Piddling down with rain first thing and still blowing a gale for most of the morning. Took the 29er winter bike out to test ride its new fork just before dark. Still very windy.

Couldn’t get any spares for the M29 so it has been rigid for 6 months but now switched to a new/old stock Tora which should be serviceable when needed and seems both lighter and more comfortable than the M29.

As to the trail riders or the crap nature of the path? I have re-edited the post and can’t remember what was in there first. I have some photos on my phone of the trackway and will try and get some better photos next time I am up there. As to the trailbikers, discretion was the better part of valour.

Thanks all. Cheeky Monkey has helped bring it to the attention of the relevant Forestry Commission and other local Officers. I’ll bear in mind the section 56 information and go there if I have to.

I have got quite a bit more information as to who is responsible than I had when I first posted but the worst section seems to relate to abuse, first by 4×4 vehicles and since access to them was restricted, by trail bikes such as those I met last week. I didn’t really feel like discussing their illegal access with them at 0730 on a Sunday morning given they outnumbered me 8 to 1 and we met in woodland, in thick mist and a mile from the nearest habitation. I’d have tried to remember a few registration numbers but they had saved me the trouble by not bothering to display any. 😕

+1 for cheap Samsung mono laser – run alongside cheap epson inkjet for colour printing photos and kids homework etc.

Your hooks will be the simplest solution. will the bikes be hanging horizontally or vertically from their front/back wheels. If the latter they are a bit more stable and there are alternative hooks freom a load of manufacturers such as these[/url] including ones from saris with a full length channel[/url] which I went for because of the flakey nature of the garage wall. If horizontal there are supports such as the hopkirk ones sold by halfords which have 2 horizontal supports and still hold up to 2 bikes – there is a folding version as well.

Trick is to try and hang them where you won’t need to wander around underneath. Other need is some anchor points for chains/locks. Oxford ones bolted into walls or a shed shackle if this is a wooden structure.

I use mine as my winter bike/ ride out the drive and see where I get bike. Goes happily on a mixture of road, bridleway and singletrack. I think it will do fine.

Thanks.

Happy to support someone if I can / they feel it would help. Not a personal area of expertise but might be able to point you to the right people or ones that might provide useful advice.

You should have mail

Just done the homework on this. eReaders use E Ink screens that seem to be held to be less tiring on the eye over a prolonged period. There is a colour version of this technology but I ain’t seen one in real life.

Kindle and the other dedicated e readers all use this technology. Your options for dedicated readers are Kindle which uses a proprietary file format that is pretty much restricted to Amazon so that is where you will be getting your ebooks from. The alternatives will read epub and pdf files and usually a fair cross section of others as well. If you go down this route you have access to everyone else e.g. Waterstones and WH Smiths in this country plus all the free books from the gutenberg project and google books, in fact everywhere but Amazon. The cost of bestsellers seems very similar with the presence of competition giving a very slight edge to the non Amazon brigade if anything.

Personally I have just gone for a Kobo Touch – well established Canadian ( I think ) company who have just done an exclusive deal with WH Smiths – and so far I don’t see any difference to the Kindles I have played with except that I am able to source books from a greater variety of places and shop around for the best deal.

I think the Marmite argument is a bit like Rugby – Brits might have invented it, but we made it better.

😀

Another way of saying ‘I was wrong but don’t want to admit it’.

No, No, No, NO

Surely ratadog was making that comment somewhat ironically – i.e. I don’t think he’s suggesting British beer is crap either, but it’s what his Mrs thinks.

YES

That’s what made the post funny.

You are too kind.

By the way, according to Wikipedia, and UK Marmite’s own website, the product that would become Marmite was actually first seen by a Dutchman, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek AKA the father of Microbiology, first identified as a yeast by a Frenchman, Louis Pasteur, and first concentrated into a foodstuff by a German, Justus Liebig.

It’s European?

I was just correcting your (or your wife’s) factual inaccuracy of claiming that the NZ Marmite was the original.

I think you have missed the point.

I know how the good Captain feels.

What do you think original (UK) marmite is made from??

Apologies, I should have said their brewing industry and hoped you picked up the reference to the comment on black sheep/black mac.

Frankly, I don’t care what Marmite is a by product from on either side of the world as to me it all tastes vile BUT the NZ Marmite, even to me, tastes differently vile and has a different consistency etc. It’s closer to Vegimite, also vile. Please note the OP started this thread by saying

What did other peoples better halves think of our English-isms?

and I answered his question. For the record, both myself and my other half are, however, united in our amusement at the response of the STW branch of the Marmite (UK) Appreciation Society, although I still struggle to understand how it being

original (UK)

makes up for it being vile and I, personally, would be happy to let almost anyone else take the credit for it.

British Marmite is the original and crap beer!

Depends on your viewpoint. Mrs R much prefers the NZ Marmite which is prepared from the waste products of the brewing industry and from her point of view is the one she was brought up on. Mrs R isn’t averse to the occasional Black Sheep ( its the wool thing again ) but would prefer a Black Mac given the slightest opportunity.

Can’t play golf…

Can play golf, but since mobile phones invented it’s not such a good way of being “unavailable” for work. Being 20 miles from anywhere on the other hand…….
Do it for the exercise, probably fitter now than I have ever been,
Like seeing my name creep up the MTBO league list,
Like big days out and get a whole load further on a bike than on foot, like the early mornings on the Moors when the only things I meet are deer and foxes
Like the general feeling of wellbeing – ain’t endorphins great

Rode a bike round the garden as a kid then nowt for 30+ years. Got interested in the early 90s but didn’t have the spare money to invest on a whim. Moved to North Yorkshire in the mid 90s and finished up living a couple of miles from Dalby, got interested again and bought a Spesh Hardrock in the end of year sale 2004. Only bike I bought from an LBS, and only one so far that was the wrong size. Dabbled but slowly got more interested and then bought one of the first 456 complete bikes in 2007 and been hooked since then.

She’s thoroughly disapointed with not being able to get decent crafting supplies or weaving equipment.

Mrs Ratadog, a Kiwi, heartily endorses this and says that she appears to be marooned in the only country in the world where “wool” is not as far as she can tell a natural product produced by sheep.

This is also related to her view of the climate as she feels this is a country where the wearing of wool is essential on at least 365 days of the year in order to be slightly comfortable.

The marmite is also a pale imitation of the original, the beer is crap – although supplies of decent stuff are available from a small number of enlightened businesses catering to the marooned market – and as for the lamb well don’t get me, or her, started.

Ditto the NHS scheme.

Remuneration and pensions is always a difficult issue. One blessing of the whole mess is that at least the captains of industry who were queuing up a few months ago to moan on the radio about the exhorbitant pensions being paid to public servants seem to have shut up since it was revealed that the self same captains of industry have had a 49% average pay rise this year whilst their workers have averaged 2.9% and those of us basking in the luxury of public service have seen at best 0% and in quite a few cases a reduction – and yes I know that also happens in the private sector as well.

Fact remains that currently the contributions to the NHS pension scheme do exceed the payouts by about 2 billion per year, the employers contribution is capped so we stand the risk in the future anyway and most importantly the NHS scheme isn’t just about consultants and GPs, nor even about senior managers who do rather well out of it also, but mainly about cleaners, admin staff and chefs who work damn hard over long hours for not much.

The feeling of annoyance well voiced by the OP is prompted by the fact that we agreed to a number of modifications to the scheme only 3 years ago “to make it future proof”. This got very little publicity because there was very little fuss about it. Those changes meant longer working lives and higher contributions and are so recent that they won’t be in fully in place until 2012. To have the government now portray us and the other public sector workers as somehow trying to protect out of date working practices and gold plated pensions that can no longer be afforded therefore sticks a little in the throat.

The very fact that there is no pension fund as such, means that when the additional contributions have paid off the bankers, bailed our Greek friends out ( and paid the cabinet’s pensions which AFAIR are rather better than any of ours ) there is still going to be no more money in the pot to pay my pension in 15 years time than there would have been if I spent my pension contributions on donuts and jellied eels instead – although at least in that case the purveyors of donuts and eels would be saved from penury. I would have more respect for the politicians if they came out and said up front that they were introducing a special higher rate of tax for public employees but I’ll be most surprised if they do.

Saw it last week. Very sad.

120 kilos and using 29er Flows with 2.25 Advents. No issues so far after a year round the North York Moors, wheels on the ground but not going out of my way to avoid the rough stuff. Only issue was finding tyres that fitted. Maxxis were fine, kenda SB8 were a complete no go.

The bridleway behind Fylingdales was already boggy a couple of months ago when I last went that way although the paths round Lilla were fine. I have not been up to Lilla since but the paths that way tend to be a mix between sandy/gravelly stuff that dries quite quickly and knee deep clay/bog. There is some info about drier weather variations here. The bits I have been riding around Wykeham and Givendale at the south end of the moors have remained fairly damp for the last couple of weeks so I suspect its boggy a bit further north as well. Sorry, can’t be more helpful than that.

Agree, best axe depends on task required but go for Granfors of your choice if you want to go for the best around. The Small forest axe is a good compromise as a general purpose axe but the hatchets may be more pack friendly.

As an all purpose trail tending weapon, however, I finished opting for a Fiskars brush hook here.

As illustrated above they also do a good line in splitting axes.

Mrs Ratadog is the sewing fiend in this house. We currently stand at one fairly old Bernina and a couple of Janome professional fairly heavy duty machines, plus a few I don’t know about. ( The answer to the how many bikes is enough question in this house is N-1 where N equals the number of sewing machines.)

For the budget you are probably better off with a Janome as the Berninas at that price are not “proper” Berninas. Janome gave good back up as well when there was a minor problem. Best bet is go and find a decent local sewing shop and take their advice. It probably won’t cost you anything more than buying on line as most of thenm have access to manufacturer’s deals. For a bit of briefing before you go the John Lewis web site has a fairly informative buying guide. If you live in NE Yorkshire we can recommend the Bridlington Sewing Centre.

After some consideration I went for one of the Feedback Sports stands. I went for the pro-ultralight – partly because I am tall. Cheaper and more expensive models are available in the range.

Clamp is good and it is about as stable as a portable stand gets. Merlin are doing them with 20% off not including the extra 10% if signed into their VIP club. Folds down to be easily portable in the car as well if that is important.

Depends where you are going to use it. Obviously if you have a workshop space you can mount a bench or wall mounted stand on and leave it there and have no need of transporting it then there are cheaper options outlined above.

I’m 3 inches short of that but about the same weight. Weight wise, just accept that weight weenies component choice is not sensible and when people say “go for x instead of y because you can save a few grams”, thank them and go for y instead.

My bikes have had decent mid range components with no problems. I have tended to go for beefier rims and accepted that I may have to pay out for replacement springs for coil forks ( which all seem to come set up for 7 stone weaklings) or run air forks at the upper end of their ranges. Size wise I am usually on a 19-20 inch frame.

I’d add to the above list Specialized who seem to do a whole crossection of their stuff in big frames from the Hardrock and rockhopper in 23inch to the Camber 29er in xxl. Should be something there to suit at most prices.

Dreadful

Personally my vote is for New Zealand, if only because that is where Mrs Ratadog will be heading. Wonder what their entrance exam is like?

Apparently this is true- but that’s rubbish, there’s walk-in minor injuries centres at loads of hospitals. And if I want to get my leg checked out I speak to my consultant, not my GP, even though I’ve been discharged.

Agree, subtle attempt to con the johnny come latelys into reducing load on secondary care methinks.

Mind you as I got 17/24 and most here did little better if we all have to leave there may be no-one left to see you when you get to hospital GPs letter or no.

My steel 456 in that blue that was one of the original complete bikes does ( ?2007? )

That looks suspiciously like the world cup course with the possible exception that they appear to be oing straight past the bottom of medusas drop (just aboove where it says worry) and then they have extended the northern part of the loop out where it says staindale and tumulus.

Forestry commission map here

As you can see, the whole of the southern part is open to you. Looks like the bit round adderstone will be off limits but you could still get up to point 13 and then take the forest road round the East of the duathlon area and up to crosscliff and do the section round bickley from point 20 onwards. Failing that just cut accross from point 13 to point 25 and head back down.

Forestry usually fairly good at putting out diversion signs.

Surprised he has made it to the beginning of the week, so no is my answer to your question.

Good to hear.

The current push towards lower HBA1cs is great but I feel it’s become a little bit of an obsession, rather than an ideal.

I agree, although there are plenty of fellow diabetologists who would regard me as a heretic.

Problem with HbA1c is that it varies between individuals for the same level of blood glucose. Where it is helpful is that if you as an individual have a higher or lower Hba1c level than previously then that is a reflection of a change in your overall Blood glucose levels. Unfortunately, if 2 different individuals have identical HbA1c levels they are not guaranteed to have similar overall levels of Blood Glucose and very unlikely to have identical glucose levels. As an indicator of absolute levels of blood glucose it only works for populations not individuals.

Rigid Scandal 29er runs on Panaracer Rampages pretty much all year round. Not true mud tyres but handle most things OK. Will certainly be better than the crossmarks.

tell me it is just one of those things and it will be fine

It will in all likelihood be fine, but it won’t necessarily correct itself. All the above suggestions are possible causes of temporary instability. Don’t know if the unit that started you on the pump put you through DAFNE course or alternative pump training but there should be some guidance in corrective doses etc. either way. Unfortunately, the list of possible interactions both from lifestyle and disease is too numerous to go into here but they can be identified and sorted out. Finally, there may be some issue with the pump itself. Bottom line is that you need to talk to your Diabetes Specialist Nurse or Diabetes Educator and seek one to one advice from someone who knows your case. It’s highly unlikely that there is something going on that they have not seen lots of times before.

EDIT
OP, you reposted while I was typing. You do need to talk to your diabetes team and see if there is a reason for increased numbers of hypos as that seems to be what you are describing.

Report I heard suggested a significant donation to charity as well as significant damages, 7 figure sums in both cases. Don’t see any reason not to take it and I would trust them to do more good with it than News INternational seem to be able to do.

My local patch. It’s basically a triangle, Pickering/Scarborough, Scarborough/Whitby and Whitby/Pickering. Most of it is bridleway/minor roads. The Scarborough/Whitby section makes extensive use of the disused railway line. The sections in and out of Pickering uses minor roads up into Dalby and then either follow bridleways across to Scarborough or turn North and up onto the moors. Nothing that technical unless you go off route into Dalby or on the Moors. Only section I know that is in bad repair is a short section from Dalby east to Wykeham that has been hit by the motorcrossers and is a bit of a pain for a mile or so – happens to be the bit I use the most unfortunately. Either of the legs from/to Pickering is about 20 miles with I guess 600-800 metres of altitude gained and lost by the time you have been up and down the valleys. Whitby/Scarborough is a bit more bland – with Dalby and the moors there is plenty of other good stuff of various types around to explore. Only other comment is that in bad weather the moors can be both soggy and cold so plan accordingly.

Can’t comment on the engine, but have 2 skodas including an octavia estate and been very happy with both of them.

I suspect I can name that bridge in 2. They are both absolutely lethal in the wet.