I had no idea it was Sting on MFN either, but yeah, obvious now I know.

Mine is the same, the issue with Garmin connect is that it basis your training status purely on your Vo2 max calculation, which needs a power meter for cycling so unless you’re running. Regularly you’re going to struggle. Mine was up and down and reasonably accurate over covid when I was doing a lot of zwifting. But now it’s stuck at unproductive, unless I have a light week when it’s maintaining or a really light week when I’m recovering or detraining.

On a ride outwatching the tour of Britain a few years ago, 2011 I think it was. I ended up going much further Thais planned for, I took water and no food for a 30 mile round trip to stone, ended up tagging along with a group to Gun Hill about an 80 mile round trip.

I was on my arse on the way home, pre everyone having Garmins and smart phones I was following road signs in an unfamiliar area when suddenthere were energy bars all over the road, BINGPOT! I’d accidentally ridden through the feed zone for the tour. Stopped and pocketed a load of un-squashed bars, then spotted a leopard trek musette in a hedge. Ham sandwich, Half a frangipane, couple of bars and gels and a bottle of drink. Happy days.

Ate like a king, grovelled home into the wind, then grovelled again for going out all day when I said I was only going to Stone 😣

The bars bottles and gels I picked up lasted months, bagged a few more bottles too, still have the bag in the shed.

Another vote for the air 2 I got a used one in lockdown 1 specifically for zwifting. It’s still fine.

I’d love a big tv and an Apple TV but my shed is very much a shed so I cart my crap in with me when I go and ride in there.

I’ve struggled with bike mojo for the last couple of years, luckily it’s coincided with the kids having a go at my old canoe club which got me back into it and now Mrs Prawny has joined in.
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It’s satisfying my competitive instincts, without the chance of serious injury of most other sports for adults. I’m getting out on the water 4/5 times per week at the moment, racing locally quite often, although the summer break is coming up soon sad times. </span>

If you’ve got a canoe club locally I’d definitely recommend having a go at marathon racing. If you’re in the London area you’re spoiled for choice.

Without spending a decent amount electric drums are not great. I’ve got an Alesis crimson, and it’s Ok. Certainly not good enough to use live, or even to learn on I don’t think but I’ve been playing for years and it’s fine for learning covers and a bit of practice.

If I had the cash I’d get a Roland TD50, but that’s getting on for e-bike money

Where about are you? Wigan motorcycles are advertising brand new ones for £4295. Not sure what difference an aftermarket pipe would make either, all of the singles sound pretty decent stock to me (but I do have beef with aftermarket exhausts in general) so I wouldn’t want to pay more. Depends on whether not having to follow the running in schedule is worth more than having a brand new bike. It might be, because of how slow the bikes are the recommended speeds are tedious.

My only issue with the Royal Enfields is when you need to try and overtake anything. The meteor has 20bhp Vs 24 for the Himalayan and for general riding it’s enough, I’d say it’s as quick as my Kuga up to 70mph.

But if someone is doing 50 in a 60 and you’re running late, you need a bit old gap in the oncoming traffic to get past.

Other than that it’s very good, even on the motorway it’ll happily sit at 70ish for hours.

I’ve not got one, but I have a meteor with a similar engine and build quality as me anything.

There’s a new one on the way though allegedly 40hp and water cooling.

Can’t be arsed pedalling any more. Also my current commute is unpleasant on a bicycle due to narrow NSL roads and low average cycling speeds

Starting a new job in July though back in brum, further but a more pleasant commute, might do the odd day back on the bike depending on what I need to carry IT wise.

I’ve got mine on a headset spacer mount, on my mtb but on a gravel bike out front probably best.

I’m fairly sure the mtb mount is just a flipped round out front mount anyway

Yeah wasn’t as bad as I was worried it might be, happy with Ric too, sometimes Rob was a bit too shouty on the XC and Bart seemed happy to just let him talk.

On the which service to subscribe too I have got discovery+ not sure if it’s because sky give it to me for free (used to exclude sports but started working recently) but I also watch the BSB and world super bikes religiously so makes sense for me.

I love wfh and just having the live no breaks covers on in the background.

highlights of the road cycling are as crap as ever though, in a pinch the short highlights are just as good as the long ones, and not as good as the itv2 package.

They look pretty decent and that is surely the most important thing 😎

Watching the promo video was interesting too, glad I’m not the only one that can’t get any decent air off those jumps. About as smooth as me round the berms too.

I used to use it a lot and paid for it for a few years, but Garmin connect has got better (my upgraded devices I suspect rather than the platform itself) and it just seems a bit of a waste of money now as I’m not going to be troubling segment times. Not even my own.
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Without the free segment leader boards it doesn’t offer any more than any of the other ride/run logging sites I do think that was a bit of a misstep. The leaderboards were a good gateway for me, so much that I sold my first Garmin to just use my phone</span>

Not sure about that one but the 7l one looks more promising and actually has a phone in one of the pockets in the pictures. Cheaper too.

Don’t know about posh petrol, but my old 1.8 cmax (2004 vintage so could be different to yours) did not like supermarket petrol at all. I never bothered with the fancy stuff, but had to swap to shell/BP or similar otherwise it bogged down horribly and was awful pulling away if you were in a hurry

I think she has a point. For the regular population yeah, if you don’t want any cake just don’t have any. But for people like me who struggle with compulsive eating I’d be much better off without free cake in the office.

I used to work with a woman who would bring me cake specifically regularly, it was a nightmare because I couldn’t not scoff it, 4 big slabs of paradise slice from the local college. Bloody lovely.

luckily I was riding to work at the time and didn’t get any fatter, but if this makes people like her think then it’ll help some people.

I’ve had a fair few smartish watches and my thoughts are as follows

Best sports watch – Fenix of whatever size suits

Best Everyday watch – Apple Watch 7 upwards

Best watch ever that I wish was still around. Pebble Time Round 2 ☹️

I found the change from the vivoactive 3 to the Fenix noticeable for about 3 days, then completely forgot about it.  I love it, I wish I could afford a 7 because the touchscreen would be nice at times, but 5 buttons are loads better for sports use.

I’ve not used my Edge 530 since, might sell it, don’t think I’ve ever used it to navigate, but I have use my watch and it’s great.

Fenix 7s might be worth a look for you if you like a smaller watch. I’m going to get a 7x when funds allow. Or an Apple Watch ultra if they carry on getting better.

Add me to the list of people that have been looking at it now certainly won’t be buying a bike from Giant on that basis. Would I have to take to a dealer to fix a puncture? Change brake pads?

That’s gone now bigJohn so you’ll be fine. Or knackered…

There’s miles of fire roads over the chase, you could ride for hours, I did an Evans Off road ride it a few years ago and it was 35-40 miles all off road not even road crossings other than the one outside the start/finish area. Might have the gpx for that somewhere will have a look.

Would definitely have been gravel able, there was one section of follow the dog that might be a bit iffy but other than that would be great.

I’ve turned it off too, I thought it was a good idea, but every time I stopped on my road bike, even coasting to a stop, it just went off. The last time I was so distracted by it when I stopped to turn right at some cross roads I nearly got hit by a van.

bot had any issues on my Fenix 6 but not sure if it’s even on. I’m leaving it alone.

I turned 40 a couple of weeks ago, my 13 year old wanted a board for Christmas. I talked myself out of it at the time, but I have decided did it and bought the cheapest probably most lane complete I could find.

It’s got a maple deck and cost me £19, so I won’t be too upset if I don’t use it, but I’ve always wanted to skate but never really did, all my friends were online skaters and I arsed round on a Snakeboard during the late 90s. I was surprised to find that I could still ollie when I was showing the girl the very basics.

If I take to it, I might upgrade. If I don’t, she’s got a spare.

Just remembered this belter too. Class.

I’m a big fan of metal(ish) and punk covers of pop songs so my votes go to

for being a bit of an emotional rollercoaster

and

for being fun.

Honourable mention for Less Than Jake doing the whole grease soundtrack and having the gall to release it as an album, and David Gray’s version of Say Hello Wave Goodbye

in the end though, the Cash version of Hurt is probably the right answer, or Jeff Buckleys Hallelujah, but that’s been done to death now and it’s been ruined a bit.

Just checked my deleted emails, yeah 12/12 Kaffenback was £599, it was on the 12 bikes of Christmas and there was only 20 bikes at that price so might not be reduced that low again.

I’d have bought one, but couldn’t afford it and don’t need it right now anyway

Weren’t they £600 last week? That’s one reason not to spend £700 on one today I suppose.

hydro brakes on drop bars aren’t a cheap upgrade, they’re great, but unless you’re doing big miles in horrible conditions I’m not sure they’re really worth it. Bit more power, but the biggest bonus is the automatic pad adjustments, I was having to fettle my brakes every day when I had cable discs.

The other side of the coin is that I’ve got a horrific honking front brake on my 105 equipped road bike and the power isn’t there either. Could be fixed with a pad swap, or it could be a leak and take a bit of time and cash to fix. Sometimes I wish I’d stayed with cables.

I love The Crow Road, I read it twice back to back. Didn’t see the series when it was first on but think I managed to find a dodgy copy of it, but I could equally be thinking of a different one.

Might give it a watch and find out. Cheers.

Edit – what happened there not even opened this thread and somehow posted on it 🤷🏼‍♂️

you do. Cargo bikes are awesome.

you might be right actually. I keep thinking about it, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s almost exactly the same price as my motorbike cost brand new I might try and swing one.

Its got more carrying capacity, I could do most of the servicing myself doesn’t need petrol (although the motorbike doesn’t get through much) and no extra insurance or tax.

If the U.K. wasn’t such a crap place to be a cyclist I’d definitely have one.

If you’ve got a turbo that’s zwiftable there’s a back to fitness training plan for exactly this kind of scenario (I think it was initially based around childbirth so probably even greater loss of fitness)

I did it at the start of last winter after having a bit of a break but as I was just being lazy it probably started a bit too steady for me.

Thought mine was a lot at £520. Projected use calculator shows that it probably about right and I’ll be at zero come the spring.

I’m not comfortable enough to pay what I use I’d Thayer smooth it out over the year. If I had spare cash then I’d risk being able to save more (see also me having a new car because I can’t afford the risk of something without a warranty which automatically makes me poorer)

The perils of being working class, and doing ‘ok’

I’m a pauper and have some higher state soil shakers for trail runs. They’re a bit heavy but comfy. I think they’ve been revised since I got mine ( just over 2 years now blimey) and the new ones look even better. Nice wide toe box and only £20 so I don’t mind messing them up.

That said, as you might guess from the fact that they’re over 2 years old I don’t do that much trail running, according to Strava they’ve only got 99 miles on them in that time.

Second roofbox.co.uk

Theyre a really good company to deal with too. If your luck is anything like mine they won’t fit anyway and you’ll need a full set of everything. Absolutely boils my piss but despite coughing up for Thule stuff so that I can ‘just buy new feet’ I’ve not once been able to reuse a set of bars on the next car.  Looks like the trend is set to continue when this one goes back too.

Another newbie to the modular kayak thing. That’s super cool. Coming from a racing POV I’m used to crew boats, and now I’m wondering I I could make a K4 for holidays with the family, we could cover some serious distance!

Personally I always use a spraydeck unless it’s really warm, I just prefer it, and I’d hate to be on the sea without one, I never wear a cag, if it’s cold and rough enough for a cag then would she go out? I was paddling with Mrs Prawny yesterday who’s just starting out and it was miserable, too cold to be pleasant (I was the only one without a cag obviously 🙄).

Books are always a good idea, if she needs inspiration, and at the higher end of the budget if she’s a bit of a nerd and she hasn’t already got one a gps watch to track distance is fun. I take my phone in a waterproof pouch so I can be followed on Garmin live track if I go on my own.

I’ve got some bone conduction headphones too, if the sounds on nature get boring.

Actually scratch thinking about it. Whatever and Ever Amen is the best album of the 1990s.

I’ve only read the first few entries because I’m going to have to give this some thought. But I wanted to get in early and say the Insomniac is better than Dookie.

Any sort of estimated max HR is likely to be inaccurate. The only way to find it is to find out the hard way.

As a 40 yo mine should be 180 based on 220 – age but it got up to 178 on a tempo run at lunch. Seen 198 on zwift races in the last year or so and have seen as high as 206 when really clapping on but that’s been a few years now

We moved into a house with no bath just an unreasonably large shower 2 years ago. Haven’t died of lack of bath but definitely miss it. When funds allow the bathroom will be getting rejigged to fit at least a short bath in, it’s not the biggest bathroom in the world so would miss the space, but in the winter after a long run/ride/paddle I’d love to have a good long soak.

Mouse chewing through anything will be excluded on any insurance policy, a 3rd party warranty is just that.

No idea if cazoo are any good at all, but from an insurance point of view, mouse damage (pet or under the umbrella of vermin) is a standard exclusion on all policies

edit – apologies for the lack of puns.