Looking forward to starting this. Thursday is my group ride day but I’ll join meet-ups when I can.

I thought I was fairly fit until I got everything including my ass handed to me on the races… based on that this is probably a bit above me but hey, gotta start somewhere.

Have to ask, if you want functionality which works better on an android phone, why exactly did you buy an Apple product?

iPhones do everything they are designed to well. Android devices on the other hand do more stuff but it comes at the expense of how well they do some of that stuff.

Personally I find iCloud way better than dicking around with USB. I do however have a lightning card reader for my iPad and that works really well.

I currently run the Signal Ti, bought with very much the same idea in mind.

Currently on canyon cheapo 30mm rims and 2.35 Nobby Nic that came on my other bike – it’s fairly quick although definitely not nippy. Wheel weight is a factor here though. Next up I’m getting two wheelsets built. A lightweight 25mm XC set for gravel/paths/being fast etc and a 30mm set for the trails and peaks. I’ll use the same hubs so they can be changed over with minimal adjustments.

Currently got a 34t upfront which pairs nicely with a 10-51 out back. Don’t feel like I’m short on gears although when I get new wheels it might… but it’s got room for a 36 at least so there is more scope there.

One of my main issues with the bike is it definitely likes to run light up front while doing any climbing – price we pay for the ability to be a bit of a hooligan going the other way!

Did a good run late last year, including going out as photographer for a short tour and finishing up with a nice Christmas gig. It is super rare that is do January gigs, but currently waiting for my first gig of the year to be cancelled due to travel issues for the band! Brazilian band touring Europe…

The answer is ‘it depends’

It will absolutely charge the laptop.
It may not, however, be able to provide enough power to run the laptop meaning even in use it will operate as if on battery and slowly drain. The laptop software might also piss and moan about this.

Check the specs of the laptop, it may have been supplied with a 90w charger but it may also only need 60w.

Finally, the monitor will only deliver its maximum. You won’t kill it so it’s safe to give it a go. Try it out and let us know.

I think I’m in.

Struggling to get availability for the races so this could be something that’s both social and flexible timewise.

I’ll start by confessing I am not a driving god. I can, however, get out of a skid reasonably.

Modern ESP is awesome, early incarnations not so much. I had a fairly early E46 BMW and the ESP on that was an absolute menace to anyone who had a slight clue how to recover a slide. Me included. Damp road with some camber and an enthusiastic right foot cause the rear to step out… eased off slightly and a dab of steering into it and all seemed well right up until the esp light came on and the car snapped the opposite way into a spin. I would have expected some fishtailing at that point but it was like an anchor was thrown out one side. Conversations with other owners revealed this was not uncommon.

Strava? I’m currently in Costa Adeje on Tenerife, went for a wander today & reckon we’ve walked about 3 miles. Strava says we’ve done 7, the vast majority around the hotel. I did at least 1 mile sitting in a restaurant down the road.
What’s that all about?

@esselgruntfuttock what device?
If you sit still indoors with a gps running it looses some satellites so gets less accurate. Whenever it grabs a gps signal accuracy changes and it records that as a movement, some of these can be a few meters, some can be much more. Strava probably looks like a scribble over the restaurant.
Phone in a backpack? Yep, same accuracy issues happen there too.

Hotspots are hotspots, WiFi protocols are device independent. The device connecting has no real concern about the device providing and vice/versa.

Regularly use my window pc on an Apple hotspot.

Strava routing is a mess around me at the moment. They switched to a different map provider a few months back and since then it is generally crap.

I used to find it worked a treat at plotting routes which were open to cyclists but didn’t exist as a path. I believe it used the heatmap as a source. Nowadays, not so much.

Sure, I can update openstreetmap, but it takes upwards of a week for that to sync to the strava mapping provider. Plus I think we have some local grumpy walkers actively removing cycle access from openstreetmap where access is confirmed as permitted. Solution, I now plot all my routes as hiking. Or use Komoot.

Boom! Dead Last!

Although had I not had to pause just over 6k from the end to deal with an idiot greyhound who had done an idiot thing (which happened to be the best thing ever for him) on a walk and needed manhandling on his return I may have actually not been last… dog like four legged mammals are dicks.

Still my only goal is to finish every race so… thanks for the race!

If anyone wants a slow group form up on me 😂

Genuinely interested in why it was an utter disaster.

I also picked up a kickr to use with my MTB and while it took some tweaking the trainer difficulty I find it very good.

Phone gps is crap compared even to my older garmin watch.
Watch (and edge 530) screen is crap for viewing maps
I can see benefits here.

Working this evening but I’ll be on for race #1 (and both if I find I don’t need to work after all)

I think the answer is ‘it depends’

I too like IPA. I’ve had some small batch brews that are absolutely delicious and other which are decidedly mediocre to my tastes. I am fortunate enought to have Black Iris brewery just up the road and they brew many a beer to my tastes. I can also buy Vocation beers from tesco – I often buy them direct through as I think they are a great middle ground brewer – small enough to stay interesting but big enough to be cheap in tesco.

Coffee. Oh I’ve had some expensive crap and right now I get on really well with Sainsburys colombian beans – really nice for not a lot of money. I don’t think I get even twice the flavour out of a bag three times the cost – certainly not for a ‘daily brew’

(exception, Elvis Juice I like).

Even after they changed the recipie? I found it took on the same insipid taste as clockwork orange which was very disappointing, it used to be incredible.

The biggest issue I have with the sealskinz is the sizing. They do 6-8 or 9-11 and as a size nine the bigger size is massive and the smaller size won’t stretch enough.

Picked up a pair of gripgrab waterproof socks and they have been quite excellent so far.

Having had a car anxious dog in the past there is no product we found that, when used correctly, works. Anything that does work is basically a sedative and should probably involve a conversation with your vet.

When you say shortly, how shortly do you mean?

What sort of work have you done with him in the past to improve his car anxiety?

@northwind it sounds like you have my ideal legacy…

I had a fresh import 2007 twinscroll for a couple of years. Absolutely blinding car, until you want to do anything to it. I found that it’s pretty much impossible to run an import legacy without wanting to meddle a bit and that is where it started going wrong. The 2007 onwards had different wiring than previous years so the usual ash cruise control mod was near impossible for an average diy-er. It also has extra emissions gubbins in the engine that fail frequently, and are also very difficult to fix for the average diy-er. And expensive. I worked out I would need to spend a few thousand to solve the various issues and add lpg which means sadly it had to go.

Despite what the loony left here

Others have countered your attempts at making a point far better than I, but this specific phrase cannot go unanswered.

When you decide it’s ok to punt insults at everyone with a different political position to yours, any point you attempt to make can and should be treated with the contempt it deserves. We should be above than the social media driven generation of political name calling. Be better.

I think there are a couple of choices

First up, get whatever watch you fancy and use the broadcast heart rate function to add HR data to your 830 stats

Alternative is get a fenix pro that offers extended display on the edge and use the fenix as your primary device.

“Ok Google. Take a photo”

Nah. No thanks. Not having that crap turned on just in case I might want to say it repeatedly on a windy day in order to take a photo.

‘Use a phone’ is an absolute pain in winter with gloves on.

So I use a Fuji XF10 which a a very small camera with 28mm equiv lens and an aps-c sensor. More importantly I can power it on and take a shot with the thickest of gloves on.

Prior to this I had a Sony rx100 va which was also very good until the light levels dropped during glove season.

I’m using my old 26″ mtb on my Kickr and it works adequately.

I decided against using my main bike because I couldn’t be arsed with the removal/remounting every other day.

On my old bike the forks don’t lock out so that causes some bounce while sprinting, but otherwise everything is usable but not idea. I’ve removed the brake levers to give me some more room on the bars, mainly for different positions. I am looking at a set of barends to mount inboard for another hand position.

Thanks Robbo. I spent 15 minutes howling at the ipad because I thought I’d done something wrong (first ever race you see) then realised there were many grumpy zwifters in watopia tonight.

Still, had an hour spare so used it. At the very least I’ve now proved I can do an hour on the trainer

Not fitted minde yet but I picked up some 6100 brakes this time last year which were a similar setup. The worked pretty well straight out the box. Did a lever bleed after a few rides which just formed them up a little.

Monthly payments are just an approximation based on predicted usage. I would urge anyone to calculate your own usage and work out what you need to pay.

My annual consumption hardly changes, so it makes it quite easy to pop the unit prices into a spreadsheet and work out what my bills would be.

Additionally if you’ve already had a notification that you are using more than you are paying, get ahead of the curve and start paying more (unless of course you have die. The sums and know it will balance out in summer)

Edit: Plus as they’re all made in China I suspect the UK has given the Chinese Army the capability to remotely disconnect all domestic energy users in the event of a confrontation…..

Nope, absolutely not. The level of security applied to the smets2 meters being rolled out currently is immense. They are well protected and the steps a supplier has to take to communicate with a meter leave no room for a mass takeover by another state.

Thanks. What do you think of it? Worth the money? What did it replace?

@stumpymark I’m impressed but then again I may not be the best judge here as it didn’t replace anything (other than my wet weather gear…). I have ridden on a kickr core before and it feels no different. It’s my first smart trainer and one of the few that looks compact and easy to move. It really is rather small compared to the competition…

Yup, like those before me I came down to the comments to say what a cracking article.

We should all take time for a Nanduro of some sorts this year.

I have just bought the Kickr.

Main reasons I chose it over the core was the ability to fold the legs away so my rig takes up less space. I also like the idea of not having to faff around with calibration and the slight rocker action on the feet.

The blue bits look nice too…

As a dog owner I suspect OP would find some way I am entitled. I’m also a cyclist so double whammy there.

This scenario… well the non entitled dog owner would ensure their dog is at heel and simply stop, allowing the pedestrian to pass.

As a dog owner I am responsible for the safety of my dog as he is not alway bright enough to look out for himself. No responsible dog owner is going to choose to step onto a busy road with the creature they have put so much effort into training to stay on the pavement (unless crossing the road).

By wishing down owners into the road you are putting that person into more danger than you yourself would be if you just stepped into the road. Seems pretty selfish tbh.

Having literally just set up my old 26″ bike on a smart trainer to try and get better, consider me interested. I’ll sign up to Zwift and see what I need to do to get FTP… (I’m that much of a noob)

Whichs version/size ATX did you get? ie is this 26″ or 27.5?

@mugboo I had a 7th generation Accord (2007) and it was a brilliant flawed car. Huge. The 2.4 petrol was a belter of an engine and I could get quite good economy out of it considering the size of the car (40 on a run).

Is it the 7th or 8th gen Honda you are looking at? On mine the tailgate worked fine, but having both the tailgate mechanism and the switch as electronic meant if something did go wrong you were shut out of the boot. Funny story, if the reason your electronics are not working is down to a flat battery, and your jump leads are under your boot floor, you are stuffed.

There was play in a couple of drivers seat bushes. Not much, but enough to mean it rocked very slightly when braking.

I would probably still have that car today had it been the type-s but the se is not a looker. I would totally have another one though.

No advice but a few questions to consider…

If a dealer is selling the car with those faults or service requirements, and another fault comes up post purchase, how do you think they would handle it? Surely a low mileage vehicle with a few niggles would command a higher price (and higher than the cost to put right) if there were no niggles.

Low mileage cars. It could be as simple as the car has seen little use due to covid – but it could also have been a 2 miles each way school and back kind of car which is far less kind to a vehicle than racking up motorway miles. Id rather buy an immaculate 80k car than a scruffy 50k one.

I currently drive a 2018 Octavia 1.5Tsi. It’s surprisingly good.
The infotainment thingy is separate from the heater/climate controls (huge consideration for me) but still plays nice with my iPhone. I get 50+ mpg on a run and the seats are damn comfy too.
But there are loads of electronic doohickeys that could well go wrong…

DO NOT BUY THAT LEGACY

I say this as someone who ran an import spec.b legacy as a daily for a while. Absolutely belting car, properly quick and a for an estate it is a real hoot to drive. Love ‘em, brilliant cars. But you either have to become an enthusiast or be comfortable with the cost of motoring going up dramatically. Your garage round the corner will struggle to a) get the right parts and b) work out what is wrong in the first place. The particular variant of the engine in those cars never made it to the UK in a production vehicle and due to being a high compression ratio needs high octane fuel. 99 minimum. You can get them mapped to run on 97 but without a specialist remap it would be suffering pretty bad knock which destroys them over time.

I also struggled to get more then 32mpg out of mine. A car for the motorist who has deep pockets.

contact them and explain you’ve been given too much money and how do you hand it back.

Problem with this is the payment isn’t actually coming from Santander – well it is – but on the bank statement it will show as coming from either an employer or a company who manages their payroll. There is no-one for the recipient to contact directly to give it back – other than their employer – who would be equally in the dark.

Move it to a different account and when asked for it back, give it back.

It would not be my money, so I move it to an account which cannot be spent from directly in order to keep it safe. Duty of care and all that.

I saw the thread title and thought I’d just pop in and say ‘yes, you are’

I generally can’t stand selling stuff, not because I am a hoarder (although I am) but because dealing with people who mess about just pisses me off.

Last round of selling stuff most people were great through. Facebook & Gumtree I tend to favour buyers who can type actual sentences out and don’t open with ‘will u take £x for it’ – and yes I am aware that could be a bit of snobbery but at the same time it has mostly served me well.

I always make sure there is a time window for collection agreed up front, and if they are going to be late they should let me know. If anyone else contacts me I will say it’s being collected at X time but if they don’t show I’ll get in touch. Sold something recently where they guy had been to pick stuff up at a time he agreed only to be told it was already sold.

It suprised me just how much the bottom had dropped out of the 27.5 market when I was shifting some gear recently.

Might be worth giving tftuned a bell and see if it is something they can do… would at least answer the ‘is it possible’ question.