I think I rode up that valley the other week. I don’t think you are supposed too but it was on the Zona Zero Website last year. We had an amazing week in Ainsa over Easter too much going at work and another holiday in the Lakes have got in the way of posting the photos I’ll put some
on this thread when I get back to home.

I’m now seriously considering retiring to somewhere in the Spanish Pyrenees.

We did a loop of Claife yesterday from Hawkshead. Not tech my but a nice blast and the view from the lake across to Langdale is stunning.

https://strava.app.link/XaKkemtDYpb

Xiaomi mi box s look like a good replacement

We went to Grizedale yesterday forgetting that’s the North Face was shut so did a loop of Claife instead. We just wanted a short blast as we were moving from Coniston to Keswick. Really enjoyed it I wasn’t particularly excited about the NFT.

Im not sure I’d recommend Walna scar to anyone I just didn’t get it. A massive push up followed by a loose boulder strewn descent.

I put a 9-50 on my gravel bike was ok at first but a few rides in started to shift really poorly then somehow between rides it must have held on to the chain and completely destroyed my rear mech. Replaced with a 10-50 gx and the shifting is so much better.

I don’t mountain bike much in the Peak anymore but despite having a massive cull on twitter I still follow you and love seeing what everyone else is riding even if I can’t contribute much at the moment.

Keep up the great work.

I ran a GT grade with two wheel sets for ages. The factory wheelset with 35mm gravelkings for gravel duties and a lightweight wheel set with GP4000 on for the road work really well.

Planning to do the same at the for my new bike but the cost of another wheelset, tyres and and SRAM cassettes is making my head spin.

Jon Ronson did a really good podcast about the Christian right went from not caring about abortion to where we are now.

Link

I fitted those Jet Cranks too no problems at all with them

What about those hope brakes that are designed to operate two calipers one hand

Linky

I bought new cranks without rings recently they were the non series Shimano road with a standards 110BCD. This meant I could still use my 105 power meter but use cheap easily available 110BCD NW rings. The whole thing cost less than a replacement GRX chainring.

If your hifi is under the TV use the TV as a steamer. Coincidently I watched this. this morning

I have a custom 1 bike VW tailgate rack thanks to this missus reversing it into a post. This and a tow bar rack gives us 5 on the back. I have one on the roof and one inside. I attach a ladder to the last bike as well has made putting the bike on the roof much easier.

We have a 2006 T5 caravelle bought it it 10 years ago at 50k it’s just turned 100k. It’s been a money pit usually costs around £1k a year to keep it going, worse year was about 5k when it needed new manifold, turbo and egf.

It’s actually running really well at the moment but even now has a emisión warning light on a it needs some new glowplugs heaters and the drivers inside door handle broke at the weekend god knows how much that will cost to fix.

Wouldn’t be without it and we plan to keep it at least till we retire and maybe even longer by which time there will be viable electric alternatives.

Re watched the Big Short at the weekend, I don’t think we are in the same state as 2008, the affordability critera have been much more stringent since then. It’s on Amazon prime if that still available in Russia

OP here very interesting discussion I take photo to capture memories rather than create art so was convinced not to get any of the cameras in my original post as I have a good enough camera on my phone. However I did put my order in today.

I bought some mid range binoculars and a mid range spotting scope as I plan to do more birdwatching. I bought some Olympus bins last Christmas but they are too heavy so never left the house.

I bought £200 worth of wine only 13 bottles so should be good for the wife’s 50th party.

Finally I bought a FZ82 super zoom. I was still on hols last week and played with both my iPhone and my go pro hero 7 (the photos are great the user experience dreadful) and was mostly happy with the results. But what i was missing with this combo was the zoom so I went all out and got the camera with the 60x zoom. I know it’s image quality won’t be as good as the iPhone or maybe even the go pro but at the end of the zoom range it’s going to look better than a 30 or 60 fold crop from either.

I was taking photo and videos of the boys playing on the the SUP boards and the close up photos look great but when they went far enough out to dive in they were too far out to get a good video from the phone. I did wade it to get closer but it would have been nice to stay dry.

I suppose the killer question is will I ever have it with me when I want to use it.

I have met a couple of lads on crib Coch in flip flops and to be fair they were pretty fast I don’t think we kept up with them. Not bothered who’s on the hills just don’t want to be queuing to get up the mountain.

I don’t tend to walk in the UK anymore we are too busy at weekends with kids stuff. But I do walk in the Pyrenees and the Alps they have no problem sticking a hotel or restaurant on the top of a mountain. There’s a definite snobbishness around access to the countryside and I’ve talked about it on here before. The waymarking and the facilities in Europe are so much better than in the Uk.

We were here last week in one of the most spectacular places in Europe and there’s a large refuge two thirds up the mountain with Camping.

Refuge Perodi

Bizarrely this thread has inspired me to organise a weekend with the family to do Snowdon, Llyn Padarn and Tryfan. I assume that the flip flop brigade won’t be on the mountains at 7am.

I was thinking first bus up to pen y pass at 7am then Crib Coch, Rangers path and Telegraph alley. Play on the lake then camp at the foot of Tyfan. Again head up first thing either come down after the summit or do Bristly Ridge dependant on tiredness/weather.

I bet we don’t have a free weekend before the summer holidays.

Id look at something from Boardman or Voodoo from Halfords (if they have any stock). Even basic MTB these days come with at least 9 or 10 gears. I’ve been using a Boardman MHT 8.9 as my main mountain bike for the past 3 years it was about a £1000. I can do black graded trails on it. My kids both used MHT 8.6 which are about £700 for red graded trails. This would easily deal with your useage.

I’ve been listening to Liquidizer by Jesus Jones this week which I love.

Wedding present Seamonsters I hated it when it came out as I thought it
was a Steve Albini produced racket it’s now in my top 5 favourite LP of all time now. They’d grown up I hadn’t.

House of Love House of Love on Fontana is brilliant just came out at the wrong time. Im going listen to it this afternoon on my ride.

Carter have been on TOTP on BBC4 a lot recently I’ll give the Love Albumn a go as i always loved their singles but never got properly into them.

I was also going to suggest going from 80-87 too.

When my kids where younger we’d follow the blue link from northshore island.

People slag off Planet X but when I ordered the wrong size (fat thumbs) I think it was £75 to change plus £15 to deliver the new one. I did drop the other one off on the way to see my parents which saved money and hassle.

I’ve got the GRX gravel 56cm frame set up as a flat bar and it feels to small for me if anything but you lose loads of reach not having drops and it is low as well might swap the spacers on stem to bring it up a little.

Thanks for all the comments. It been a really interesting discussion. Depending on what happens with my job will probably determine what I do. If I don’t get the new job I’ll probably take the cash and buy a new go pro and a fénix 6 ( don’t tell the wife). If I get the job there no point getting the cash as I’d end up with about £400 from the £1200 so I’ll get the A6400 and a nice spotting scope and sell the A6400 to buy the go pro and the Fenix plus I think I can upgrade to iPhone 13 pro ( don’t want the max).

I think I should just get the best out of the phone I have as that what I’ll always have it with me.

I reflected that I had the DSLR with a nice lens and stopped using it, then I had the RX100 and didn’t notice I’d lost it. I should probably stick to using my phone.

I’ll get another chance to get a camera in 5 years if I make 30 years I’ll be closer to retirement when I can learn how to use a camera properly.

@kayak23 I have been swimming in Salford keys this winter if that counts. Seen a few folk paddle boarding here in just t shirt and shorts but the lake doesn’t appear to be more than 1.5 meters deep and as I said pretty warm.

I’m only using the neoprene here to trial it out as I’m learning and the lakes in May can be pretty cold. I swam a couple of widths if Crummock in May a few tears back and it was about 9c my guide who was in a swimming costume was blue when we got out.

We have them in our Caravelle its getting on now and they were good at first but they don’t really work very well now both are inconstant and the drivers side is getting really difficult to close. I’ll probably get the mod where you can remove all the electric gubbins soon.

I’ve just done my first ever attempt at SUP boarding today. Once I was stood up I was fine but standing up was tricky must have fallen in 2 dozen times as it was quite choppy. We are on a shallow lake near Biarritz so the water must be about 15-17C. I’m using farmer Johns and a neoprene bodied rash vest from Decathlon and i was absolutely fine, also wore neoprene river shoes. Hopefully I’ll improve I’m heading to lakes in May for a week of open water swimming, SUP boarding and MTBing

Ive been mullling it over and I’d come to the same conclusion that the RX is the camera I’m most likely to have with me which is the most important thing.

We have been to spectacular places recently and I felt that the iPhone pictures haven’t done it justice but there again id just stick it on a present as i currently don’t have time to learn photography. No there’s no Fuji option unfortunately I used to have some of their early digital cameras.

The catalogue is mostly rubbish but I’ve just had another look and I could get the Panasonic g80, the lens and some decent binoculars with the award. I had considered the eBay option as I’d get much more back than taking the cash option but it’s too much hassle for me. There’s an new but opened A6400 on eBay now bidding currently at £850. Depending on my circumstances in few weeks I could be looking at only getting £400-£600 cash versus £1200 from the catalogue.

I was thinking that would be the case that the current camera phones would be better, zoom aside, than the TZ.

I’m definitely suffering from target fixation, will probably change roles to address it.

Bored with the kids get new kids, this what we are doing this week and have been doing since they were toddlers.

I’m planning to retire eight years this week. I’ll be 56. We had kids late so not a great deal of point retiring whilst the youngest is still at school and funding the two older ones through Uni. I was originally going to go once the youngest has finished uni but the above threads convinced me otherwise. Plus I’ve watched all the our parents and friend decline so quickly in their 70s that I want to maximise the time I’m actively retired rather than just waiting to die and watching homes under the hammer.

I’m lucky barring anything random happening in the next five years or so we will retire comfortably but convincing the Mrs S we won’t be on the breadline in our 80s is difficult, but I’m working on her

My missus and recently bought an inreach Mini and it’s getting it first use in anger today. Initially we bought it for use on holiday, We often go riding solo whilst the other one has the kids for the day. These can be pretty remote, this week we’re in the Spanish Pyrenees. Last year she had a mechanical here and she had to push her bike for 6 miles in plus 40c heat to get a phone signal to message me to rescue her. I like the fact you can message the degree of urgency with the in reach. We’ve set the preset messages as need help now, need help no rush and I’m Ok as a check in.

I also had an accident not that far from home last year where I was incapacitated luckily I had a signal and I know that if I’d been further down the track there was no phone signal. No reason not to carry it all the time as there are plenty of areas with zero mobile reception once you get out into the sticks just need to get into the habit of carrying it.

Refurb 130 was £80 on Amazon last week. But I’d go for a android phone and backcountry navigator. I lost my 130 over winter and have just switched to a 530 and the difference having a map versus a line is night and day, I did 55 miles ride off road last week and didnt go wrong once I know that wouldn’t have been the case with the 130.

I was working with a company called Quay pharma and I spent quite a long time calling them “kway” pharma. I’d like to think it was because the word was out of context but really it’s because I’m an idiot.

I got buzzed for a job at 10 Downing Street as head of compliance about during lockdown , I’m not making this up. It had absolutely nothing to do with my current role except the word Regulatory. It must have been around the time Cummings was trying to replace all the Civil service with people with other backgrounds.

I Imagine it would have been an interesting role over the last 12 months.

Ignoring the fact you don’t want to use your gravel bike. Id get a second set of wheels,tyres and a cassette for the topstone the days you want to go off-road. You still be quicker on the commute then a MTB and be able to go off road on the way back. Anything you do to make a hardtail faster will make it closer to the gravel bike anyhow. I got a nice set of lightweight wheels and tires for my gravel bike which made it much more pleasant on the road and beefer tyres on the stock wheels to use on rougher rides and that worked well.

It’s 8, looking at the spec the shifter is 8 speed.

I walked it once it was a dull midge fest until Fort Augustus. My mate is planning to SUP board it later in the year not one for me.

I bought my 1st GT Grade back in 2015 solely to use as a disc braked road bike as there weren’t many other options at the time. To be fair the original Grade is little more than that anyhow. I’m heavy and brake heavy and I was constantly blowing tubes on Pyranesse descents. Which was my main use of a road bike at the time. The only problem with it was that one descent of the Col de Tourmalet and I had to wind in the pads on the Spires.

I then bought a sora specced one in the sale stripped it and upgraded it to a good spec, I used that as my main road bike for years it was perfect for me and reverted the other one to gravel and winter road bike. I agree relaxed geometry, discs, and wide tires that you can use on shitty roads and tracks would be best for most folk.