@belgianwaffle1. They will be fine I’ve used those with an 9 speed XT mech and an 11-36 XT cassette with no probs.

You can if you are using older 10 speed Shimano drop bar shifters but not current Tiara or grx.

Whether a gravel bike is faster than a hard tail 29er is completely dependant on the terrain your taking it on

Down a disused railway or hard pack forest track its likely to be quicker. On super technical terrain it’s going to be slower.

I rode my after work MTB route which is a mixture of technical terrain, lanes and fire road actually some it in Macc forest on my gravel bike not long ago. Time wise it was about the same as it would take on my 29e but I was absolutely battered by the end of it. Depending on your preference that maybe part of the appeal of gravel riding. I enjoy taking a spoon to a knife fight but if it was your only bike it could get wearing.

Gutted had tickets to his last two concerts in Manchester but missed them due to work. He could sing the telephone book and it would sound amazing. Loved the variety of genres he covered. I was listening to this earlier today.

The easiest journey we have ever made from Macc to Portsmouth 4 hours mainly due to lack of lorries heading south. We left at 2pm and missed the worse if it.

Loads of issues on the northbound side so it was just pure luck.

Only issue is the ferry is boarding an hour late.

Not yet, plenty of options though. In winter actually don’t usually drink on rides less than 2-3 hours and if it’s longer I stop for a brew at a cafe or garage. I’ll need two for the summer in France. I can be out for 12 hours on a big day with not many places to top up.

Whats the chance of us getting the Ferry from Portsmouth at 22.00h tomorrow or even getting to Portmounth from Macclesfield tommorrow afternoon

We’ve had Isla bikes and nice Halfords bikes. The Isla bikes were better, the Halfords bikes were cheaper. But we lost more on the net cost of ownership on the Halfords bikes. So I’d say if you can afford it buy the Isla bikes they’ll have a better experience and you’ll save money in the long run but it will cost you in the short term.

Plus they always had a second-hand Carrea Blast/Luna for playing in the street and the park which you can pick up for nothing

@BadlyWiredDog It’s not the Scandal I was talking about. I’ve built two bikes recently, I know what the bike above is and I said exactly what you said in a post earlier. However, it will get ridden on exactly the same trails as I ride my gravel bike when the weather is crap and just a bit slower.

Most of the riding I do from home is Gravel and has been since lockdown. Even though I live on the edge of the peaks and have access to loads of MTB trails and I own a fairly nice road bike. I ride gravel as it’s safer than road biking and MTBing and I have struggled after a series of bad injuries and a couple of serious road bike crashes.

The only time I ride my MTB is with the kids at either trail centres or on holiday as it’s what they do and enjoy. I like the fact you can really press on with a gravel bike so get the workout but don’t have the cars to deal with that you get on a roadride. I’m lucky I have a few routes that hold up in the winter around the peaks plus the canal and local bridleway network to ride when it’s dry.

@intheborders I live in Cheshire and I have multiple all-day gravel rides > 80% off-road from my house and even more a short car drive away.

@Tomparkin Those Surely bars weigh about the same as a small planet.

I have had drop bared gravel bikes since 2014 and for the riding, I do I never use the drops. For me, the flat bar combined with in-board bar ends is the optimal configuration giving a hoods position plus greater control on descents and easier access to a greater gear range. I’ll stick some photos of my new bike in a new thread and get shot down for building a hybrid.

Here’s my Scandal finished apologies for the soup cans, this is as I said for riding in winter and maybe touring the only thing I’m not too happy with is how low the front end is as the steerer is cut short.

Ive done this twice once with an old kinesis decade and I’m just finished off building up an old Scandal with 650b wheels and 2 inch tyres yesterday. I’m into flat barred gravel bikes and I’ve just built a fancy carbon one but I wanted something for really crappy days and for bikepacking that I could strap loads of bags to without worrying about trashing it. I wasn’t going to put 650b on it but I needed to steal the rear 26 inch wheel off the scandal for my daughters bike so I thought I’d give it a go and I was surprised it’s fitted in the rear with 2 inch tyres on. It’s not really a gravel bike it’s a rigid mtb what matters is it does job I want it too.

Here’s the kinesis before I crashed it

The bar ends replicate the hood position on my dropped barred bike.

A few folk have said already but I’d go for prophet. My son has my old one and loves it. It’s now gotta nice of hope hoops, an xt 1×11 groupset and a dropper post on it.

I think we lived off shaped mechanically recovered meat, oven chips and canned peas or carrots. I often think it’s a miracle I don’t have new variant CJD.

Green flag go up to 16 years for foreign cover it our last year with them then I’m going to have work something out for our Caravelle

My riding mate who’s a very experienced cycle tourer did the Argyll trail in 2019, he was still going on how bad it was at the weekend.

We have done a version of this nearly every year for the past ten years. Usually via the long boat to Santander or Bilboa, but we always take at least three weeks. In the mountains we usually stay in either Luchon at Camping Pradelongue (this is a quiet campsite) or the Trois Valleys in Argeles Gazost which expensive and busier but has the best facilities and a water park. Cauterets is great but its a little remote. This year we did white water rafting and there’s a really good tree top adventure place just outside town from Argeles plus the mountain luge at the top of Huatcam. I would say theres more for teenage kids to do in Argeles. Both Luchon and Argeles give access to great gravel riding and some of the road riding anywhere as well as MTB. If you do go give me a shout we were there for 10 days last summer.

We also go to the Vendee every Whit half term i’d say the beaches are better there and the sea is less choppy than further south (there’s a reason why there some much surfing down there) but we’ve had good beach holidays in Bayonne, St John de Mots (really nice) and Noya in Spain.

Turns out that Ros Atkins ran drum and bass nights in Brixton in a former life.

I really enjoyed this only a few days left before it expires.

Ros Atkins

@binners They had them in mine the other day if you can’t get one I’ll go see if it’s still in. On the other hand my shares in Greg’s will plummet.

I actually love some the views at Cannock, particularly on the Monkey trail it’s easy to forget you in a wood in the Midlands

I love hills on the road but I’m heavy so they are hard. I live in the peak last time I seriously trained for them I just started riding as much elevation in as short distance. I eventually got to 8000ft in about 50 miles without any repeats. I find using a power meter really helped I set myself a limit of 200 watts on the climbs (unless it needed more to turn the pedals). I found I could ride all day in the Pyrenees doing this recovering on the descents. You could do the same using a HRM finding the HR where you don’t blow up.

We do 227g a day between us so i don’t think it’s issue.

I tore mine in July, had to put surgery off due to going on hols for three weeks. I managed to MTB but only blues and easy reds.

Scan was difficult to interpret as I had a needle in the top of my tiba left from a previous surgery.

I had a the surgery at the end of October and after some very intensive physio. My physio wouldn’t let me run until I could single leg press 200kg x 10 with the bad knee. I’ve returned to running in the past two weeks 4 mins on 2 off x 3. I saw my consultant last week and both he and the physio have said I’m good to learn to ski, so I’m spending all day Friday at the Chill Factor.

My tear would never have settled by itself as the torn cartilage had managed to fold over itself and every time I used it it ballooned up.

Nah, Just use a MTB shifter and derailleur then you’ve got the option to use whatever cassette range you want. I’ve used an 12 speed XT shifter and a deore mech on mine.

Absolutely the right decision we had a Galaxy and a T5 Caravelle and the Galaxy was nowhere near as useful as the T5. From load capacity, swivel seats parking heater, being able to change in it. We take ours around Europe every summer with huge camping set up 7 bikes and Watersports kit plus 3 kids. You can’t do that in a Galaxy. I wouldn’t be without it, though it fails the MOT every year and cost me an arm and leg to keep going. My central locking went mental last year too @jam-bo It would unlock the passenger door if you pressed the lock button twice, thankfully I have a good auto electrician.

We have had a T5 Caravelle for the past 10 years there are 5 of us. We also had a Galaxy the two aren’t comparable. We take a full camp and 7 bikes plus water sports stuff around Europe every summer there’s no way you could do it in a Galaxy. It costs me a fortune to keep it going it just failed it’s MOT again but I would be without it. Just got to figure how to get breakdown cover for out next year.

We are going to Morzine in it in a few wee hours and

This happened to me a few years ago.

I was at work talking to colleague who’d cycled the length of Wales on one of those sportives. That evening I was chatting to my brother in law about it and how’d I’d planned to do the English coast to coast in a day a few years back but had given up on it because the logistics were too difficult. I hadn’t thought about it or searched on line about it for five years. After he left the first thing in my Facebook feed was an add for the supported coast to coast in a day. That’s too much of a co-incidence. This was prior to house been full of Google homes so it must have been Facebook listening to our conversation.

I used to do it a lot but after a couple of serious accidents I’m a little nervous about Ice but also leaves. Tends to need a good period of snow the roads always seem to be better after that.

HI,

@turneround On the front no problem, on the back we’ve tried both a 140mm and 160m adapter on my Dolan and it still wont fit I’ve ended up ordering a front SLX post mount from the Evans PSA and a rear FM from Bikester. The adapters are currently at the bike workshop, if you can wait until the brakes arrive later in the week I can pick them up and I’ll send you both to try and you can keep the one that works for £5 to mountain rescue

Im doing Duolingo Spanish paid for the family version (not cheap) as kids wanted it too. Really enjoy it it helps if you’ve learned another language as you can see the gaps for example I’ve been doing it pretty consistently since August and they haven’t done verb endings for we or they yet or numbers past 3. If I have to type Juan come Manzanas again I’ll scream.

I had the same problem when I wanted to upgrade my GT Grade to a full carbon fork it has the same steerer. I didn’t bother in the end as the weight saving wasn’t worth the money but if CGS don’t have a top stone fork a grade one might work too.

After by far the worst year in many, walked up-to Ana Cross in the North York Moira and drank some champagne. Staying in lodge, watched some kids movies on Disney+

Now it’s pizza, fizz and the transporter, if it was up to me I’d go to bed but having a Scottish wife we all have to stay up until the “bells”.

Remember this story, they could have done with the help of some lowland rescue

Leeds urban bike park

I’m not sure why you took her for another PCR yes that was always going to be positive due to DNA floating around from dead virus. She can take another LFT today and if it’s -ve she’s free according to the new guidelines or wait till tomorrow and she be free anyhow.

Government advice on ending quarantine early

“anyone ending isolation on day seven is strongly advised to limit contact with vulnerable people, not visit crowded or poorly ventilated spaces, and work from home”

Health Minister on radio 4.

“Health minister Gillian Keegan says the new rules for when people can leave isolation based on testing “will relieve some of the pressure” on staffing in health and social care settings.
”

Must be those outdoor care homes with healthy young people she’s talking about.

You don’t need to sequence to know its likely to be Omicron as it missing one of the markers in the test so on the balance of probabilities it Omicron (some of earlier varients are missing it too). That’s how they know what proportion of the cases are Omicron versus Delta

My friend opened her pub in October, spoke to her on Saturday no where near the amount of customers she was expecting , The bar across the road was empty on Saturday, it should have been the busiest of the year.

She has load of beer that wont get used now before Chistmas and if we end up with inevitable lock down on the 27th it will end up down the drain. Rishi doesn’t want to pay so all Boris can he can say is it’s regrettable.

“We won’t hesitate to take action,” in an interview where he is announcing that he is hesitating to take action.

The loones may have voted for earlier lockdown but they also forced Johnson to end the Nov 2020 lockdown when it clearly needed to be kept in place for longer, resulting in the much severe lockdown in Jan 2020 probably resulting in 10,000 of extra deaths. A quote from this mornings Telelgraph when Whitty and Valance came to the cabinet to present the latest data “The data was trashed by the cabinet, we tore them apart”. So Liz Truss and Reece Mogg are now expert epidemiologist. No they are morons playing politics with peoples lives and livlyhoods. We are now in the worse possible situation with not enough restrictions to stop it spreading super fast but no support for businesses crippled by people limiting their interactions, feels just like March 2020 all over again.

I don’t really want folk to die but as I said I’ve heard from a number of folk this week. I know this won’t be a popular option but some people who’ve been scared into not taking a vaccine by the crap there Facebook feed has thrown have essentially been groomed by the anti vaxers and are in a way cpvictims themselves. I actually think those that create and spread that stuff should be charged with manslaughter. There’s big money in antivax, Andrew Wakefield is now multimillionaire and lives with Ellie Macpherson, not bad for causing the death of hundreds if not thousands of children.