I started with a C17 but swapped for a C15 which I preferred.

I’ve since swapped the C15 for a C13 in the same width purely for vanity reasons

Farmer is a ****waffle with a completely disproportional response.  There may have been campsites nearby but if he was riding late into the night I don’t blame him for not wanting to go and disturb people that may have already been asleep.  That’s assuming he knew there were campsites there.  Nowt wrong with what the cyclist did IMO and I’d have done the same (albeit probably been up and off before 6am, especially at this time of year).

Most farmers near where I live are decent human beings.  But like all walks of life, there’s always some **** unnecessarily taking delight from someone else’s misery.  I “wild camped” a dozen times last year in England and had zero issues or interactions with anyone.  Mostly in the Peak District

Looks like we’re joining the EV club.

The wife has had an unexpected promotion resulting in a company car coming our way in Sept. No idea why as she doesn’t travel for work much, only the commute about 12 miles each way.  I’m hardly going to complain though as it’s a 72 plate Model 3 Performance 😁

We’ve borrowed it on a few occasions already for the odd weekend and it’s definitely a step up on the current 14 year old Toyota Aygo.

I’ll be researching if it’s worth while getting a home charger as she can charge it at work during the week.

I think I’ve used auto guard before when a water pump failed on my old BMW 130i.  Total cost was about £800 and it was fixed without any trouble.

Isn’t there some sort of Consumer protection law that protects a buyer for something like 6 months now anyway which sort of renders any of the “pay x amount for 6 months warranty” thing kind of obsolete?  The garage will need to fix it regardless?

I might be oversimplifying that or be completely wrong though.

One of our more recent cars had a catastrophic gearbox failure within 3 weeks and the garage fixed it without question at a cost of about £2.5k.

I’m hoping to have another go. Had a terrible start to the year with several viruses and colds etc though so not sure how the next month or two will pan out in preparation!

A mix of gravel bikes, hard tails and full suspension took part last year. I think the quickest was on a gravel bike but the full suspensions weren’t too far behind. There was lot of fast gravel but also some pretty rocky trails. Fast tyres are best.

If I had a short travel hardtail I’d probably pick that

An order I placed on the 11th turned up today. £325 of DHB gear. RRP would have been nearly £1k.

Two more orders are still in the pipeline. I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually. Thankfully these are for much lesser amounts!

Interesting to see that the holding page says they’ll be back soon. I wonder how it’ll compare. I hope DHB & Prime gear etc will still be made but I’m not holding out too much hope.

I went for the DF64v over the Niche. I can’t compare it to a Niche but I do have a decent 1Zpresso conical hand grinder. The flat burr wins hands down all day long.

The Niche is very popular and was definitely a ‘trend setter’. I just think it’s falling behind some of the more recent competition offerings.

It’s incredible but equally terrifying.

This technology will create new jobs but destroy so so many more.

It’s the beginning of the end for any kind of human digital content creation.

Scary but fascinating to see where this goes and at what pace.

Complete new DG units were installed.

My guess is a combination of –

– House is far too cold due to poor insulation (low quality / poorly installed windows being a contributing factor)
– Unwillingness to turn the heating up a notch.
– RH too high

Until she accurately logs the temp / RH over a period of time we’re just working on educated assumptions.

Either way our disagreement was more about the science behind why it occurs vs her belief that it’s nothing to do with the dew point. She just has the simplistic view that the windows are faulty and the problem will go away if they get fixed.

@muddyjames – there’s a good chance the windows haven’t been installed correctly. The company that fitted them have removed and reinstalled them once already and are now coming back to do something else… let’s assume they are poorly installed / constructed, that wouldn’t mean condensation would occur on them despite being them being above dew point would it? Wouldn’t that just contribute to the poor insulation and therefore them being below dew point?

I personally wouldn’t trust the company to come back again without seeking advice from an independent specialist first. I don’t think she’s out of pocket yet but I can see it heading in that direction. You buy cheap you buy twice!

I don’t think these windows have any sort of kite mark or other markings on them…

There are 4 people and a dog in the house. Condensation is primarily in the bedrooms but also downstairs too. I think she dries multiple loads of washing in the house each week which will be a massive contribution to the problem.

She’s measuring the humidity and temps occasionally but it’s difficult to paint a picture as those readings are just a moment in time rather than a historical and meaningful log. I recently bought some SwitchBot meters which log the data throughout the day and have encouraged her to do the same.

That’s interesting about IR thermometers and glass. Initially I thought the reflective nature of the glass could be a problem so I stuck a very thin layer of masking tape over a section of the pane and took a measurement from that. It was always exactly the same reading as the measurement I took from the glass next to it.

Just to add – she’s got a dehumidifier albeit I don’t think it’s running 24/7. 

Those PIV units do look interesting.  I haven’t really given them a thought before.  

Luckily our own house doesn’t suffer with condensation as it’s well insulated and ventilated.  Funnily enough though our gas bill more expensive than theirs despite these things – our house is smaller too… with this in mind it does make me wonder just how much she’s trying to heat it in the first place.

Thanks guys,

She’s using a calibrated IR temp gun on the glass surface and a calibrated thermometer / hygrometer on the windowsill.

I suspect the air temp is even cooler right near the surface of the window compared to the windowsill which is obviously much more difficult to measure accurately. Inaccurate measurements = unexpected results.

I do love just how dull I’ve become these days :)

iCloud is worth every penny to us.  I currently have 16,259 photos and 2,969 videos backed up to it dating back to 2010.  It’s worth it for the piece of mind that if I loose my device they’re still safe.  Think we pay the top £6.99 (might be £8.99 now) per month.

I wouldn’t pay extra for more device storage.

My experience with Centrelines has been consistently bad too.  They squeal in the summer when they get hot on long descents and in the winter they squeal if you so much as look at them.  They’ve consistently been like this across multiple bikes / rotors and pad combinations.  The best (which was still pretty horrific) was when  I used genuine sram pads.  Expensive but worth it for the slight reduction in noise.  They make riding at this time of the year pretty miserable.

It’s like they have a very narrow temperature sweetspot somewhere between cold and hot when they’re actually quiet but that sweetspot only lasts for 10 seconds or so when descending… I should probably try another brand entirely

I was thinking of doing something like this and ended up doing pushups instead.

Guess I was a typical cyclist with relatively weedly arms.

I started off seeing how many pushups I could do in 10 mins with a min rep of 5 at a time.  Think I managed about 50-60 or so and then progressed to 5 pushups every 30 seconds for 10 mins, then 6 pushups every 36s and so on – aiming for around 100 in 10 mins each time.

I’m now close to doing 10 pushups every 60 seconds for 10 mins.  I just plan to keep increasing the min number of reps until I can do 100 in one go.  Might take a lifetime to get there but I’m consistently moving in the right direction.  Max reps in 1 go at the moment is about 40 (was 13 back in Novermber).

Obviously not pull up related but gives you an idea of how I progressed my plan.  I’d probably do something similar if I started doing pull ups but obviously less reps.

I can’t stress this enough – build it up slowly.  Your current fitness will probably carry you much, MUCH further than your body is conditioned to handle.  I’d imagine 5k is safely achievable after a relatively short amount of time but for me the temptation to push further and faster has resulted in injury over and over again… it’s incredibly frustrating that I never seem to learn my lesson!

I’ve not raced on Zwift since well before category enforcement came in. Looking forward to giving some races a shot again this winter. Just need to shake this post-covid fatigue first 🤦‍♂️ had it a week so far, hopefully it’ll clear up soon enough. Took 2-3 weeks to feel back to normal when I had it last year FFS.

Managed a few easy spins on Zwift this week without too much drama.

I had a C17 – it was a revelation but still gave me some sore bits on really long rides (like 10+ hours).  It’s quite a wide saddle.

I decided to try a C-15 instead and it’s perfect.  I now have one on a full sus, road and gravel bike.  I can ride all day and all night (literally) with no issues.  I can’t recommend it enough

I might be wrong but I think the auto FTP increases are based on the best 20 min effort during that workout (and then they apply the usual 0.95 calc).  If you check your power curve for the activity you should see a peak 20 min power of about 273w.

Given the nature of an on / off race you’d probably get a better result from a steady 20 min FTP effort.

Zwift may now be using some other form of calculation though.

I’ve started to take FTP scores with a pinch of salt and just ask myself if I reckon I could hold it for a lengthy period, say 45 min+ and then adjust it to suit.

In all seriousness though, i’ve generally been arriving about sunset to reduce the chances of having to interact with another human.  By the time i’ve pitched up & eaten etc i’m normally ready to sleep anyway.  I do keep meaning to go out a bit earlier and have a little more daylight time though.

I’ve just resolved a creaky PF30 BB in my Cannondale.  The old bearings had about 15,000km on them but felt like new with no play, silky smooth.  I took them out, greased the cups and put them back in but the creak was still there.

I decided to completely replace it with a new PF30 and the creak has gone.  I did use some Loctite retaining compound this time though.

So yea, old creaky bearings can still look and spin as good as new.  I was reluctant to replace them but new bearings were the answer after all.

Pitch up near a dogging spot, or just forget the bike and drive to said spot instead

I’m back on track after a few years of recurring illnesses (thanks covid and a child that started nursery in 2020).

I stood on the scales back in Jan and was 79.9kg – the heaviest I’ve ever been.  I was just under 4 w/kg then.  I eventually started calorie counting in July.  Not to restrict calories but more for awareness which was a bit of an eye opener.   I’m now back to 74kg and 4.6w/kg and the weight is still trending down.  At this rate I’d like to think I can get back to 72kg where I used to be 10 years ago.

In pervious years I’ve followed some pretty regimented training plans.  This year i’ve just been freestyling it based on how i’m feeling on the day and what my short term goals are.  My “training” has been somewhat conflicted though as I’ve done a few ultra distance bikepacking events and then at the other end of the spectrum some recent hillclimbs.  It seems to be working quite well though.

I’m about to head out and see if I can beat my PR on a local 5-6 min climb from my pre dadulthood days!  I’ve steered clear of it for the last 3 years.  It was one of those “I’ll never beat that time again” efforts – lets see if I was right!

I’ve added a Fellow Prismo cap to my aeropress. Worth a look if you like the inverted method but don’t like the risk of spillage or the fact some liquid filters through before the plunger can be inserted.

I also enjoy using my 3 cup Moka with an aeropress filter in it. It fits like a glove and gives a lovely clean cup. Like a very strong aeropress I guess.

French press is alright but I’m not keen on the sludge even following JH’s method.

My daily go too is an espresso added to a small amount of hot water – a small long black.

It’s already been said but worth reiterating. It’s not possible to make an espresso with an aeropress. You’ll create at most about 1 bar of pressure vs around 9bar from an espresso machine.

I suffered with these little winged demons at weekend whilst wildcamping.  It was supposed to be wet and windy so I decided not to take the Smidge… well I started pitching in a sheltered, wooded spot away from the breeze and “Storm Betty” hadn’t quite turned up yet.

What ensued was about an hour of absolute misery.  Tent finally up I dived inside only to be greeted by about 50 trillion of the buggers already in there.  It was a bit of an “oh shit” moment… Fortunately the rain turned up an hour or so later and they slowly started to bugger off.

There were billions and billions of the buggers though. Literally clouds of them swarming around.  I must have at least 300 bites on each leg alone…

I also learned that my tent inner is mosquito proof but not necessarily midge proof.  At least they could climb out of their own accord.

Lesson learned.

I started using NutraCheck calorie counter recently.  I really rate it as it uses a UK based catalogue and it’s very easy to use.

We cook Gusto meals and each one is already on the app which is really useful too.

Being more ware of my calorie intake has really been eye opening at times.  I’ve made better choices as a result.

I’ve averaged about 3,600 calories a day over the last 12 weeks but have also lost 4kg in that time!  I’m almost back to my “best” without really thinking about it.

Mine had that issue on hot days too.  Common problem with a certain model / year.  Some sort of plastic piston / plunger would expand in the heat.  From memory you can replace the part but it looked like a pain.  Instead I just wrapped the brake in tin foil when it was sunny which did the trick….

You could park right on the top of Peaslows in Sparrowpit.  There’s a sizeable layby up there and i’d be happy to leave a car there for a few days.  Plenty of parking in the residential areas of Chapel too that you could use without inconveniencing anyone.  Somewhere along Long Lane would be fine south of the school

I tend to make sure I either have access to water where i’ll be stopping and filter it or have a minimum of 3 litres to hand if I’m planning on any basic cooking, hot drink, brushing teeth.  Don’t forget you’ll need some to last until the next refill the following morning too.

I’m 76kg and run

36mm @ 52 rear 47 front

30mm @ 67 rear 63 front

We moved our personal banking to Starling last year.  Best thing we ever did, what a refreshing bank.

I do feel a bit guilty that I don’t bank with the bank I’ve worked for over the last 17 years…

I’ve done a fair few longer rides over the last few years (15 – 30+ hours continual) and it’s difficult to nail down exactly what works and what doesn’t.  What works for me on one ride doesn’t always work the next time.  You just sort of make it up as you go.  As a general rule though, I try and replace about half of the calories I burn during the ride but make sure I’m well stocked up on carbs for a few days  before hand.

It’s important to take the intensity into account.  It’s far harder to digest food at higher intensity than lower intensity.

Assuming the intensity is pretty low I generally try and stick to solid foods, jam butties, pork pies, dates etc for as long as possible to start with but after 7-8 hours I start to struggle with the real stuff.  I then move onto gels (my “secret weapon” is a 500ml soft flask with 375g of Maltodextrin / Fructose mix – basically a 1,500kcal super gel, and sometimes x2 of them!).

I also find that fatty foods & protein rich stuff really can “reset” your stomach if you’re going through a bad patch.  I sometimes start craving stuff like apples and salt and vinegar pringles…

Just eat whatever takes your fancy, eating something is better than eating nothing even if it’s not the most ideal thing.  You may completely loose your appetite and go through a bad patch, just hang in there and it’ll normally come back and then some.

You’ll also need to take on lots of water.  If you get dehydrated you’ll slow your digestion down even more.

I managed to scoff nearly 8,000kcal on my last epic over 21 hours.

Last thing to add is that your gut does need training to be able to handle such a large quantity of food and there’s only 1 way to train it…. big rides and big food!

If you turn it off you have to turn it back on again within a certain time limit. I think it’s 5 hours or something otherwise it’ll save the old recording and start a new one.

Just join them together afterwards if you really want to.

I mix Maltodextrin & Fructose anywhere between 2:1 and 1:0.8. Or sometimes just use Maltodextrin or Sucrose on their own. Depends how much I want in total and how sweet I’m prepared for it to be.

Whilst cramming 200g sugar into one bottle is far too sweet I would generally follow it up with a swig from another bottle of just water.

I find adding some citrus flavours really masks the sweetness a lot if needed.

Also as far as electrolytes go, you just need the replace salt whilst exercising. The rest can wait until afterwards.

One tip from me – it’s much easier to dissolve Maltodextrin in hot / warm water if your mix is highly concentrated. I use water straight from the kettle (and allow it to cool in the fridge before using it – obviously!)

It’s just like making yours own carb drinks but just more concentrate.

I did an ultra race in April and amongst other foody bits I took x2 500ml soft flasks with 375g of Maltodextrin / Fructose mix in each = 3,000 calories between them. Basically just two massive gels. I added some caffeine, a pinch of salt and concentrated lemon juice to them.

I took a 150ml soft flask with me on todays ride with 110g carb mix in it. I then dumped it all in my water bottle when I was refilling it.

I just tend to mix up some Maltodextrin / fructose to whatever concentration / amount that I think I’ll need. I tend to take two bottles, one with my carb mix and the other with just water.

2.25 @ 75kg – Mezcal Rear 21psi Barzo Front 17psi

Probably wouldn’t go any lower though

Saddle bag would be my choice. Loads to choose from – Restrap / Apidura / Alpkit are popular choices.

I’ve never noticed any swaying, even off road. Provided it’s packed properly and tightened down it’ll be fine

@didnthurt – looks similar but quite a few differences just looking at the map a little more closely.

The organiser – Stu from RedSky bikes used to run the annual Dales 300 – but he’s moved the shop up to Thirsk now hence this new event in the York Moors

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-north-york-moors-300-itt-tickets-566675009207?aff=ebdssbdestsearch&keep_tld=1