One to watch with your Mrs.
Or someone else’s Mrs.

PMSL!

Good film…seen it…enjoyed it.

Kindles…the 650b of the reading world 😈 😉

One likes Waitrose, it is the folk wearing red/mustard/orange needlecords that make me chortle….wot!

@andybrad…..not known by us but thanks for the confirmation! :o)

Wasn’t there a chapter in the early Richard’s Book of the Bike dealing with defence against dogs? The first point was to get the bike between you and the dog(s). He then went on to demonstrate how to kill said dogs with your pump! Not sure his proposed technique would work with mini pumps or c02 cartridges though.

Over the bank holiday we were wending our way back home from deepest, darkest Kent. We had decided on a detour to ‘Batemans’ as we had never been there. Nice afternoon, and we left the village.

A few miles on, we were going through another small-ish hamlet and I spotted a cyclist coming the other way. He was fairly hacking along, taking a good road position. There were two cars behind us and that was it.

Behind the cyclist however, was this idiot in a big, shiny 4×4, you know the sort, Clydella checked shirt, florid face, body warmer. Anyway, he was obviously far too important to wait for the traffic to clear.

Neither of us could believe our eyes when he took to the pavement and through what looked like lavender hedges to undertake the cyclist. Hooting his horn and shaking his fist he thundered along. The cyclist nearly fell off his bike with surprise. Where oh where are the traffic cops when you need them?

No one was hurt but I was dumbfounded at what I had just seen. Cue Mrs Slowjo saying I shouldn’t really ride on the road any more! Fortunately, things are less frantic in sleepy Suffolk.

@jekkyl

Weren’t Conti Vert Pros the default answer to every ‘what tyre’ thread back in the day?

Oh how times change!

My Garmin showed 5:35 riding time for the 100. Not sure how that stacked up to anyone else but we weren’t passed by anyone and passed quite a few.

Fun ride. Haven’t seen mud like that for ages. Best advert for riding rigid that I can think of!

My mates gps showed 5:19 so it was one of the two.

I guess that might be it then

Device is up to date!

@scotroutes….no. It seems to be worst where there is tree cover so I guess it keeps losing signal and then sort of making stuff up!

You might have it there. There are a lot of random zigzags, particularly on off road rides. I assume I’ll be unable to fix this then.

Road rides are quite accurate.

Did the 100. We finished in 5:35 (riding time) which was probably a reflection of the heavy going in some places. It was a bit of a hoot, particularly as my mate and I were running Ralphs.

It has been a long time sine I have ridden in that much mud, sort of brought back memories of Mountain Mayhem. Good fun and glad I went. Doubly glad I wasn’t behind the wheel for the long drive back to Suffolk.

Lol re your heavy bike. I think everyone’s was the same. I know mine was as heavy as a supermarket special when we finished.

All in all a good day to ride rigid – loads of fork clearance!

How wet is it down there?

Is it well drained or is it going to unremittingly grim?

Long drive to get there and if it is just going to be a slog it would probably be best to slog round a similar distance at home!

Maybe it’s the Middleton Running (away) Club?

PMSL

I get it…northener’s night. I’m oot!

My priority for this ‘project’ was primarily size so this was the best of the very compact options.

Went with the Bose in the end.

So far, very impressed.

A colleague of mine refuses to even consider buying a carbon frame because nobody offers a lifetime warranty on them.

There are lifetime warranties on carbon frames…Cannondale for example, I’m sure Trek do so that’s two….

I felt the same the-muffin-man as I got bored blatting round the same old trails week after week. Sort of a mid-life trail centre ennui so I tried something different. Still riding offroad but the challenge changed from blasting through artificial singletrack to longer distance stuff in as many different permutations as possible.

On the road….I had essentially hung up my road bike many years ago but have rediscovered it. I now combine the two, doing road and offroad rides each week. I’ll clock up maybe 100+ road miles and 80 odd off road miles in a typical week (at least during the spring/summer/early autumn months).

Mid fifties and no sign of giving up yet. In fact, getting more out of my riding now than at any time since the mid 1980s when I took the sport up.

My card was pinched a while ago.

The thief might have had the sleight of hand to pinch it from me but he was a few links short of a chain in the thinking department. The spending spree included holidays in the USA and a massive amount of clothes, electrical goods etc all of which were bought for home delivery.

I got my card refunded in full, he got a visit from the boys in blue who simply had to wander round to his address and nick him! That was a nice easy one for the Met to solve.

@OP

erm… I have a Reba RLT for sale right now that fits the bill.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-xl-niner-sir9-and-reba-rlt-forks

If that is any use

Caribou….gorn!

Sorry…this sounded like a ‘woody word’ sort of thread.

A quick note of thanks to all who gave me some ideas. We had a really good time and I really must take my bike down next time.Unlike us flatlanders, you have things called hills and they look intriguing!

The museum at Brenzett was a real gem. The sad thing is that I only gave it an hour and a half in the mistaken belief that is all it would take.

That’s the one! :o)

Been away from the computer for a bit!

Bear we are staying somewhere called (I think) Gt Stotting – or similar.

Blimey you lot….more things to do than I can shake a stick at!

Thanks for all the input.

Really looking forward to seeing this!

tick

I had a Bell – no idea what it was called, circa 1985/6. It was bulbous and white with minimal venting. The slaes point was that the little badge at the front lifted up to give you extra ventilation when it was really hot. The aperture was about 3/4 inch square. Made a massive difference to the cooling….not.

Mmmmm beer. Fridays only though and then probably only a couple in front of the goggle box. Sometimes the odd glass of wine. Never felt the need to cut down, even when I was drinking a lot more (many moons ago now).

Hangovers? Haven’t had one of those in years, even after some serious attempts (New Years Parties usually). The best I can do is feeling a bit delicate and off my food for an hour or so.

Getting properly pie faced just isn’t fun any more. It messes with the whole weekend if nothing else. Worse, it gets in the way of my endorphin addiction 🙂

Fine.

Why would smaller wheels be any different?

No chain saw I am afraid as I don’t burn wood but I do have an obsolete multi fuel burner if anyone is interested? 🙂

Thanks all…..I’ll whip out the old pruning saw first then.

Let battle commence!

It is a Heinz 57 type hedge. All sorts in there, beech, privet and loads of other stuff Mrs S knows all about but I don’t. This one is >25m long and there’s another (admittedly in far better shape) that is only about 10m long. It might take a long time doing it by hand!

The main hedge is now over 7 foot tall in places and is coming down inn size bit by bit. It is getting on for 6 foot thick, more in places.

I get my jeans from Matalan. What’s hiuts?

Good name for a pub no? The Crank Arms!

…as GCHQ put STW on the watch list!

Off at a slight tangent here……didn’t a certain Herr Hitler use a similar pretext to Putin’s in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland?

Ukraine in 1943 was a mirror image of the current situation really. Ethic Germans being protected from the nasty Ruskies.

I may be wrong here but it seems that the peace treaties from the two major 20th century conflicts seem to be have been unravelling one by one since they were signed. I don’t expect a replay of 1914 or even 1939, the world is a far more dangerous place now with nukes etc, but it is interesting to see that ethnic tensions still remain in a lot of the ‘civilised’ world and armed conflict has proved a wholly unsatisfactory method of sorting them out.