I have two gravel bikes,  a ti camino 11 speed grx with 46/30 front and 11-40 on the back.   This bike has been for 100 mile US type gravel rides,   Blue and Red MTB trails in France which is more like UK gravel riding and huge road rides in the Pyrenees including the circuit of  death from Lauruns to Luchon.     Its covered everything admirably.  I’m put of the 12 speed as far as i can see a 11-40 or 10-40 12 speed doesn’t exist.

I also have a flat barred Dolan with with a 36 at the front and 10-50 out back 12 speed.  The 36 was chosen when as i wasn’t as fit and coming back from injury,  this isn’t as versatile as the 2x,   I’ll probably increase it to 40 or 42 soon.  I’ll see how this set up goes before i’d consider switching 12 speed 1x.

 

With 2x  11 speed Grx you can go to 40t at the back with just a tweak of the b screw.   I’ve been looking for a 10 or 11 to 40 12 speed cassette.   I don’t think one currently exists.  That’s enough for me to stick with 11 speed.

I was giving a lecture at the hospital last year and strayed onto it by accident.  Was expecting one but didn’t get a fine.   like Binners i was on it for about 20 yards.  Looks l had a lucky escape

Mine did this long binned them though wisj I’d kept them now

The missus snapped her ACL and tore her MCL and the end of Feb skiing.  She is super strong and was cycling 100 mile road rides in May.     She had it reconstructed 8th June and had just climbed her first col in the Pyrenees today.   She’s not MTBing or walking in the mountains this holiday as she is only 10 weeks post surgery she’s 51.

She has had it done as she wants to be back skiing next season.    Personally i don’t think the risk is worth the reward so many folk I know seem to get injured in “freak” accidents.

If you jumped in the car you could be in Marple in 15 mins or Hayfield in 30 mins plenty of riding around there and then head home via the Woodhead.

I worked 20 hours a week in Wilco in the Crossgates Arndale as it was in 6th form.  I did the kitchen and garden.  At the time they didn’t have barcode scanning checkouts.  So i’d count all the stock on the shop floor and warehouse and then the new stock would come in 2 days later and I’d put it out on the shop and then put the rest back in the warehouse but the system didn’t work very well and we end up with tonnes of stock that we could sell when people counted wrong or missed something in the warehouse that you then could never shift,

Trailforks is well used in Spain and have gravel but virtually not existent in France.     I’ve used Wicloc in France for road routes and it’s been great but not tried it for gravel.    They have started adding gravel routes to the FFC website but also you should be able to ride any of the blue routes on FFC VTT on a gravel bike and probably many of the reds.

As stated above Vendee is amazing for gravel riding tonnes of routes on the Gravel Vendee Facebook group,

I wrote a long post on my phone but lost it the bottom line is don’t rally worry about it unless your really serious about training and even then i think its only useful for warning that your overtraining when taken with your HRV.

Here’s some of  training load figures from my Garmin from the past few weeks

100 mile gravel ride lots of climbing but taking it easy,  9 hours pedaling.   140

Zone 2 1 hour at 200w on the Wattbike   140

27 minutes Spinning  170

1 hour Hilly 7 mile run quite fast for me 245

19 mile Zone 2 run  241

To me the 100 mile ride and 19 mile run were much harder than the shorter sessions but from the Garmin algorithm the loads are about the same, as it is heavily weighted towards time spent in the higher zone.   Unless your are training a lot  or really hard , its easy to slip into the unproductive zone.    I notice that my group rides with mates sometimes barely register the last one was 2 hours gravel but was very easy and the load was just 62.

I went to Salford quays at the weekend to see how long it would take to do the Ironman Swim 3.8 k. I decided to do a couple of extra laps so ended up doing 4.5k in 1h 55.  Really enjoyed it and got into the groove.  I didn’t stop for food or drink but had a big breakfast earlier in the morning and couple of gels before getting in.  Any further and I probably would have had to get something.

Highlight of my least favourite Smiths album

I have the decathlon one and the drop stitch floor makes it much more rigid than a standard inflatable kayak. Also it is much easier to dry than the decathlon non-drop stich ones. It is quicker to inflate than a sup board so if you are used to that it shouldn’t be a problem.
I was going to say they are usually cheaper in Europe but with the offer on at the moment, they are about the same price. I’m going to get the bigger one this year and that’s currently 399 Euros in France vs £499 in the Uk. May sure if you get the oars from Decathlon you get the wider ones.

There is way marked biking around Laruns, Arrens Marsous and Argles Gazost. You cn get route maps from VTT FFC website. There’s a bike park half way up the col de tourmalet and I’m sure there’s in Lourdes as well.

I built my wife one of these for her 50th. Used a bargain freeranger frame some wiggle carbon wheels and rival XPLR / gx axs mix. Fit in board bar ends to replicate the hoods position.

Prior to that she had the Boardman hybrid pro which was a great bike.

I’ll stick my head above the parapet and state I’m one of the 1% who will benefit from both the change in annual allowance and the lifting of the cap. Recently we’ve been lucky enough to be able to put the maximum allowance in both mine and my wife’s pension with the aim of retiring with about LFA in both. I acknowledge that makes me rich, but we prioritise this over other things. I suspect I have one of the lowest car/mtb value to salary ratio on the forum.

In theory I could change the ratio of how we split the pension payments to get me out of paying the 60% tax between 100-125% as it doesn’t matter which pension we build up now as there is no limit. The risk is that labour will reimpose the limit and we end up in a worse position so I won’t do anything until we see what labour plan I suspect they will reintroduce a limit but higher than before. From a personal point of view I don’t agree with the changes as I don’t need a tax break.

I would say it’s not just consultants that are hard to retain or recruit. I work for one of the worlds biggest companies doing work that saves peoples lives and have just run two global recruitment campaigns from the level below me and the one below that both offering six figure salaries and I managed to get 3 people 1 in the UK 2 is the US with massive salaries uplifts over existing staff to get them. If the cap is reintroduced I will consider retiring earlier or going part time. The people that could replace me externally are likely to be in a similar position and either not want to work or need huge compensation to make up for the tax hit.

I’ve been working on GLP1s and GLP1 dual agonists for the past decade. Semiglutide is good but Lilly’s GLP1-GIPP agonist phase 3 results were spectacular.

The interesting thing about these treatments are they all influencing hormonal pathways. Similarly gastric bands don’t work because they shrink your stomach they work because they change hormone levels.

Poor diet especially excessive sugar and carbs screws up folks hormones whether its insulin or hunger and sesiaty homromes which drives further obesity.

I did mine running July 2021, I couldn’t run a step or walk up and down the stairs but I was cycling a week or so later and did three weeks of easy MTBing in the Pyrenees that August. I decided to have surgery as it wasn’t improving. I backed off prior to the surgery on the advice of the consultant which I regret as I lost a lot of fitness. I had surgery late October and was back on the Wattbike a few weeks later and easy MTBing by Christmas. I do as much as you can to keep fit and the leg strong as it will make your recovery faster.

One of my mates had his resignation letter in his hand, he was retiring. His manger told him to bin it as that day they were announcing redundancy. 3 months later 1 years gardening leave and 1.75 x his salary. Lucky bugger

Take a look at this guy he’s bikepacked most of the trails in the UK.

My mates did Fort William to Inverness last Autumn one in a pack raft and one on a Paddleboard. I’m sure I would be much easier in a kayak.

Is there anyone who does this in Cheshire/South Manchester. I’ve got a really good condition Voodoo Bakka I want to give away.

"We asked 100 people to name something a homeless person might do.
You said work in business.." pic.twitter.com/X0WdwC7Qgx

— Jon de Plume (@MrJonDePlume) December 24, 2022

I wonder how many people here moaning about the price of the Christmas lights have what to most people have ridiculously priced bikes. £190 was the price of a GX cassette a few months back.

When I read thread earlier I had check with the wife how much our lights are as wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d have been £200. Turns out they were £50 reduced from hundred in the January sales.

It certainly didn’t fly in the Panto this afternoon.

I went out at 6am yesterday gravel riding even double bagged in ski gloves my hands were frozen. Looking for heated gloves on Amazon tonight late Christmas pressie

I may do the road coast to coast in a day and I really want to do the gravel route to the top of the the col de tourmalet and on to the the observatory at the top of the pic du midi.

I use a coospo too no problem with my iPhone 12, iPad or Apple TV and galaxy s9 and various Garmins.

Bruce has stopped due to his health issues. There’s a video by Red Letter media going through all these really bad movies he was making. They released it just before it was made public he had aphasia. It makes sense now that he was trying to make as much cash as possible before he became unable to work.

We have one it’s OK can’t have a high flow as it’s won’t heat up enough. Ok for washing face

We have a hive and I’m just in the process or installing the Hive TRVs in most rooms except the kitchen dinner which is the busiest room in the house which will be controlled by the hive itself.

They are down to £40 quid at Screwfix at the moment. The two I’ve installed already were really straightforward.

I was an extra scan at 50 your balls are even further from your kidneys.

I have a similar thing and I have had it since my mid 20s. It tends to come and go but can hang around for a while. I went to the doctors at the time but by the time I got the appointment it had gone. It tends to appear when I’m run down or have a virus.

I only found out what it was a few years ago, 20 years later, when I was getting a kidney ultrasound and the radiologist did my balls for free. For me it’s a swollen vain (varicocele). Obviously you best get it checked out as it could be something more serious but there are plenty of benign things it could be.

I did the Ironman without touching a bike for 6 months except 2 vomit inducing 2 39 minute spin classes a week. Then only did 6 bike rides before the race, the third ride being 102 miles at around 18mph without stopping which is fast for me, I know its not for many on this thread.

However I was running at least 5 hours a week in Zone 2 and swimming about 4 hours again all in Zone 2 for most of the time before I got on the bike. So I’d say the benefit is transferable especially with some high intensity specific training thrown in.

We did ours 12 years ago put a fire door in the loft but the we painted the existing doors with fireproof paint and fitted strips that gave a tight seal between the door and frame. This was signed off by the building inspector.

@ampthill in an FTP it’s the effort you can do for 20 mins then it’s adjusted to calculate your FTP. I did one yesterday the average power was 258w and my FTP was 245w.

I was reading something somewhere as few weeks ago about income disparity. I can’t remember the exact numbers but in much of Europe the ratio between the richest X% and the median income was 3:1, in the UK it’s now 1:4 in the US its 1:6. The US may have tbe highest mean incomes but it also has huge wealth inequality. All I see is this government trying to push this country the same way.

I ride a Dolan which is exactly the same frame as the Freeranger. I live in Macc but I’ve been riding over to and around Delamere via my boys footy games which are usually somewhere around Northwich. It’s been brillant on mixed terrain rides of upto 80 miles. Taking in the Weaver way, Whitegate Way and the tracks around the forest. It set up with 650b and 48mm gravelkings. I’ve also got a set of road wheels for it, for riding in the mountains in the summer but I’ve only used this set up once and it was good.

My wife has the Freeranger set up as a flat barred road bike with carbon wheels and rival Xplr, she used in this summer in the Pyrenees and absolutely loved it. 44t front with 10-44 cassette is a great set up for a road bike in the big mountains.

Thanks for the reminder need to renew but if Jerseychaz can’t get you one I’ll sort you out

Planet X and On-0ne bikes mostly have threaded bottom brackets my wife has a freeranger built up as a road bike and loves it. Gives you the option to ride gravel and you would lose very little over a traditional road bike

I’ve got a vague plan to wait until I’m fifty in 2024 run buy some fancy Nike trainers and run the the good for age time at Manchester and then jog round in London in 2025.

A few flaws in the plan I haven’t really run for two years and due to multiple injuries and I need to lose about 5 stone plus I’ll be 7 years older. Although I was about 3.10 form at the start of lock down so there is hope.

The ruining club gets a few places my mate got a place the week after he joined jammy sod.