2.5 DHF WTs on 29mm ID Stans Flow Mk3s for me. My favourite tyres to date.

Living in the middle of nowhere has its benefits :)

I don’t think my 2017 Five is as good as my old 2011 Five at climbing

Strange, I find my 2017 Five better than my 2010 Five. May well be due to a significantly better shock though (Fox Float X vs RP23).

No regrets with mine, and I like long rides with a decent amount of climbing (both technical and non-technical). As you know, it’s not the fastest climbing bike in the world, but IMO it more than makes up for it everywhere else.

Someone who can’t have kids would find that a very very bizarre and selfish attitude.

There you go again with your ignorant presumptions of someone’s situation. We actually struggled a lot to have children. Now, thanks to IVF, we have an amazing little boy. How hard it is for someone to have children (and we thought it may well be an impossibility for a long time) has no bearing on whether or not they want to spend every waking hour with them. At what point do you draw the limit? Does everything have to be about spending time with your child once you have one? Do you stop socialising without children, do you stop any hobbies that can’t include them, do you never leave them with a babysitter or relations? I know that if I did those things then I would not be in a mentally good place and would be a terrible father. You seem to want to brand that as selfish, but you don’t know anything about me other than what I’ve written here.

It’s about quality of time spent with your children, not quantity.

Don’t people use their parents or even grandparents any more? Thought that’s what they were there for. But then whadda I know

I find it hard to believe that is a serious post (or is the eye-rolling supposed to indicate that?), but I’ll bite anyway.

Some people don’t have parents or grandparents. Some people don’t live anywhere near their relations. Some people don’t have the luxury of choosing where they live due to availability of work (or other reasons). Some people’s relatives are not capable of looking after children, or are just not willing to. Some people don’t get on with their relatives.

Very easy to judge people’s choices without having any idea of their personal circumstances.

Back to the OP’s original question – we pay £40 per day. It is likely to increase as the nursery has only just opened and are trying to keep costs low to attract people. It is attached to a very popular school, so no doubt prices will go up once they’ve established themselves.

You’ll never regret spending more time with your kids. I’d rather change jobs to spend more time with them. Seems crazy to work and spend all the earnings on outgoings to enable you to attend that workplace.

Don’t know about that. Some people might truly feel that but there are others, myself included, that don’t agree. I love my 15 month old boy to bits and love spending time with him, but it can be hard work. Outsourcing the constant monitoring required for a small child for a proportion of the time does wonders for my sanity and helps me to enjoy the time that I do have with him. The best part of my day is when I pick him up from nursery – always greeted with a massive smile and a hug. He loves it at nursery and the chance to interact with other people/children/toys and do activities different from those at home makes him happier.

Furthermore, some people (again myself included) just can’t afford to not work full time and statements like that quoted can make people feel guilty (not me included). We might spend a proportion of the extra income on extra childcare, but we earn more than the childcare costs so it is a net gain that does actually make a difference to our lives.

We are extremely lucky to have my wife’s parents down the road who look after our boy 2 days a week, which allows my wife to only work 4 days a week, but if that weren’t the case then he would have to be in nursery full time.

There’s more to bringing up a happy child and doing the best for them than just spending as much time with them as possible.

The longest ride I managed in August was 80 km, but have done a proper (imperial) century every other month, including a double in July. All my long distance stuff has been on road though – these off road epics that people are doing are very impressive.

Newborough Forest is very much still pootle territory. I’ve lived on the island for 2 years now and I’ve never bothered riding the mountain bike on Anglesey, even though Parys Mountain is just up the road from me. Plenty of great road riding though.

I went for the 7Mesh Oro over the Gore and Castelli options. I forget what swung it for me, they all get great reviews. Absolutely fantastic jacket for road riding, worth every penny.

Eurostyle Buttr is good, as is Assos, but Muc Off is my current bum grease of choice.

Coed Y Brenin – the idiots that think it’s an appropriate place to take their “trail dogs” for a run.

Good on you. I think I’d have the same thoughts if I were in a similar position. I guess it depends on whether the main focus for you is enjoying the sport as you’ve always known it, even if that has to be in limited quantities, or just getting out there as much as possible.

Always good to read a good news story. I can’t help but think that you may be one of the few cases where the solution could genuinely be an e-bike.

I’ve got the 7 Mesh Oro jacket for road riding, which uses the Gore shake-dry material. It’s absolutely fantastic. It was given a baptism of fire when I first used it for the Etape Eryri Xtrem this year – 13 hours of torrential rain, ridiculous winds, and varying temperature – it kept me dry and at a comfortable temperature for the duration. Excellent breathability, packs down to next to nothing, easy to take care of, no reproofing required. I couldn’t ask for anything more from a road jacket. However, the material is way too fragile for mountain biking and I believe that it’s recommended you don’t wear a pack with them. I can see the material getting easily torn by a stray branch or bramble, yet alone a crash. I’m firmly in the camp of different jackets for different disciplines – it’s the only way to avoid compromise (well, apart from the compromise of extra cost).

Thanks for sharing and bumping. This had somehow passed me by until now. Email sent.

Like thecaptain, running is the only cross-training I currently do, including as much trail running as possible.

Direct applicability to cycling is probably pretty minimal but it helps to keep my weight down (more so than just cycling), and definitely improves my aerobic fitness. Also helps to stop loads of cycling from deteriorating bone density.

One of the best things for me about running is how easy it is to fit in around a busy life. I’ve previously done bike-specific weight training (following the exercises and plan in Joe Friel’s Mountain Biking Bible). This definitely improved my cycling fitness, especially climbing, but I find it impossible to find the time to get to a gym these days without sacrificing cycling itself.

I’d far rather be outdoors (whether running or on the bike), even in crap weather, than sweating away in a gym.

My question is, what am I best staring with?

Your eyes!

A good year so far. Mostly road and commuting, but a fair bit of mountain biking thrown in.

Distance: 9,069 km
Time: 370 h
Elevation: 108,929 m
Rides: 195

August was not a great month for me though, starting off with splitting my chin open at ‘Ard Rock and followed up by a bunch of things that kept me off the bike at weekends. Meant that I failed on my personal aim of a century ride per month – in fact, I even failed on the metric century per month. I did a 210 mile ride in July though, so not beating myself up about it too much!

A couple of suggestions here. Drum Mountain is supposed to be good too.

Honda CRV? That’s what most caravanners have isn’t it. Get EX model for all the toys

Noooooooooooooo thank you!

The caravan is 1090 kg in running order, 1325 kg max. Have looked at Volvos but not found anything within our criteria/budget. The wife has imposed a 2012 age-limit and 75,000 mile mileage-limit.

If you can find a reasonably high spec one, then sitting inside it will cure that. Either that or the comfortable sense of smugness that you made the incredibly intelligent choice and shunned badge wankery.

I’m coming round to that way of thinking, although now concerned about the VAG diesel fix issue.

How much of an issue is the VAG diesel fix?

Skoda Superb currently looking like the best option despite the thought of owning one giving me zero joy!

Considering a Mitsubishi L200 – terrible idea?

Was supposed to be doing the Sprint and Sport. Crashed in practice at the bottom of Stage 1 and split my chin open. Spent the rest of the day in A&E waiting to have it glued back together, then went home. Could have probably raced but my confidence was a bit shaken and it’s a course I want to be on my A-game for to be able to enjoy it. Plus all my mates had bailed for various reasons so I was billy-no-mates for the weekend.

Generalisers gonna generalise.

Haters gonna hate! I replaced my 2010 Five with a 2017 Five – nothing else ticked all the boxes. Both purchases were frame only, although the full builds seem pretty good value to me too. Very few brands offer as many options to custom spec the build too (although some of the upgrade prices are a little questionable).

Was going to skip this thread as I thought it was just another cheap chinese light thread, but the word ‘depressed’ peaked my interest (as someone who has had there own issues with depression). Very glad that I did – this is why I love this forum. Great to see a community coming together to help out one of their own.

I hope that you can find some time for yourself to get out on the bike. Cycling certainly had a massive part in helping me overcome my own battle with depression. I might be able to help out with some parts from the spares bin – what do you need?

Did they have proper feed stations last year? When I did it in 2015 they just had someone handing out bottles of water after stage 3.

By rock garden section I presume you mean the entire lochside stretch.

Not a hope in hell!

Thanks dirtydog, going to give that a go.

All dogs have been castrated.

Sometimes he gets on fine with our dog – it’s all very unpredictable. The Jack Russel doesn’t instantly show aggression towards him and will often quite happily play with him.

However, it’s easy to solve the problem of him attacking our dog – our dog just doesn’t go there. That’s not ideal for us, but a hell of a lot better than rehoming the Jack Russel (which nobody wants to do, it is really a last resort). As I say, the real issue is the attacking of their other dog.

I should also point out that for the last few years our dog has been getting on perfectly happily with theirs (even for extended periods when we’ve been away and our dog has stayed there), and the Jack Russel and Welsh Terrier have been perfectly happy living together.

The Jack Russel has not shown any signs of any aggression towards our baby, any people, or the old female Spaniel.

Not sure how you came to that conclusion given we’ve removed our dog from the equation and their dog has started being aggressive towards their other male dog.

As for our dog starting to attack their dog? I didn’t say that, although maybe my wording was unclear. Our dog and theirs had a couple of bad fights, initiated by their dog. We thought that might be because our dog was too boisterous when they were playing together, or wanting to play too much.

Anyway, as I say, our dog no longer goes down to the farm except occasionally with us. The issue is that the Jack Russel has started attacking their own older male dog.

For clarity:

Jack Russel and our dog (miniature Schnauzer cross) started fighting
Our dog no longer goes down to the farm because of this
Jack Russel has started attacking their male (older) Welsh Terrier

Will fit them tomorrow and go for a shakedown ride before Sunday, so should avoid the mudguard rubbing for 200 miles issue (although I’d rip them off and shove them in the nearest bin after a few miles rather than ploughing on for 200!).

Getting used to the toe overlap shouldn’t be a problem as I run full length guards on my commuter, which has the same geometry as my decent bike.

If a unanimous STW opinion wasn’t enough, the weather forecast is now looking slightly worse. Mudguards it is!

Thank you all for indulging me and helping me come to a decision, I was starting to annoy myself with my trivial musings. Now on to worrying about the next minor detail….

*unlikely given the weather

If only that were the only factor against me!

Give over.

Marginal gains!!

Told you I overthink things, but they do add 1 lb of weight, and it is going to be windy. As I’ve never used these guards before I’ve not idea if this will make a noticeable difference, but even a tiny difference adds up over 200 miles.