And with mud and stones to keep it functioning smoothly…..

I’m still sticking to 2x; it means I can ride to my ride, ride my ride and ride home again.

And I know this may limit me when its time for a new bike.

For now though Shimano stuff simply outlasts everything else I’ve tried on the market and a 38 22 (my modification from the standard 38 24, cos it gets me up steeper hills) and a really common 11×36 on the back lets me ride to the Lakes or Cannock or even Morzine, have a laugh with my pals and go for a beer….. thats what its all about I think?

2x just worked.

Remember the days when you could ride up any hill in your small cog at the front and then knock the chain onto the big ring and overtake roadies when you are on the road on your way home?

Jumbo Jim’s at 5 psi – even had to get a digital guage to get the pressure right. They ride so much better on the snow when they’re that low.

The team at my local Evans are great – would you boycott all Virgin products? Michael O’Leary’s Ryanair? Anything from Arcadia?
Its the workers that suffer when we vote with our feet never the multimillionairs who own the stores. The gripe they have atm is with landlords, not the staff.

Buy the bike, buy the pump, the helmet (that you can go and test fit before you save a fiver elsewhere) and go out and ride knowing that if there is a problem, the frontline staff will do their best to help.

Agree with Davesport, though I was the welder, not the inspector and I was not the welder of that weld; I did commercial trailers not bikes

For ‘ease’ of riding, and the fact that it is the Traditional route and totally rideable, I’ve always turned left at Beaconhill Beaches, across some fields that the landowner does a good job of signing the correct route (and during the lockdown propped many of the gates open to be helpful) and ridden down into Warnford past the shark, then up the road climb that is Hayden Lane.
The OWH climb is ugly and between wire fences.
Whilst I appreciate its is the South Downs Way and not the South Downs Road, this is the only place I feel is worth taking a road.

Double for me – can’t face the thought of a train atm.
The tap between the river and the railway was dead last Monday for sure. Just stick a spare 2l floppy bottle in the backpack for that section? Was up on the Glatting beacon zone today and its running so fast. if you’re struggling with the sdwx2 gpx, I can let you have my sdwx4…..that was 5 years ago last week! Thanks to Facebook for reminding me.
Where did the time go?
I took a look at one of the gpx’s offered above and it finished at the old Paradise Drive rather than the new Kiosk, but by the time you get there, who cares? They are so close to eachother.

SDW stuff + wanting to be fast and puncture protected(ish) = Mezcals from Vittoria.

I’m just going to ride to my ride, ride the ride and ride home.

Should give me 230 miles – enough for a few days so I don’t have to go out again

Nobody else from the club wants to come with me, so thats social distancing sorted.

Get ’em whilst you can, cos Mavic may be in a spot of bother…. the Ksyrium Pro Bib Shorts are good for 20+ days in a row of up to 18 hours. They are fit n forget.

OMM bags are designed for running over mountains and are super comfey and incredibly light and with a proper guarantee too! The 10 litre one has been my pick for the Highland Trail and SDW’s . The bag will hold a 2 litre Camelbak too.
I know lots of bags have pockets and compartmentsfor helmets, for keys, for food, for tools and the kitchen sink too. If its all about the weight, the OMM range is hard to beat.

Wow – thats sad cos so often once a company had got the receivers in, it either folds or gets slpit up by venture capitalists.

Mavic make the best bibshorts – their Ksyrium pro with the yellow pad for all day comfort. I will be future proofing my cupboard and getting a couple of pairs in stock.

BBB everytime – approx £45 on Merlin , super comfortable with a great adjustable nose-piece, they have never given me a headache like Oakleys do, and you can get them with a + lens built in if you want. As failedengineer said above, though I’m a nowhereneer.
I’ll be wearing mine for 24 hours straight when I do the King Alfred’s Way when the LD is over.

Brilliant – thanks everybody.

The plan so far is to roll from Buriton at around 0900 – this is the closest part of the route to home, and that should put me at the tap on the Ridgeway between 1900 and 2145. The section down to Sarum will be in the dark so if I can pinpoint the taps before I start it would be awesome.

gpx

I have one hanging in the garage – its only ever done the Trans Rockies – if you feel the urge to take it off my hands in exchange for flour,eggs and wine let me know.

They did an offer on floor pumps (40% off) but it was a fiver cheaper at Decathlon…. they do have some great offers – Salomon Speedcross GTX are great value atm and I’ve not learnt about unethical methods, what’re they up to?

Have you looked at the condition of your shorts? I have been doing a bit of training on the turbo, and not bothering to wash/change shorts every day and got the ‘kicked’ feeling and my aged shorts with baggy lycra turned out to be the source of the problem; once I worked out that I should be doing long hours in shorts with a decent support the problem went away in a day. Cost me £100 for a pair of extra Mavic Ksyrium Pro shorts but I’m back up to 6 hours a day again with no pain.

And thats why I’m staying in! Have got a turbo trainer and not frightened to use it. The readings are correct on my PF device and as I’ve had this for ages , I won’t rush back to the nurse atm, no real point in bothering them right now.

Hey Jordan – can you do a link to the reports please? I’ve had Asthma for a good while and the nurse told me at my last face to face meeting (pre-zombie apocalypse) that exercise induced A is now called poorly managed A. I also got placed on a bonus nasal spray that has done loads to get my peak flow to the dizzy heights of 350 sometimes!
It does show that with proper management, you don’t have limits – I’ve done a few good rides with an inhaler tucked in my shorts over the years!

The drugs do work.

My pal used to earn a living doing this drilling/lightening operation for the fluid power on Formula 1 race cars – the parts were no longer guaranteed by the original makers, but they were capable of lasting the duration of the race. Once the chequered flag flew and the part disintegrated on the way back to the pits, he was happy with a job well done.

Keep to the left – as the sign above says! I do find it amazing that so many folk do not ‘get’ this; we drive on the left, apart from the middle-lane hoggers on motorways, so we walk on the left.

In Fernie (Canada) the kids learn from their parents that they walk/ride on the right and as soon as they see you coming they all move to the right as a herd – there is no dithering or splitting to both sides or moving to one side and then changing their mind!

I always call out “is there room for a bike please?” and then wait for people to decide which side they would like to move to this time before passing.

Now, dog walkers calling out to their dogs to ‘move out of the way’ is another topic alltogether.

I agree, some makes are very expensive though if you amortize the cost of it over a number of years and then factor in the amount of fun you get from it and the fact that the top end companies guarantee the frame for ages (even the bearings if you have a ‘Cruz) then the cost is mimimal…. I am still on a Tallboy thats over 10 years old now and we have been on so many adventures together.
Once you have one seriously overpriced bike , you won’t go back to a second hand clunker.

Met him a couple of times – TD and on the final day of his round the world ride; he stopped to say hi to me in the Butser cutting of the busy A3 and he wanted to get off the road cos it was too busy….. I wish he was riding there today, he would have it to himself.

I’ve been doing the isolation thing for 2 weeks already – not gone mad, not felt my mental health has been at risk, not had to hoard bog roll or alphabetti spaghetti, nor to binge eat, go for stealth night rides or see pals for ‘random’ rides and the biggest problem is getting a puncture on the turbo trainer!
This is not so hard guys – stay home, be creative, learn new routines and pass the day in new and different ways….. maybe bake a cake, make jammie dodger bikkies or a chicken pie?

I’m 90% this will all turn out OK and 10% **** doomsday; lets pull towards the 90% eh?

and thats how much you don’t need tech to help you get better.
That is a good set.

Also, pick a really easy gear and go single leg for a minute, swap legs and repeat for 10 minutes. This really engages core, is bonus training for your ass and triceps.

Once you can get to 4 minutes per leg (using the same easy gear) the corona virus will be long gone and it will be time to go out and show off a new level of fitness to the club.

https://www.asthma.org.uk/coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0zDdE8DLroqnrQszhtcFCPZeN0222gEexDONASHXwRky2-jpwu4WPu_MI

this is the headline site for those are high risk asthmatics…..

dig down and it lists all the doses of all the inhalers that could stick you in the shitlist.

Well, this just in…. I looked at the list of medicines that put you on the ‘At Risk’ list and though I am probably nearer the sharp end of fit people, I am on that list!
I’ve been staying in for over a week now and the turbo trainer can be your friend – work your way through films that you normally would not bother with; I did A Million Ways to Die in the West this morning – its as funny as you like and will cheer us all up from the fact that I am staying inside for the next 12 weeks.
Any left-field film recommendations that are on Netflix will be watched.

4.5 hours on the turbo trainer today – watched all of Ragnarok so its not all bad. You know, this may be boring and dull, but I plan to come out of this half a stone lighter and as fit as ****. The alternative is to sit on the sofa and come out of this an alcoholic.
We are about to lose the right to ride outside (cos many people can’t work out that going outside and playing on bikes is daft at the moment using their own brains), so drag out the winter trainer and get used to it!
No sneaky, trying to beat the system, riding in the dark or going out when its quiet – we only have a few days to develop new habits that will save the country.

Now is a great time to go and ride the trails that don’t get ridden – they may not get ridden ‘cos they’re not very exciting or they are too steep or too brambly, but it means you don’t have to see all the sheeple who are flocking to sites such as QECP or Cannock. I’ve spent a couple of hours looking on OS maps finding a route on the downs with no gates so I don’t touch anything and can keep eating. It means I will be lapping the same area but its still better than the turbo. Not that I mind the turbo anyway.

There was a load of people out today and they didn’t get close to ‘social distancing’ – gates are a great source of bunching up and bunching up is not smart anymore.

Call me a sp*z, but I’d rather ride inside and by myself than put the future of humanity at risk.

The sheeple seem to have no idea of the horrors that are coming and they are coming straight at us all at warp speed.

Orange works better than Stans in the cold – OKO works even better than Orange. Though when I say cold, I’m talking negative 15…… I changed to OKO for this winter and apart from a couple of burps when they tyre is down at 3 psi, its been a winner. Can’t advise for summer running yet, but OKO will be in my summer setups as I change to slicker tyres as the world dries out in the springtime.

Done several ‘nice’ ones and now have a cheap unbranded special from Ebay. I also now have a Topeak Smarthead guage (from Evans as they were brilliant and demo’d it in the shop with me) as every guage on a track pump has been quite vague….. I can now dial in 4 psi on the fatbike or 24 psi on the Tallboy and know its consistent.

Hi, I’ve bits of the Dalton and it frightened me – and I was in a van!. Just done the Y1000 kayak race and I would say put away the saddle, and find a paddle and go see the place by kayak or canoe. White horse is a great town and can help you with boats for sure. Getting them transported back is not a real prob either…..

Bikes are fun but up there the trucks don’t give much quarter and the roads can be hard to ride.

I will go up there again but will be in a kayak for sure.

I found that the Airshot does not have the volume needed for J Jim’s, so an old fire extinguisher with a skinny valve threaded into the top to pressurise the cylinder via a track pump and use the metal discharge pipe over the (removed) valve, and up they go in one go…. as the tyre seats you just release the trigger on the extinguisher to control the airflow.

+ all the usual making sure you have a good tape over the spoke holes – I like Orange Seal tape and OKO sealant as it can go in through the valve later and it can cope with real cold conditions too.

Folk out in Fernie ride a reversed Dilli 5 on the rear wheel for more traction in the snow. It seems to work well though I do think fussing about tyre pressure can make a massive difference too.

100 miles on one wheel.

Close – it needs a disk brake too.

Looks like 135mm cranks so its darn close!

Always wanted a 36er before they become mainstream.

Hmmm, hatching a plan for something daft to do on a unicycle next year….. and the idea didn’t even come to me in a pub this time!

If you love your TB’s, wait till you try Mezcals.

Ah, the ‘Hot Hurts’ as we like to call them…. I get the R thing too and have learnt to keep my core as warm as possible, thus fooling my body into pumping blood to the extremeties for longer. I also use Pogies to keep the wind off my hands and the warmest boots I can get (they are rated to neg 25) and fit flat pedals. I was out twice today, first time in neg 12, then this afternoon in neg 5; no issues with the Hot Hurts cos well, it hurts too much to not improve my kit to prevent it happening!
There are some heated insoles you can get for around £60 from ebay and they last for 3 hours or so for when its really grim.
Ski gloves.
Ski trousers (from Aldi for about a quid) and just manage without padding in the ass department whilst its cold.
Hand warmers/ toe warmers (though I don’t rate toe warmers much as they run out of oxygen to keep going for long)
Stop wearing a traditional bike helmet with all those vents and get a scooter style motorbike helmet…. wear goggles to keep the wind off your face.

Bike fashion will take you so far…. practical kit will keep you riding.

Take all this with a pinch of salt as I wear my bibs outside my shirt in the summer cos it makes me faster at pit-stops!

Fashion over pain; not today.