I’ve been MTBing for 36 years, back at the begining it was a bit of a novelty, but now we have some very big companies making large sums of money from this activity. Race teams of all sorts of descriptions, yet the people who pay for all this, the purchaser of the bikes mostly ride on local bridleways where no money is hardly evident, we are not spending our time at trail centres everyday.

Unless the press side of MTBing gets more involved so that more of us know about groups like OpenMTB then we are going to end up where we are now.

It was planned if you watch it in slow-mo, he stops turning the pedals just to balnce himself for the push. As previously said probably the most violent rider in the peleton.

HR zones are worked out on your max HR, so as long as you have the correct Max HR you don’t need to change anything.

If you have been suffering from long covid it is wise to take it easy as high levels of exercise make it longer to recover from it.

Inov8 Roclite 290 v2, I have these but I also have a pair of Inov8 Roclite G345 GTX for hiking, so far I have done just under 600km in them with hardly any wear. Both of them have the same sole, seem to grip on any surface you throw at them.

When did you last shop in Aldi, those bars have been £1.49 for some time.

In the last 50 years since the age of 20 the lightest I’ve been is 58.8kg and the heaviest 62.5kg, 59kg at the moment, but plenty of exercise usually 6 mile walk each morning plus bike riding.
My Gamin says that I’m doing between 160 and 290 minutes of exercise per day. Don’t how people have a struggle to do 150 minutes per week.

Back in the mid 80’s we use to ride the Surrey Hills on rigids, so I would happily ride anything from a gravel to trail bike there.

Vortex Diamondback are one of the best at that price.

These for lightweight https://www.uttings.co.uk/p131945-vortex-diamondback-hd-8×32-binoculars-db-212/

These for a bit more heft https://www.uttings.co.uk/p131944-vortex-diamondback-hd-8×42-binoculars-db-214/

So what is the external width, usually deduct about 5mm for internal.

Never had more than 27psi in an off road tyre in the past 35 years. Gravel bike 40mm are in the mid 20’s, 27.5 on the Bird 18-20 front, 20-22 rear, lower for mud higher for rocky.

As the US is not part of Brexit and they have seen the same increases in prices.

Aluminium is up 15% since the start of 2020, rubber up 50%, steel 20%, cardboard 10%, container shipping forward year 40% spot container up to 250%.

Then you add shortage of labour in Taiwan because they can’t bring in cheap labour from surrounding countries, so lobour costs have risen.

On top of that some US companies, because of Trumps tariffs of Chinese goods had shut some of their production and moving it elsewhere.

On top of that there is a boom in sales 60% UK and over 100% USA, that means a shortage, a shortage nearly always sees prices rise.

And finally can some people stop name calling others because their views are different from their own.

I thought this was a good read a few months ago, though it’s for e cargo bikes.

https://downtown-ebike.com/en/the-best-cargo-bike-review/

I have a Bird full susser and I was looking today at the Zero AM but it looks like they are running the stock out on these and only going to supply 29ers in the future. No small frames for me.
The Ragley Mmmbop is almost the same geo, or the Blue Pig in steel. My view is I’d buy a Mmmbop and as parts wore out upgrade them.

I just watched a Fieldfare shoveling down some snow.

The only other machine that I know of which is simular is the Kubota KX019-4.

I have a CTEK MSX 10 on my motorhome as the onboard charger packed up, it came with plenty of cables so it could be plumbed in. But at the same time it has an inline plug so I can take it out plug in the crocodile clamps to charge another battery.

I can’t see any problem with just doing it as long as everything is a nice firm fit.

All the warehousing for CRC is done from Wolverhampton, Wiggle sold off all the NI warehouses, they were accused by the local MP as asset strippers.

Arrow XL are a delivery company in Wigan

No mention of Renthal so far

https://www.renthal.com/cycle/

I had a look, specced up a bike and was given a delivery date in mid June.

Considering the kind of roads the OP is driving on I would also add to the list of requirements a decent NCAP rating.

I’m on 3 4g broadband, the router they supplied in tests came out the best, I have a Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 antenna attached. Just waiting for the 5g now.

Have you looked at the maps on your edge 830, mine shows every footpath, bridleway, track and more besides where I live. They are based on OSM.

60 revs and 4.25mph seems to my old 70 year old legs that the hill is not steep enough. Also I’ve found that a 38 is a good choice if you are riding more towards mtb than touring with a gravel bike.

So I went for my daily 5-6 mile walk today, normally 47-52 floors up and down on my Venu but today 1,139 up and 69 down.

I’ve one of these on my Three broadband router, fixed it to the tv pole on my bungalow.

https://www.4gon.co.uk/poynting-cross-polarised-4g-omni-lte-antenna-4gxpola0001-xpol1-p-7463.html

50-52 whilst sitting down and calm is what I take as resting HR, probably good for a 70 year old. I’m happy that I still have a working heart range of 136 at my age.

The cheapskate answer if it’s only for a few minutes to get in close and get high detail is to put 2 pairs of cheap readers on at the same time. You’ll see a lot of fine detail workers do this all the time.

Nearly a third of all ecommerce in Europe is in the UK. Because of the lockdowns many warehouse/delivery companies in mainland Europe are not coping, German warehouses are full to breaking for Christmas deliveries. This may explain some of the problem, my son had an email a few days ago from a German delivery company stating this.

Welshfarmer, I kept hoping that the tyres on our Ford 5000 would wear out so we could put some of those Klebers on it.

On my trails it was pretty easy to tell what tyres and who was riding from 1985 upto about 2010, but then the proliferation of riders from then on stopped that, now it’s just down to what tyre and bloody hell haven’t seen that one before.

I’ve been running a 60mm stem for over 3 years.

Like you I put a 38 on my gravel and added some Superstar flats, I’ve been riding all sorts of rough terain on the flats for over 3 years with never a problem.

Did you put in your own max HR or did you let Garmin do it for you.

As already said the 220 method is wrong. I’m 70 and my max is 186, I use a Garmin Edge 830 for my rides, I also have a Garmin Venu which at high levels of activity is running 10-15 beats lower, I have ridden at a consistant 165-168 for 30mins but the Venu is still off. So your Vivoactive 4 which has the same monitor could be off, I even shave my wrist under the monitor which gives better readings, and where the hell does all that hair come from when you get older, one day I have visions of waking up and looking like a Silverback.

This is a better bike for the money, https://www.wiggle.co.uk/vitus-nucleus-29-vrs-mountain-bike-2021

So you think 5mm is going to make a difference in a rut, well riding MTB’s for 35 years and being a farmer I know a bit about ruts and riding along them.

Back in the mid eighties I was lucky enough to ride with 4 people from 4 different companies who were designing and building MTB’s they tried all manor of crank lengths 165mm was the least favoured. But at the same time in winter riding some pretty rutted tracks with some bikes with 175mm cranks didn’t seem to slow their progress.

If you are getting a lot of pedal strikes, that is more rider error than cranks that are too long. You need to anticipate the ground underneath you better and get the pedals out of harms way.

Loosing 50g in weight is not going to make any noticeable difference to the bike at all.

Well it could get confusing as I already have a Freedom Pass, it’s what London Councils call a bus pass.

Sorry to be a spoilsport there is no such thing as a winter tyre, they are designed for conditions.

You could use a softer tyre in the winter as they become harder in colder weather, more noticeable below 5 degrees.

I’ve had two windows updates in the past month on my desktop, both took a couple of minutes and no problems. Had one update on my laptop, about 5 minutes and no problem.

Sounds more like you need to backup and reinstall to have a good clearout.