Audi RS4, Golf R, etc). Best bet is to park it behind another car and with a steering lock on. Get a cover for it also.

If it’s a vintage car that’s worth a significant sum, either garage it if you own a garage or rent a garage. There are specialist secure car storage services you can look into, also.

Trackers don’t offer a deterrent, and often don’t stop the end fate of the vehicle that’s been stolen. Recently a friend had their Audi nicked – the thieves ripped apart the entire interior to find the tracker he had fitted. They couldn’t find it and abandoned the car, but at this point there was not a single bit of trim left inside the vehicle including the seats – they had done so much damage it was written off.

Sad reality :(

For straps, if you want to spend the money, Bulang & Sons sell straps made by a fella called ‘JPM’ – he sells straps at a few places (Hodinkee, etc) – theyre expensive for what they are, but I own two and the leathers they use are second to none. I think a few other places in the UK stock JPM also.

—

Here’s another one on the theme of Speedmasters and aftermarket things.

I recently picked up a 1450 ‘Presidential’ Homage by Forstner:
Forstner President (1450) Bracelet for Omega Speedmaster

Read about the 1450 bracelet here (and be prepared to go down a rabbit hole of Speedmaster nerdyness:

Omega Speedmaster 376.0822 – The Holy Grail

Some pics of mine:

I’ve absolutely fallen in love with this bracelet, it’s incredibly comfortable and drapes perfectly over the wrist. It gives the Speedmaster a more of a utilitarian feel – one of the issues I always had with the 1861 Speedy was the bracelet, with the polished sections. Putting it on this bracelet has made me fall back in love with the Speedy on a bracelet.

The interesting thing about this bracelet is that it is entirely authentic to the original construction. It comes with solid links, but a pressed buckle. This means it’s incredibly lightweight compared to a modern bracelet, which was jarring at first, but i’ve come to appreciate now I’ve worn it a bit more.

One day I think I’ll try and get one of the current gen speedys, they come with a bracelet which pays homage itself to the 1450 presidential.

But for now, the Speedy is once again fighting the Explorer for wrist time!

Hey – sorry I totally forgot I made this thread!

Thats Kryton, I’d love to see those GPX! Or even catch up for a ride in October if its not too boggy by then (appreciate how unrideable it gets there very quickly.)

Good tip re: North & South. I think I need to explore North a bit more, or take random tracks a bit more around the High Beech area. I tend to blast down from there and lose all the elevation really quickly.

Also good tip re: Thorndon and Danbury, well up for checking those places out!

Having bought the cheapest tyres going possible at one point in my life, and at another been able to buy sport-y/expensive tyres – I can absolutely say with 100% conviction that tyres are a ‘get what you pay for’ deal through and through. In terms of performance, wear, quality, etc etc etc

Real sorry to hear your son got caught up in a scam. They’re absolutely rife right now.

Just to clear up as I saw some people under the impression it’s hard to buy bitcoin – it’s very simple to buy bitcoin these days. Even simpler to send it to someone. You can do it in a matter of about 6/7 taps on the Coinbase app. You just pay via debit card, all from your phone just like buying something from Amazon.

The Bitcoin in the scam makes it hard to recover and trace your money – your ££ goes to the exchange, who aren’t part of the scam. They’ve just exchanged your £ for BTC. Then they send your BTC to whomever you tell them too.

Your best bet, as said a few times already, is to report to your bank and ActionFraud.

Skip back a few pages and you’ll get your wish.

Blimey I had a look but couldnt find it – assumed it died – didn’t realise it was back on page 8!

To those asking whether that video is now gospel… ironically Ethan Winer is seen as a bit of a god within audio engineering circles :D (He’s done a lot of work on audio myths and bringing science into audio)

Did anyone watch Ethan Winers experiments? Would love to know your thoughts on his experiment strategy and his conclusions…!

Here is Ethan Winer on speaker cable. Conclusion at 28:17 for the lazy.

If you don’t know who Ethan Winer is, he’s quite well known in audio production/mastering/recording/hifi world. He does a lot of talks around ‘audio myths’ and such like.

Love my Raceface Chesters. They’ve taken a fair beating on some granite up in the Highlands recently too and they’re still good as new.

It’s absolutely not possible – no – so you’re missing some data points to draw your conclusion.

If the skinny guy was consistently eating shitloads he would gain weight. What does this suggest? Probably that he wasn’t consistently eating shitloads. Maybe when he’s at home he forgets to eat (you’d be surprised how many skinny people forget meals because they don’t feel hungry). Maybe he only cooks basic food for himself? Unless you’re with him 24hrs a day you cannot know his entire diet.

Anecdotally, I lived with a super skinny dude for a few years and his diet was hilarious. I once saw him cook 75g of rice with a side of chips for his dinner. For a grand total of, what – 350 cals? For his main evening meal.

If the overweight person was only eating consistently a small amount of food but wasn’t losing weight then what does that suggest? It suggests that that person was eating more than you were seeing. Especially if you’re actually clinically overweight, eating at a deficit will cause you to drop weight quite rapidly. Again – there are studies that have concluded people vastly under estimate the amount they eat or vastly overestimate the impact of exercise on their energy expenditure:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1454084/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21178922/

Again, unless you’re with this person 24 hours a day there is no way you can know how much they are eating a day. (You’ve also not told us about that persons height or habits. Are they short? Do they sit at home all day? It’s amazing how if you are a shorter person who is sedentary how largely the chips are stacked against you.)

EDIT: Occam’s Razor applies massively here.

Dude what

https://www.dietdoctor.com/all-calories-are-not-created-equal

Change in total energy expenditure was 91 kcal/d (95% confidence interval −29 to 210) greater in participants assigned to the moderate carbohydrate diet and 209 kcal/d (91 to 326) greater in those assigned to the low carbohydrate diet compared with the high carbohydrate diet. In the per protocol analysis (n=120, P<0.001), the respective differences were 131 kcal/d (−6 to 267) and 278 kcal/d (144 to 411

Am I understanding this right – those one low carbs used more energy per day?

If so thats a fantastic way to accelerate your weight loss by increasing your TDEE through diet. But it still conforms to calories in > calories out.

It doesn’t say anything about how it impacts those on a high carb diet in relation to losing weight by eating at a deficit.

I enjoyed your post Molgrips – it was a nice read indeed. I still don’t understand how that escapes the concept of calories in vs calories out. It’s still limited and governed by the total amount of energy in the system – how much food you’re putting in.

If you’re eating at a proper deficit (200 cals or more) I’d be willing to bet the macronutrient content wouldn’t offset your ability to lose weight. If you were eating at maintenance I will agree that I could see how that would result in weight gain despite not eating at a surplus. But not at a proper deficit.

Can you explain why?

You gave a ridiculous example of eating 50 mars bars in a day.

So you’re talking about how much your body can absorb in a small timeframe. I would assume everyone knows here if you eat 50 mars bars, most of that will be a gigantic shit.

What we’re talking about is sustained calorie surplus or deficit over a long time. Your point is just a distracting strawman ‘gotcha!!’ that doesn’t add to the conversation.

That would be like if I said going to the dentist to get an xray is safe therefore radiation exposure must be totally fine. Totally different timeframes and contexts.

Sounds like he went through a few stages of grief in a very short time frame. Congratulations!

Why deny this?

Not denying there are difference between macronutrients. Don’t think I said that anywhere. What I’m saying is, in the concept of weight loss macronutrients play much less of a part that you’re suggesting – as backed up by this white paper:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15113737/

Evidence indicates, however, that the difference in energy expenditure is small and can potentially account for less than one-third of the differences in weight loss that have been reported between high-protein or low-carbohydrate diets and high-carbohydrate or low-fat diets. As such, a calorie is a calorie.

It’s like that chap who lost a tonne of weight eating nothing but McDonalds – shit loads of sugar, processed carbs, sat fats – but he lost weight. Why? Because he was eating at a deficit:

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-lose-weight-eating-only-mcdonalds-2015-10?r=US&IR=T

Claiming it’s all about thermodynamics is stupid. As said, diesel contains a lot of calories, but nothing we can use. Grass contains enough calories and protein to grow a cow in a year, however as humans we can’t get anything out of it.

Not sure I follow this argument – this would support the concept that calories are all you need to track. If there are some calories if food you cannot convert to energy – you don’t need to worry about them…! That’s an added brucey bonus that will accelerate your weight loss if you eat within a deficit.

Actually it’s not. It’s evidence that all calories are not processed the same way by the body.

Well really it’s evidence that the body only takes in a certain limit of anything before its excreted as waste. Which is really what’s going on here – not really much to do with the conversation we’re having. If you eat 50 mars bars most of that is ending up in the toilet. I don’t think anyone would argue that.

general advice is that your gut can only absorb about 70-90g of simple carbs per hour when racing. But it is possible to eat significantly more than that. So what happens to the rest?

No idea – I’d love to know (sincerely). I would assume it sits in your intestine to get absorbed over the following hours. 90g carbs is about 360 calories which isn’t anything wild.

There’s tons of research on this, go and read some before thinking this is a physics problem.

I mean – I’d love to read some research if you can share some. I do like to try and keep up with the current thinking – but I must admit the number of studies which support the below (whilst a few years old now) do tend to be numerous:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19246357/

Conclusions: Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1454084/

The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis.

And finally;

Is a calorie a calorie?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15113737/

Evidence indicates, however, that the difference in energy expenditure is small and can potentially account for less than one-third of the differences in weight loss that have been reported between high-protein or low-carbohydrate diets and high-carbohydrate or low-fat diets. As such, a calorie is a calorie.

If I eat 50 Mars bars today then tomorrow I’m going to be doing a highly calorific shit, not turning all 50 of those Mars bars into fat.

This is simply just disingenuous to the argument and you know it.

So you’re all telling me if you eat 200 calories of energy your body is going to store 250 calories of energy?

For the record, I’m not arguing the science described above. I’m arguing for the most part all you need to do is stick to the basics. Tracking your calorific intake is the simplest and most direct way to lose weight.

It’s not simple physics, not at all. It’s biology and it’s very complicate and still not fully understood by science.

It really is though if you think about it for 5 seconds.

Whilst you’re right on the biology side, ultimately it comes down to how much energy you’re putting in your body. Conservation of energy/law of thermodynamics init. The lead indicator as to whether you’ll gain or lose weight is the calories you consume. There is absolutely no way to escape that. There are variables once its inside your body, but your body isn’t creating extra energy from nothing.

everyone with even a slight calorie surplus (which is most people) would continue getting fatter and fatter all their lives til they died weighing hundreds of kilos. Likewise anyone with a slight deficit would eventually die emaciated. This clearly doesn’t happen.

I mean, this is exactly what happens. As you get fatter your TDEE rises to sustain your added weight even though you’re not any more or less active. You reach an equilibrium – you’re no longer eating ‘above’ your calories because your baseline to sustain your weight has risen also.

Likewise, when people stop eating, they very quickly end up in a dangerous state. This is seen most often in the ill or elderly.

In my experience, anyone who is convinced they don’t fit the physics of energy in = energy out is either vastly under estimating how much they eat or don’t understand that calories are not exact and they should lower their intake by 200 and try again.

I once saw someone cut off a 1cm x 3cm block of cheese and woof it down whilst claiming they were calorie counting – that’s 150cals right there that wasn’t recorded!

Don’t worry about counting calories. Calorie deficit diets do not work long term. Reducing carbohydrates/sugar is the best and safest way of losing weight for good.

Reducing carbs/sugars is an absolutely fantastic way to reduce lots of calories. The end result is the same – less carbs/sugars = less calories = eating at a calorie deficit.

Its physics end of the day. Energy (calories) in – energy used = deficit or surplus.

Deficit you lose weight
Surplus you gain weight.

That’s all there is to it! Simples.

Where people lose their way is not understanding calories are estimates and even calculating your your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is not an exact science. If you’re not losing weight, drop your daily calories by 200 and then see if you start to lose weight again. Continue until you’re at your goal!

Ha thats interesting. I saw ‘Loose Dog Lewis’ was running a small frame or something to make it more like a… well a smaller bike on jumps and stuff. I can see how that would make it feel more like a BMX/jump bike but comes with all the downsides on anything but jumps.

Your second point is also interesting – I wonder if Fox/RS set their recommended settings to make it ‘obvious’ that the shock is working to the new ride – so its super active and perhaps a bit softer so you blow through a lot of travel. I might try firming it up a bit.

Shock has a climb mode which could be interesting. Fork has a dial which I could stick halfway just to try. That basically is low speed compression right?

the 50:01 type riders thought it’s technique and skill as much as setup IMO.

Ah yeh totally, the way they just make those bikes flow is incredible.

I’ve not thought about fiddling with rebound actually. I kinda fired and forgot on that, maybe ill try making it a couple of clicks faster.

Thanks Appltn, it might take us a while to move to the area but I’ll certainly be in touch once we’re on the way! Would love to have a ride!

Oh and make sure you pronounce Beaconsfield correctly, it’s pronounced “Beconsfield”

Hilariously, a friend who lives in the area has already told me off and promptly corrected me on this one!

Theres even a small jump park.

Yes, i’ve seen this on Google Maps I think – glad to hear there is good stuff nearby. Now I just gotta find a house I can afford…!

That sucks – I’ve walked around Wendover Woods a few times and had spotted that park on Google maps. Never ridden it though. Certainly is hilly around that way though!

Awesome, thanks all.

Re: Beaconsfield itself, we are moving for the quick train commute back into London now we’re after a bit more space for our money. The houses are eyewatering indeed, but there are a few we’ve seen in our price range that we would be more than happy with. The area itself seems lovely.

I’ve ridden Swinley a number of times and thats down the road also, so yeh – more than happy to hop in the car for a 30/40 min drive to Swinley in the winter. It’s a shame to hear there potentially isn’t much around Beaconsfield itself but reassuring to hear there is lots nearby.

I’ll look up Christmas Common! Sounds fun. I guess I’m looking for a bit more trail/gnar than bridleways but not expecting/looking for Lake District descents either. Just some technical climbs and descents rather than hooning around bridleways.

Thanks Andos, Tonyd – i’ll check those areas and links!

Are you kidding..?

No, my name is Chris.

Anyway – yes i’m aware there is good riding in the Chilterns – but like, where ya know? I’ve put in my hours chasing random deer tracks looking for trails over the years and these days I’m hoping someone else can do the work for me and point me in the direction of some good riding!