@geolog – as much as i’d love that it would be frowned upon! Thanks though :) I think this one follows the usual ITT format

Thanks both that’s really helpful!

When fashion dictates

What tyres are you using? That’s a lot of punctures… the sealant doesn’t work by “drying up”. The particles in the liquid plug the hole. Any sealant on the outside of the tyre will dry up, get washed off.

I charge my ELEMNT Bolt v2 on the go. Charges incredibly quick. You don’t need a large power bank as the battery is pretty small.

The standard out front mount makes the charge port difficult to access though. I use a different mount so don’t have this problem.

My biggest gripe is a colleague who consistently uses the word cautious instead of conscious.

“I’m cautious that I might not meet the deadline”.

🫣

Just be aware that faster payments aren’t always instant. Occasionally they will get held for BAU fraud checks (especially if the large-ish payment is unusual activity for the sender) I think they can hold them for up to 2 hours.

I sold a car a few years ago and the faster payment took 45 mins to show up. Had a few awkward cups of tea in my kitchen whilst we waited…

Fix deal rates seem to have already peaked at the end of last year when lenders were expecting a huge base rate around now. They were already pricing towards the worst case scenario back then. Fortunately base rate isn’t predicted to get anywhere near what we thought was coming and fixed deals are already dropping compared to what they were 6 months ago.

Whilst base rate may still continue to creep up ever so slightly I think fixed rates will continue to fall, albeit slowly. Our fixed rate ends at the end of this year.

As already said, consider overpayments if you can now afford it. Use an online overpayment calculator to see just how big an impact overpayments have – it’s significant.

Just run it with 4 bolts. I’ve done many miles on a full bikepacking setup with only 4 bolts on a 5 bolt chainring (X1 Rival) Zero issues.

You can use 5 bolts, it’s just a bit of a pain accessing the one behind the crank. So I just leave it out 😁

For navigating on the fly I use Strava app as it follows the popular routes based on their heatmap data and you’re therefore less likely to end up somewhere you shouldn’t be. Once the route is saved in the Strava app I use the Wahoo App to sync it to the device (no need for wifi or anything that way).

I found that the routes that my Wahoo plots are absolutely bonkers and made no sense. Strava is waaaay better at building a point to point route

Vittoria Mezcal / Barzo combo tend’s to be a popular go to setup for ultra distance bike packing racers. Very durable and long lasting, they also roll very well

I use Wipperman Connex quick links. A bit pricey but tool free. Very handy if you regularly want to remove it for waxing

Oil-slick one?

No just the bogo standard one. Don’t think they do an oil slick 11 speed?

SRAM 10-51 11 speed cassette currently on 8,951km and still going strong
My last SRAM XX1 chain lasted 7,468km before it reached 0.5%

Mix of on and off road all year round all over the Peak District.

I’ve found my chains last way longer since I stared to use Putoline a few years ago :)

Counterfeit notes?

Seems a bit of a stretch for a 2nd hand relatively cheap buggy! Perhaps the conversation would have evolved into something further involving a bank transfer.

Maybe something like asking if they can pay by bank transfer instead, claiming to have accidently sent too much money, providing a screenshot of a fake payment confirmation and then asking if she could arrange to transfer the difference back immediately.

I like to think I’m pretty vigilant when it comes to scammers. I’ve worked in banking for 15+ years so I’ve pretty much seen it all. You’d be amazed at the volumes of “successful” scams. The banks generally take the hit and refund the customer unless the customer has clearly been grossly negligent. 99% of the time the customer will get the money back as demonstrating gross negligence to a standard that satisfies the regulators is almost impossible, it’s just not worth the hassle.

One had me scratching my head the other day though. The Mrs advertised something on FB marketplace and was quickly contacted by someone asking if it was available etc. They exchanged a few messages and the the interested party started with the “I’m away with worth so I’ll send an Agent to collect it and pay cash”. They went on to say “the cash will be in a black envelope and handed to you by my agent who will ask that you count the cash and confirm that you are happy blah blah blah”. She stopped responding at that point and then received several messages pushing for “urgent resolution to ensure you get your cash”. It was clearly a scam – bad spelling etc. But the fact they essentially pushing for cash on collection? How would that one pan out?

I managed to do the exact same thing last week. The suspect was an oversized chunk of frozen banana!

Gravel bike is currently SRAM GXP.

I guess I could swap the entire crank set over to something else. Haven’t really considered that as I assumed it’d probably be more expensive but maybe not.

Basically I need a spider / crankset that can take both a 34T and a 42T without a hidden bolt. I think 🤔

It’s definitely full on lurgy season.

Not sure what’s going on to be honest, I used to get 1 or maybe 2 colds a year and sometimes go 12-18 months without one but the last 2 years have been ridiculous.  Just one virus immediately after the other with no more than 3-4 weeks between them all year round.  It’s like my immune system has just given up.

This does coincide with a few things though –

– My lad started nursery 2 years ago

– I’m WFH full time but wife is in the office 5 days a week

– Covid (only tested positive for the first time in Sept 22 though)

Most recently I had severe tonsillitis at the beginning of Dec followed by a full on cold for a week over xmas.  End of Jan I caught another full on cold and I’m still very congested with it 9 days later.  I seem to pick these things up from my lad / wife but they seem to get minor sniffles and I get absolutely floored.

1kg up compared to last Friday. Average is only 0.4kg higher this week compared to last though but i’ve had a bad cold all week so no riding and only averaging about 2,000 steps a day… Pretty sure i’ll be back on track and continuing the downward trend from next week and beyond.

Until lurgy strikes again… (thanks to child bringing back various flavours of lurgy from nursery every other day).

White noise saved my wife’s life.

She’s a heavy breather at night and was often very close to being suffocated by my pillow…

We bought a white noise speaker thing from Amazon a few years ago and use it every night. It’s great.

The last couple of years have been a killer for me since my lad started nursery. I had covid at the end of Sept, tonsillitis first week of December and then a stinking cold at the end of Dec. I started with a raging sore throat again yesterday. I seem to get hit way worse than my lad or the wife when I inevitably catch it from them (I work from home and generally have little close contact with others & Wife goes into the office 5 days a week).

That being said, although it’s been a rough few months it’s waaaay better than last winter which was just one cold / virus after the other from Oct – May.

I have gen 2 atom and it reacts significantly quicker than the gen 1 to resistance changes in ERG mode. I think that’s the biggest difference.

Power readings can be way out though and inconsistent compared to other Wattbikes. The power readings are consistent to themselves though so not really an issue unless you’re using multiple power meters (inside and outside). I just use my power meter pedals on the wattbike for consistency

78.3 this morning compared to 78.1 last Friday.

I’m weighing daily and average weight so far this week is still down on last weeks.

Went for a run this morning pre breakfast and came back 77.5kg but that’s cheating 😅

1kg heavier this morning compared to yesterday morning 😅

Think I’ve seen a 2.5kg fluctuation from one day to the next in the past but that was after a really really big ride so probably just dehydration. Probably explains the difference between today and yesterday too.

@FB-ATB

Same goes for calorie tracking. Just don’t track them. You’ll only be cheating yourself.

It helps being a bit OCD about logging these things and I certainly tick that box!

I’m sure everyone has a method that works best for them but I’ve taken interest in a visual food logging app called “Ate”.

Basically take a picture of everything that passes your lips. As a secret snacker I find it makes me feel more accountable, especially as you can connect with others and see each others food habits throughout the day. Nobody wants a log full of pictures of biscuits now do they…

Haven’t really made an effort to loose weight in the past but noticed over the years that despite my watts going up my W/KG isn’t going up…

What’s the script – just add my details to that shared spreadsheet and weigh in every Friday?

That video is horrendous and I’m getting more and more nervous of dogs as time goes by despite growing up with dogs in the family.

I had a surprising interaction with a lady walking a dog the other week. Dogo came running over, not particularly aggressive and it clearly just wanted a bit of a sniff up close. Lady owner immediately apologised and said “I’m really sorry, he’s ok with bikes but you weren’t to know that”.

I nearly fell of my bike in shock!

Probably worth adding that once you get the hang of making a decent coffee you will have completely ruined the experience of drinking a coffee from a cafe 90% of the time!

I bought a Sage Barista Express last Xmas. It was a relatively steep learning curve to start with but easy enough to apply what I’ve learnt to any other machine now.

You have to be a bit OCD and keep all your variables consistent otherwise you’ll struggle to figure out why your coffee tastes the way it does.

You’ll want some scales to weigh coffee in vs coffee out.

Knowing what I know now i’d wish i’d gone for something like a Niche Zero grinder and a Flair – I don’t do milk drinks though.

Ofgem say you’ll get your credit balance back if your energy provider goes bust. I imagine the funds are held in a “client” style account (that’s probably oversimplified a bit) and presumably protected by the FSCS.

I’ve heard people have struggled to get refunds in the past but I managed to get a £450 refund from Shell approved in less than 2 mins via their website recently. Funds turned up a couple of days later. I’ve never had a problem with other providers in the past either.

I worked out my DD based on my last 12 months usage which was to within £10 of forecasted annual estimate from Shell themselves. I just divided the annual cost by 12 and set my monthly DD to that. I just treat my balance with Shell as I would do my own bank account balance.

I don’t understand people who don’t pay by DD as they only want to pay for what they use. Everyone pays for what they use and any residual amount is just left in your energy account that you have access too. By cancelling your DD you’ll probably be missing out on the usual discount that you’d get for paying by DD.

What I get even less is these “Don’t pay UK” people. I wonder how they’re getting on!

Haven’t used iTunes to backup anything in the last 8 years or so. iCloud backup is automatic and pretty instantaneous so always up to date.

Makes sure iCloud Passwords & Keychain is turned on in Password Options. I just transferred to a new (to me) iPhone this weekend.

I’ve had my shakedry since summer. Best bit of kit I’ve ever owned. I’m sure something similar if not better(!) will become available. I’ll look into this new Castelli offering.

Just to add, I also feel safer in winter wearing black with lights on my bike than high vis in the summer… Lots of unlit country lanes around here and cars see my lights before they see what I’m wearing.

Ordered some new bikepacking bits from – https://vapcycling.com/?lang=en

20% off this week for Black Friday on everything. Unfortunately, I then had to pay 20% import VAT on it all…. yay for Brexit.

Only downside is sometimes a feature gets added to an app that you’d like to know about so you can use it. I’ve discovered a few features recently that I wish I had known about sooner and they’ve probably been there months!

I don’t think they cause any real harm. They do leave little brown spots of fly poop though which isn’t ideal and release some sort of musty smelling pheromone but you only really notice if there are significant numbers.

I must have a small gap in a window frame into one of our bathrooms. On a few separate occasions recently I’ve walked in to see about 100 of them on the window…

I’ve since sprayed some of that stuff I linked up above around the window and it’s kept them away. The odd one still makes its way through but then dies before it’s had chance to get any further than the windowsill.

Hovering them up is quite satisfying

I also get loads. It’s very seasonal.

These products work very well

https://www.clusterflyshop.co.uk/

I’ve been using a DHB synthetic base layer recently but dug my merino base layer out for todays ride. It was surprisingly chilly once it got damp from a bit of sweat.

In this order –

1 – Monsal Trail
2 – High Peak Trail
3 – Ladybower (think a large part of this is currently closed)
4 – Tissington Trail (Can be linked to the HPT)
5 – Manifold Trail (Poor surface, narrow and busy)