Good point, yes have got a drive, would get a box installed if we went EV, no garage.

It’s a lease – also its manual so it’s going to have to go anyway. Looking at the market prices for 21 plate Kugas I doubt we’d have been able to afford the balloon payment, it was a very good lease deal.

I’d avoid it if I could. I know Cannock Chase isn’t exactly the Peaks but I can get off road in 3 minutes and other than a few crossings I could be off road for hours without touching tarmac. When we last moved we looked at Stafford but would have meant driving to the trails, or a less pleasant road ride. Luckily a house cam up a couple of streets down from our old one that was a 1 minute ride from the chase.

I suppose I’m an extreme example where I’d rather not even have to ride a significant distance let alone drive, if I lived 20 miles away from any good off road I’m not sure I’d even bother.

I was with o2 for about 5 months and had the exact issue you describe. Make sure you complain and give them an opportunity to fix it, I had a couple of sim changes but ultimately I used Resolver (I think it’s called) which drafted me an official complaint letter and they let me out of my contract with no penalties.

Wouldn’t ever go with o2 again, it was absolutely appalling, they kept blaming it on congestion when I was at work in Birmingham city centre, and being too rural when I was at home. Literally the only place the internet worked as expected was on a farm just outside Stafford.

I need to try a nargis kebab, I’d heard of them but had no idea what they were until now.

On the original subject my local curry house when before I left home always had boiled egg with biryanis, lovely, don’t seem to have them anywhere any more though.

Sutton has good and bad bits, it’s typical suburbs in that the rough bits can be very rough. Transport into Birmingham is easy quite far out. I live in Hednesford about 45 mins on the train from new st houses are cheap and Cannock chase is in our back garden.

Depends what you’re after really, south Birmingham is more expensive and nicer, £800 would get you a 3 bed house to rent round here, Peak District is 40 mins in the other direction, train is £80odd quid a month for unlimited use, less than £12 a day return.

I had the same one as drlex but the mrs didn’t like it so we went back to our previous mellita look therm which we’ve had for a few years and bought a new jug for it. 

inthink the ideal thing is a decent machine sage is great but spends melitta is cheaper and still decent and get a separate grinder. 

filrer coffee has more caffeine in that espresso though IIRC so you might be better with an aeropress which is very easy to use.

You’ll do 5k easy, but you’ll feel it the day after.

I’d be inclined to do a couch to 5k just to get your legs used to the change in how the muscles and tendons work.

I rushed into it and caused my feet and knees no end of grief.

I just use an old ipad air 2 that I got at the start of lockdown. It cost a couple of hundred quid back then, but its worth buttons now. 

Could probably get better graphics on something else, but it’s all I’ve known and is fine for me. Side bonus is I’ve got an ipad that I can watch youtube videos on while strictly is on. 

As others have said on road – nah been there done that, got the scars.

Off road absolutely, it’s like the summer but with added hurting hands. I do make some adjustments though, would try and avoid lots of rocks/rock gardens, and dont push it too hard because I ride alone and don’t want to risk crashing and being stuck somewhere in the cold.

If you want the smartwatch features and are an iphone user applewatch is the only way to go. But if you want the same data that you get from Garmin or whoop you also need to pay for Athlytic (sp?) which is another couple of quid a month subscription.

You do get used to charging it, luckily it doesn’t take long so I used to charge mine once I’d got up and before I set off for work.

I miss the smart watch features but to me the improved data, better battery and rugged built means I’m kind of stuck (happily) with Garmin. I’ve got a fenix 6 pro at the moment bout would like a 965 for a bit of lighter weight.

No doubt at somepoint I’ll get another apple watch though, I always do, probably will have a look around black friday and get a used 7 or 8. to play with.

Iirc vitus was wiggle’s house brand and as a result mostly road focused, NP was crc and mostly mtb. (part of me thinks that’s wrong and wiggle’s brand vanished but I can’t think what it was called if it did)
Vitus was bought by Chris and Frank from CRC, and was a CRC house brand.

Verenti was the wiggle equivalent, I had a Rhigos, it was good. I think Vitus having an actual history meant they shoved all of the ‘cheaper’ own brand stuff under that banner.

I’ve got some of these (with a different brand on them but they’re the same) I’ve played the drums since I was 9 (40 now so ears have taken a battering) and have some mild tinnitus, luckily was smart enough to start wearing plugs while playing in my early late teens so could be much worse. Didn’t start wearing plugs at gigs until I was in my 30s but always do now.

The above ones I bought for riding my motorbike but there were 2 full pairs in the box so I wear one on my bike and one at gigs. They’re super comfy and I can happily wear them for a few hours no bother at all

I’ve used Jefit for years, it’s really good for doing lots of different types of workouts. Not much in the way of guidance, but a useful tool to input a program you’ve taken from elsewhere.

Stronglifts if you’re just doing 5×5 is fine

I’ve used both in the past, but Jefit is my go to

I was going to say as a beginner either will be fine so go for the cheapest. But, of those two I think I’d go Roland, sounds will be better, and most important of all it will have some resale value when she either gets bored, or gets into it and wants to upgrade. 

An extra £20 will get you headphones and a throne that will do too as a kit, I’d go for that one for £309. 

5labFull Member
if the owner hasn’t been demonstratably negligent then they’re only on the hook for their own car. everyone else claims off their own insurance. 3rd party coverage doesn’t cover “everything caused by your car” it just covers “things you negligently did in your car”, so if your car is burned by a “random” fire event in the car next door (which is possible, I’ve had a car do it), their insurance isn’t covering jack.

This is correct, every man for themselves insurance wise, unless they can prove that the owner of the vehicle that caught fire was negligent, which is very unlikely, on account of everything having been on fire. This is a common misunderstanding even within the insurance industry, just because the fire started somewhere else, doesn’t mean that someone else will pay your claim.

Ours is a right tool, he was super matey with my old next door neighbour though weirdly, used to hear them chatting before he banged on our door, didn’t return a greeting, didn’t look up from his phone. Probably the grumpiest rudest delivery driver I’ve ever dealt with.

He was off for a bit, and the stand in was lovely, no idea why some people are arseholes at work, but you get them in all industries, less often these days that 15 years ago though it seems. Maybe I’m just grumpier.

I doubt it, took me an hour and a half to get through, left a few details and get texted a reference number. I suspect that will pretty much be the end of it.

Bloody scrotes nicked it off the drive last night, I was shocked when I saw that it was barely after dark when they snapped the steering lock, annoyingly hadn’t put any extra locks on it ever, and didn’t think I’d need to because of how crappy it looked after 12 months.

Oh well it’s no doubt smouldering in a clearing nearby as I type.

I came out of my garage to one at the end of my drive a few years ago before a morning ride. Was a bit of a shock, I don’t live in the most peacock worthy part of the Cannock Chase area. No idea where it came from, but didn’t see it again, the chase beast must’ve had it.

Same thing happened to me on a roundabout, modern cars (SUVs and MPVs especially) have really thick A pillars that are easy to lose a cyclist in, I got collected by a Fiat 500X, passenger saw me, driver didn’t. Edit, it was too late for me to brake, they hit me almost dead on the rear, I went up in the air but landed on my wheels and rode it out.

I had a 2 Series Active Tourer that was awful for it, I nearly had a crash at a roundabout the first week we got it because I didn’t see an entire car in the A pillar blind spot, luckily the wife was in the car with an unobstructed view and the lesson was learned.

Shame the tool that hit you didn’t stick around, I was lucky and got a lift home and a new bike when it happened to me.

97/98, I was in year 10 anyway. I remember that because my mate Jamie had Y10 in his email address and I remember thinking at the time that it wasn’t going to age very well. Not that I’ve still got access to lornehead@hotmail.com either tbf. We had an IT suite in the library with a DSL connection.

I remember being distinctly underwhelmed at the time having heard about the internet and thinking it would be amazing, best thing I managed to do was download Timmy the Turtle by nofx and save it to a floppy disc, it was the only song short enough and flash drives hadn’t been invented.

I got my own PC about a year or so later ready for my A level ‘studies’ which mostly consisted of making playlists on winamp then recording them onto minidisc via a line out. I couldn’t download songs myself, they were either ripped from CDs or from my mate John who had a HD caddy and some weird satellite internet connection and no job.

The new Boardman FS bikes get decent write ups, look a bit weird but I’d have one. Depends on how short travel you want though.

I’ve got a Marin Hawk Hill, they just have two wheel sizes of the Rift Zone now with better geometry. I’m not looking to get rid of mine, it does everything I want it to do, but the new one looks even better.

Could you set up the new personal phone by copying everything from the current one, then wipe the old one and set up with a new icloud, then add that to your family in settings so you can use stuff you’ve bought if you need to?

Raised boardwalks and skinnies are firmly in the ‘not worth the risk’ category for me, I generally just avoid them unless they’re wide enough that I would have be being especially dim to come off them. There’s a qualifier one on FtD that precedes a rock garden, how a raised skinny qualifies you for a long straight downhill rock garden I don’t know, so I just ride round it and do the rocks.

I see FB reels of the super high skinnies in Canada and the US and just no, wouldn’t attempt it, and have no desire to. Not scared of heights, but they fail the fun/risk/consequence calculation for me most of the time. Not enough fun, too easy to fall off, and too high a chance of properly hurting myself.

lungeFull Member
At the risk of allegations of libel, as a former insurance claims manager, we’d be crawling all over that.
I suspect they have no intention of making an insurance claim. They wanted the land cleared and the building was in the way, this was a cheap way to do so. They’re not doing it to claim insurance money, just to get the building out of way.

As a current insurance Underwriter, it wouldn’t be the first time that I’d been asked to insure a building for full rebuild value that had already been earmarked for demolition. I’ve recently started at a new place and there was a recent bulletin telling people to be aware of this very thing too.

Greedy property developers are cash rich greedy, not necessarily smart.

There would have been significant local resistance to any planning application so even though it wasn’t listed the new owners would have struggled to get permission to knock it down.

This smells like the fishiest fish in fish town harbour.

I hope an investigation is done properly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the new owner is a friend of someone that could make that go away and that will be it.

It’s a real shame, it’s not far from me,  I’ve never been personally but it’s very famous, I’m also shocked that it wasn’t listed, I’m also shocked that it wasn’t turning enough of a profit for the brewery to keep it. There were work outings there from a couple of places I’ve worked.

Maps are really good, scrolling is a PITFA, if you can stretch to the 7 do it. You’ll be getting a watch that is still getting new features too, I have a 6pro, it’s good but it’s not going to get any better now. The 7 is getting the 7pro/Epix pro updates.

I’ve not been able to ride either, and won’t be able too, I do all of my riding between 6 and 10am so no chance of demo rides or having a go on anyone else’s similar bike unfortunately.

It’s mildly annoying, I know wither will be fine, but there is probably 1% of times where the opposite would make more sense, I really could do with both, but I don’t really want two slightly crap bikes.

I went one way on the hybrid last week where it was well out of it’s depth which would have been awful on a gravel bike, but then I did have to spend a short time on the road at the weekend, which would have been worse on an MTB, but now much worse is the question I suppose.

Hmmmm.

Start at the bottom of the orange line straight after the end of upper cliff, turn right at the start of the climb up to lower cliff (insidious incline?) follow that orange line and it puts you at the bottom of the stile cop park, shouldn’t be able to miss it, there’s a massive drop near the bottom.

Just reverse direction to go back, or you can take a really steep boring fire road to the top of lower cliff.

Still really struggling with this, currently swinging between the Canyon Exceed CF5 for £1449 and either Sonder Camino AL Apex 1 or Ribble CGR AL 105

Canyon could be used as a winter MTB, Sonder or Ribble would be better if I wanted to load up with guards and bags for occasional shopping (rode 15 miles off road to get honey at the weekend and loved it)

I’m also turning over the idea of getting a budget MTB and budget gravel bike instead of one good one something like a Voodoo Nakisi  and a Carrera Fury for about the same money, but crappy brakes on both bikes put me off that idea.

So frustrating, I just want to spend some money

As a generally solitary exerciser there’s not enough there to convince me either way.

I’d agree with those that make the distinction between occasionally and regularly late we used to have couple friends that were always late for every meet up, it became so annoying we ending up just avoiding them because it was so disrespectful, sometimes an hour plus late. But if someone is late every now and then because of a genuine reason but is normally on time then fine, it happens and I’d wait, But if that is the case you get ready to go ASAP, no messing about.

Sounds like there is a compromise to be made on this one. Starting with not Dave not getting there until nearer 7.15 if he’s not interested in pre ride faff.

Looking at HTs has reminded my of my old Vitus Sentier that I loved but had to sell because it crippled my back on longer harder rides like Afan, Maybe I should just forget about road and gravel and get a trail hardtail to compliment my full suss 🤔

Plenty of choice in budget too

I’ve been musing on this pretty much constantly for the last couple of weeks, riding my cheapo hybrid across the chase regularly including a(n uphill) section of the Monkey, which was ‘ok’

I’ve found 700×40 tyres acceptable if not comfortable, but would prefer a bit more cush so I’ve been looking at the more extreme gravel bike, which seem to be expensive (my budget is around £1500) and limited availability on c2w schemes leaving me I think with a choice of either Sonder Camino Apex spec or a Ribble CGR bout would have to go Tiagra spec which has cable brakes. I’m erring towards the Camino probably in 650b flavour so I can have 47c tyres and still put guards on it.

Then yesterday I was reading Gravel v XC bikes and stumbled across the Canyon Exceed CF 4 for £1200odd quid, available on C2W, old school XC geo which is fine, because it’s not really for mountain biking, although would be an option in the winter for a bit of local riding. Comparing the geometry charts there’s very little difference between the Exceed and the Camino so I’m thinking maybe the XC bike might be a good idea, for a bit more versatility, maybe with some kind of bikepacking bars instead of pure flat. With the geo being so similar I could always stick some drops on one day I suppose.

The only sticking point in my head is the mudguards, but I suppose I could go the mudhugger route?

Any input from the hive mind would be appreciated as always

I only remember Jez Avery as the main pro flex guy, but I don’t think he raced, just hooked about on one wheel. Did Henrik Djernis ride pro flex too about the same time. Definitely not scouse though.

nbtFull Member
It’s the best ice cream I’ve ever had (gelato I suppose actually) we’ve made specific trips there for ice cream, it’s a 90 mile round trip 😂
it’s good (we’ve planned rides to go past) but not as good as Cocolate in the middle of Marple. Just saying, like…

It’s going on the list.

Edit – blimey, 132 mile round trip, might have to wait.

HoffFull Member
Don’t think CRC/Wiggle support C2W schemes if that’s the way you’re thinking of purchasing.

Do they not anymore? I got my last bike on one of the schemes from wiggle, different employer though. Will have to check.

I’ve found a few YouTube vids of people gravel biking over similar parts of the chase so will watch them and see what they think before I rush into anything.

I think I’m veering more towards an XC bike that I can use as a winter trail bike, but I do like the idea of a gravel bike, could even pop to a few CX races in the winter

Dunno about that, Personally I’d start with this:
Vitus rapide 29 VR

£900 and you get a decent Chassis with a SID SL fork and good enough Deore parts.

Blimey yeah, that’d do it. I know whichever I went for I’d have a bit of buyers remorse, but that would certainly fit the HT bill, will have to have a look at the CTW policy…

I’ve just seen the Sonder Dial, that looks like it could be a good value option, not a huge range of xc race HTs at that price.

Otherwise could do with having a go on a day tyred gravel bike. I’m very happy on drop bars

I was wondering how long it would take Tagg Lane to come up, I’m sure I heard about it here first. It’s the best ice cream I’ve ever had (gelato I suppose actually) we’ve made specific trips there for ice cream, it’s a 90 mile round trip 😂

Tiroler Stuberl is amazing, Bakewell pudding is great, Carsington isn’t far, we’ve only been there with the kids so have done the short walk to the island and back but I’d like to go all the way round one of the days.