@Bimbler what is the source of your music? You’ve not said whether this is for CDs, radio, MP3 stored on the device, MP3s stored elsewhere on your network or just streaming from a service like Spotify, Amazon or Apple Music, which can be done via the device directly or from a mobile device you already own…

…or all of the above :-)

For kitchen use there are umpteen options at umpteen price points if you simply need something that will receive bluetooth audio from your phone (which is what I do; places like PCWorld have loads on display to demo). Likewise in the lounge there is huge choice if the source is your phone/tablet. If your source is NOT a mobile device, I shall step away unqualified to comment further :-)

It’s been a few years since I mountain biked in Kitzbuhel, but there was no shortage of great stuff to ride on. It just wasn’t way marked like at a trail centre. The best stuff was following the footpaths and sheep tracks.

To those who’ve done the descent from Nan Bield to Haweswater, how much do you manage to actually ride? It was hard enough walking up it!

^ That sums it up nicely for me :-)

Need to get back and do this. I’ve only done it once and, despite fabulous weather, didn’t really enjoy it as much as expected. I wasn’t fit enough, so ended up pushing up far too much of Gatesgarth Pass (as we all did!) and of course carrying up most all of Nan Bield Pass. To top it off I wasn’t riding well that day so didn’t really enjoy the descending either. Whilst hike-a-biking up Nan Bield I was wishing I was doing the Fred Whitton instead, which just goes to show the odd frame of mind I was in :lol:

Things that have helped me juggle bike, work and family life:

1. I stay away with work most Tuesday evenings. I take my bike in the car for an evening ride (although not *quite* got into the night-riding habit for away trips yet)

2. Recognising that opportunities to ride might not be at the times I want to ride and that I must suck it up. Early morning rides, late evening rides, whatever.

3. Since having young children to look after, my body has become accustomed to less sleep. I try to make the most of that and fit more in the day by sleeping less. Who needs lie ins anyway? :lol:

4. Sometimes my ride might be with the kids. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, but it might mean I’m not “shredding the gnar” all the time (fortunately I’m not a gnar-shredder anyway)

5. Less intense “me time” riding means I’m getting less fit compared to younger, more-time-on-my-hands me. I have to try hard not to let that bother me.

6. Recognising I have 3 amazing and additional things in my life now and each one of them is a joy. Why should I be surprised that other things have to give?

As a few have pointed out, your 12 1/2 hour round trip to work is a big part of the challenge, so perhaps have a look at what you can do about that.

That said, you’re getting back at 8pm so that still leaves time for riding. Is there anything stopping you getting out for a night ride?

My most important advice is find a routine and make it work. The reason I don’t ride as much as I want is that I’ve fallen out of the routine. There will ALWAYS be something else demanding your time and if you don’t make a regular and routine time for cycling you will find yourself doing it less and less. I used to ride every Sunday morning without fail, but life got so busy that I just wanted one day – one morning – when I didn’t have to get up and rush out of the house. That day was my bike riding day and now I’m a shadow of my former bike-riding fitness just because I fell out of the routine. It’s my own stupid fault. Don’t be me.

If nothing else, this thread is putting me off getting a “smart” car since this is the kind of crap that would drive (pun intended) me potty.

This gave me goosebumps when I watched it for the first time as a 7 year old kid and never fails to give me goosebumps each and every time I hear the music. Yup, I’m a bit softie :lol:

I feel very well qualified to engage in this thread, having seen Elbow support Muse many years ago. This was before Elbow hit the prime time airplay lists and before Muse decided they wanted to be a disco prog rock amalgam of Abba, Queen and Boney M.

Elbow were dull as ditchwater. They were touring Asleep In the Back which is a tremendously melancholy album and sounded awful in the MEN arena. As some said above, a dirge. Not a good warm up for a very on-form Muse.

Fast forward to 2005ish and I saw Elbow touring Leaders of the Free World at Leicester Summer Sundae and they were AWESOME! That’s right, awesome, not awful. They’d written some pop songs and had variety in their set. Guy Garvey had learnt to be a frontman and they exuded the confidence of a band who realised they were actually quite talented and *could* write a bouncy tune.

I love Elbow now. They write great songs with great lyrics, they have more variety than many bands and can play their instruments and sing in tune. That’s more than many bands achieve and – yes – I love One Day Like This. How can you not?!? :-D

Can you run the pads without the fins?

From the product details page:

Do not attempt to run Arctic pads without fins or standard pads with fins – they will not work!

Guess not

Loads of options out there. Pick one that works best for you and your BIL. For example if you like your to dos quite graphical (Kanban board style) then Trello is a nice option. If you prefer text and ease of use and want to share visible comments on tasks and projects easily, Asana is a good call.

Can I be the first to say that if you’re happy with the Bandit, keep it and splash your new frame cash on a couple of fab mountain bike holidays instead.

More importantly, it’s a BoxSter.

GPS tracking, zero-tolerance of speeding, speed limiters set at the prevailing speed limit of the road. NONE of that that is going to help someone who finds themselves in difficulty without the driving skills to get themselves out of difficulty.

I learnt the hard way that a lightweight, mid-engined RWD car – driven no faster than my previous FWD family hatchback and driven under the speed limit – can have you in a dry stone wall effortlessly.

You don’t need to break the speed limit to get in trouble in a car like a Boxster.

I thought the iPhone 7 launch was one of the best launches Apple have had recently, but when I actually got a 7 in my hand it was quite underwhelming. The smoke and mirrors were great :-)

If it were me I’d hang on. I have a 6 and I see nothing in the 6S or 7 that makes me want to upgrade; I’m more tempted by the SE! I also think the lack of headphone port is a huge deal and part of me hopes it will come back. Why is it a huge deal? It prevents me from using my iPhone to listen to music/podcasts in the car without investing a new stereo or some other Bluetooth device that may or may not work.

Irresponsible? Possibly, possibly not. This kid could have been driving go karts from the age of 5, have more experience of handling cars than most of the people on this forum and could have been unlucky on the day. Alternatively, he may only have been driving for a matter of months and had a complete error of judgement taking a car out that could get him into a lot of trouble, very quickly.

Saying the car doesn’t matter is nonsense. I know from bitter experience.

Milestone? Singular?!?

Many milestones have come and gone: trying to dress young but looking daft, chest hairs that are long and grey, realising that dance floor fillers from your youth (Jump Around) are no longer relevant and that you’re the only middle-aged idiot jumping up and down to it (happened this weekend), smile lines that are permanently etched into my face, sports car purchase…

I could go on, but the one that bothers me most is being acutely aware of being over the hill and on the downhill side of life. As a mountain biker and skier that *should* be a good thing I suppose, but my body tells me otherwise.

When well within your grade there’s objectively no more risk of your feet or hands coming off than letting go of the handlebars on a fast MTB descent

Definitely a good way to look at it, but don’t forget that conditions can play a huge part in this. My apprenticeship was served on Peak District grit so I was relatively confident at slab climbing and crack climbing (conversely I was appalling on steep limestone; proper weakling!). Slabs can get a lot harder a lot quicker in the rain than cracks, which can often still be tackled even when wet.

I remember a horror at Etive Slabs when the beautifully dry day and great friction quickly turned to an impossibly slippy final slab pitch in only light rain. I tried socks over my boots and even started planning my downward retreat before asking the party above to throw a top rope down to us. As anyone who has climbed at Etive will know, you want total confidence that your feet are going to stick to the rock with some of those run-outs!

Not my photo

Budget?

I’m a huge fan of Exposure lights and they do a specific road light called the Strada that has a “…wide and flat beam pattern to light the verges and give exceptional side visibility while avoiding dazzling oncoming road users“

If you can’t stretch to the Strada, I think the Diablo is more than adequate for road duty, but is still 7 or 8 times more than a cheap Chinese cree light.

What I love about these lights is the all-in-one design, which means no faffing attaching batteries to your frame and also you can use them as everyday torches. My Diablo is money very well spent and its 1100 lumens is easily a match for the claimed 10,000 lumens of my cheapo cree light.

I had a go at a Whillans off-width in the Peak

Don’s Crack at Ramshaw perchance? I will never forget the attempt by my brother and I to climb this. We got up somehow, but were destroyed physically and mentally. We both served our apprenticeship on Peak District grit so were no strangers to awkward jamming cracks, but this one takes the biscuit. “Only” HVS last time I checked.

This time of year is perfect for grit – Yorkshire and Peak

I beg to differ. The Roaches is distinctly green and damp in places at the moment; especially overhanging places :-)

London Symphony Orchestra (that’s cheating isn’t it)

It is a bit :lol:

As many have said above, beginners fall over a lot. Spring skiing could be quite warm and hence the snow could be a bit slushy in the afternoon. It *could* be warm enough for t-shirt only or it *could* be bitterly cold and windy, so layers and options are a must; take a rucksack.

With all the picking yourself off the floor you will get wet bottom, knees and hands, so get something that’s good at keeping water out. When you’re a better skier – and falling less – absolute waterproofness is less important. For years I’ve skied in the same windproof shell I used for mountain biking and it wasn’t remotely waterproof, but having taken my 7 year old earlier this year in Spring I was reminded how much time is spent by beginners getting damp and, for that matter, hot and bothered. It was Easter and very warm though.

As a 15 year old, none of this will matter to your son as long as he looks cool 8)

Why do you travel?

For a holiday. For work. To get from A to B.

There have been some extremely memorable occasions where the journey – the travelling – was as much a part of the overall experience as the destination. The immediate one that springs to mind is being flown into the Canaima National Park in Venezuela in a little Cesna, then spending a couple of days going upstream in a dug-out canoe with an outboard motor before a half day trek to the foot of Angel Falls. The destination was somewhere I’d wanted to go since being a kid, but the travelling that led me there made it even more special.

I’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again, the content is king for me. My 3 favourite magazines that I buy regularly are Singletrack, Cyclist and Top Gear. TG is on flimsy paper, is full of adverts but is the best written of the 3 since many of the articles are written by journalists with writing skills who happen to be into cars.

Singletrack is my least favourite of those 3 because the writing can be a bit samey. I love reading about mountain biking in far flung corners of the earth, but too often one article reads much like another. There are exceptions and I do enjoy Barnie’s style and Jen, of course, wrote some lovely stuff. I think it shows when it’s a guest writer who’s not even writing in their native language. It’s a bit lightweight. Conversely, I don’t get bored of the cyclist ride articles, even though arguably they should suffer from the same problem.

In summary, I’d rather pay for better writing than better paper.

Definitely get a trackpad

The other thing I’d recommend – if you’re going full-bore Apple – is budget for some iCloud storage for your photos. The iCloud Photo Library is a genuinely neat way of syncing your photo library across your Mac, iPhones, iPads etc. I appreciate the likes of Google do something similar for free, but have no idea if it’s any good, and my experience of Apple is that it’s only great if you do things their way.

Wondering if it has an upper and lower cut off?

Maybe. I’ve done a 150m ride with just shy of 10 hours in the saddle, but would definitely be more than 10 hours elapsed time. If I’d taken 10 more minutes maybe I wouldn’t have got one.

Have to say it’s getting a little samey now.

:lol:

Told you so

There does seem to be a mixed response to what we think ST mag should do. Some are very happy with a premium product at a premium price, less frequently. Others – like me – would be quite happy with a more frequent mag on cheaper paper and more adverts, as long as the content is as good and preferably better. Well written articles and good photos are my priority. Nice smelling, heavy paper I can manage without.

I don’t really want a “premium” coffee table magazine; I’d rather have cheaper paper and a tatty well-read magazine that I can send for recycling without it feeling like a waste of money. I still have loads of old copies of Rouleur, Privateer and Singletrack that look in great condition and I therefore don’t want to get rid of, even though they’re cluttering up the place and probably won’t ever get read again.

Like others have said, I stare at a VDU for 8+ hours a day, and I have come to the conclusion that I like printed matter, there is just something about having it in your hands that I find pleasant, be it ST or a book.

I’m half there with you. If it’s text-only, I’m very happy – and in fact prefer – my Kindle. As soon as photography comes into the mix, I prefer my reading material printed.

I’ve been pondering whether to renew my mag subscriptions recently. I subscribe to Singletrack for my MTB fix and Cyclist for the road, but when I look at the pile of these magazines – and how much I’ve spent on them over the years – I do wonder if it’s a luxury I can manage without.

Link to consultation

I’m still wondering when I introduce my 8 and 10 year old to my favourite film, Jaws. I saw it when I was 7 but barely slept a wink all night :lol:

I confess I didn’t count, but it was at least twice

Do you lot not get your 5:10s properly wet then? I do the newspaper thing and then leave them on the floor where there is underfloor heating. I’m lucky if they’re properly dry for the following weekend if they’ve had a proper soaking.

Might try nappies

With the stuff that’s been happening in the political sphere this year, it would not surprise me if this actually went somewhere, depressing as it is to admit to that. Politically, common sense and decency seem to be giving way to “he who shouts loudest” and the anti-cycling brigade don’t half have a gob on them.

The DCC consultation for the repairs on Rushup Edge draws to a close 28th November, so still time to let your opinions be known. Peak District MTB have added some more info to their website to help you make an informed contribution to this process.

Peak District MTB – Rushup latest

The Dales for me, and that’s coming from someone who rides regularly in the Peak District. Why? Quiet roads and superb views. Granted not all roads are quiet but you’re more likely to get away from the cars in some of the quieter Dales than the Peak. I’ve not done as much riding in the North Yorks Moors to be fair, but I don’t find it lifts my soul as much as the Dales.

If you do decide to do the Peak, I can strongly recommend the Staffordshire Moorlands, which tends to be a bit quieter and less intimidating on the roads than some of the honey pots further north.

It’s a Flow on the front RicB.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I have a plan…

Yep the Bandit but still old school 26 :-)

I’m leaning towards the weight advantages being inconsequential to the reduced strength, but wondered what experiences people had with this same decision.