Unless you want a new/flash car far better to spend enough to get a reliable one – ie £5k.

That’s how I used to think and spent approx £8k each time I bought a “new” (to me) second hand car. Whilst I own that car I still have to save for the next car I replace it with, hence thinking that whichever way I look at it – lease or own – I’ve still got to budget a good deal of money every month to own a car and that’s before I put fuel in.

What sort of car / miles do you want.

I do 12000/year give or take. Some of the BMW deals, for example, are for 10,000 miles/year but at only 5p or so per extra mile that doesn’t worry me too much.

Most of my miles are across the Peak District to Lincoln and back or up and down motorways, so looking for a pleasurable car to do decent journeys in rather than a little town car. It will, however, have occasional days taking kids to/from school so 2 seaters are out.

We have a “big car” for family holidays/journeys so doesn’t need to be huge.

This is the article that rogerthecat refers to above:

http://www.peakdistrictmtb.org/index.php/25-derbyshire-cc-meeting-report

I like your thinking BWD 🙂

It is a good point though. DCC would probably love a load of MTBers taking to the footpaths pissing off other users of those paths. It helps reinforce their biased image of MTBers as the “troublemakers”. To quote DCC

“Most of the views received through the consultation supported the work that was started, apart from mountain biking groups who are strongly opposed to the work.”

Peak District MTB have put a quick summary up on their website about this latest development

I have one of these. I prefer it to the smaller shed alarms since I can activate/de-activate it using a remote key fob rather than panic trying to de-activate it with the clock ticking before it goes off 🙂

Batteries last years not months.

But if you spend time sessioning a particular corner…

Probably been said already (and probably more than once) but time is not a luxury all of us have. If it takes me £50 and a morning to learn a new technique as opposed to no coaching and half a dozen mornings sessioning something, that’s money well spent. It’s not that I don’t like spending time sessioning stuff on a bike, it’s simply that my time is more thinly spread amongst other things I want to do these days.

OP, I learnt to ski when I was a little nipper made of bendy bones and little fear or understanding of consequences. I learnt to ski fast and hard by falling over a lot and my mind and body let me get away with it. I suspect it was the same with you and BMXing.

I’ve been riding a bike off-road for 30 years or more but have never really pushed myself to “do jumps” since it didn’t seem to be anything to do with riding a bike (other than drops offs and the like).

Now I’d like to learn to jump. As a 40 year old with 3 kids who all depend on me going to work and earning some money, the approach I had as a kid to skiing will result in lots of broken bones and recovery time. If coaching helps me avoid that then great.

That said, the most confidence-inspiring jumping session I’ve ever had was last Autumn when me and a mate just spent a couple of hours hammering an 18ft table top until we eventually cleared it. The fear of not clearing it was what made me steer away from stuff like that previously. In this case the “coaching” was my mate egging me on and persuading me that coming up short doesn’t matter 🙂

The chap I’m emailing has been quite responsive over the last week so I remain hopeful.

What I would like is a decent camera with a bog standard phone built in. Just calls, txt etc. No reason why it could not be Android even the most basic does everything I need.

Samsung do a range of cameras with smartphone functionality built in, but *possibly* not an actual phone. Might be worth looking at if you want the convenience of connectivity and apps for sharing/editing photos on your camera.

The main reasons I have a separate compact camera are the 20x optical zoom that I used a lot and a bigger/better flash. it has GPS for tagging location data on photos and I can share wirelessly to my iDevice (although it’s a faff). If the zoom and flash were not so important I’d probably be happy with the picture quality of my phone.

In summary you need to decide what features are important for you and what you can sacrifice.

…there may be quite a few that are significantly worse off.

The inevitable conclusion of any budget.

I’ve asked DCC to let me know when the minutes will be available along with a written response to some specific questions.

Remember the cost angle in all this. No one wants DCC spending loads of money on maintaining high moorland tracks when there are far more important things they should allocate their budget too. Whilst it might irk in terms of the end result, the most cost-effective way to resolve the Rushup problem might well be to stick with their plan A (and hope that lessons are learnt).

I don’t think the best case scenario and result we’re hoping for are even the same thing. What we asked for all those months ago feels ambitious in light of what’s happened (or not happened) since. However if we are seen as a serious and valuable advocacy group, who can provide valuable consultation such that this kind of fiasco doesn’t occur in future, that will be a welcome result.

As for Rushup? Time will tell, but leaving it in its current state is simply not acceptable.

Did mine a couple of years ago and at first I was told it would be operated on, then the senior consultant said to leave it to heal naturally (cost savings no doubt).

To be honest it wasn’t as painful as people warned me about and hasn’t given me huge grief since. I have the expected parrot perch and occasionally it can be uncomfortable wearing a heavy rucksack but it’s not affected my cycling or any other activities. Give it another 10 years and it might 🙁

Worth bearing in mind I did not ride a bike (other than a turbo trainer…once) for 3 months. I let it heal and did my physio.

I did a relatively cheap Jumps and Drops course at Cannock this year but not these dudes. It wasn’t revolutionary but I came away with a couple of useful pointers having had a fun morning of riding at Stile Cop, which I’d never ridden at before.

For that money what is there to lose?

Got the 12″

LOVING track 2!!! 😀

Hope the rest is as good

Anyone got any pros/cons of Google’s new Photos versus Apple’s iCloud Photo Library? The latter seems to be working for me but at a £ cost. I’m interested in Google’s clever searching since tagging photos is a pain I only occasionally get round to. Also, is there any automatic face-recognition like in Picasa?

Cokie I’ve been through this same thought process and bought some “hybrid” pedals. Instead of being the best of both worlds they were the worst of both worlds. I suppose that they might be handy on a winter hack/commuting/pub bike but – in my experience – for proper off-road mountain biking they were very poor. When I ride with flats the whole point is that I don’t want to have to think or worry about getting my foot on or off the pedal as quickly and easily as possible. Similarly clipping in is a faff off-road when you only have one side to clip into.

Don’t do it

My friends had their wedding reception at Brosterfield Farm near Foolow. It looked a lovely place to stay with great views and evening sun. The pub at Foolow looks nice (http://www.thebullatfoolow.co.uk) and not a huge distance away.

I read this yesterday and I suddenly found it really easy to wheelie and manual

The last part of that sentence was sadly something I dreamt 🙁

There’s some stuff that is cheap and easy to do that may resolve it for you.

1. Clean your rotors with some isopropyl alcohol or proprietary disc cleaner
2. Put your pads in the oven for an hour or two. This can burn off any contaminants
3. Rub the pads on some (clean) sandpaper. This – I believe – deglazes them
4. Bed them in again with a few stoppies etc

I had some truly horrific brake squeal and really poor braking performance. I followed the above steps – 2 hours at 180 degrees – and my brakes are fantastic (and quiet) now.

What I’m not sure of is what caused the problems initially? Some stray GT85 perhaps?

If you value your image (pun intended) avoid like the plague. I caught a reflection of myself wearing some on a rainy day in Manchester with the lenses in a partial-tint. I looked ridiculous and never wore them again.

😆

Now that sounds like a great – and interesting – idea

I like the sound of Wentworth Farm even though it’s further away from where we’ll be coming from.

Chris and Podge, thanks for the “offer” of me babysitting for you whilst you get drunk. I’ll have a think about it 😕 😆

Thinking of taking the kids to watch this (6 and 8 and 11 months). They met RatBoy at Farmer John’s last year and they’d love to meet Peaty too. The problem is that it’s at least a 3 hours round trip and they’ll probably not want to stay for the whole day. Is there other stuff for young kids to do/see nearby?
Ratboy and the kids by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

This is far from being a great photo and to be honest it’s not one I’m particularly proud of, but I am amazed it came out as well as it did considering it was taken hand-held in the dark on an iPhone 5.

Simply stunning Lincoln Cathedral by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

I thought the commentary was a bit flat though. I get the sense Warner has been hauled in a bit by Red Bull and Claudio was surprisingly dull.

^This.

Not wanting to take anything away from what was an amazing race with some stunning riding, I was left a little disappointed by the commentary. I thought those two would work a lot better together than they did.

Cracking race to start the season though and as much as I struggle to warm to Gwinn, I can’t help but be truly amazed by how well he rode. Superb talent 😯

Having seen my disabled 8 year old son struggle with a kids’ e-bike I can tell you that you don’t just sit on them and press a button and be whisked away into the sunset. You have to ride it like a normal bike. I’m watching this genre of cycling with great interest and if it costs £2/3k to get him riding with me that’s money well spent. Bring it on.

Hi wolfenstein. No fix yet other than waiting patiently and it starting working again. Just to re-iterate I am on a wired connection and have internet, just not via native OS X apps like Safari and App Store.

Prior to this week’s OS update I was getting wireless dropouts on my Mac. I didn’t have the time and energy to try and work out why nor how to fix it, so just spent £30 on some network powerline adaptors.

Got a bit of a downer on the quality and reliability of Apple this year. They need to focus on quality control and ease up on bringing new stuff out every year, but I guess that doesn’t make them as much money.

Thanks for the suggestions, but before I look into this can I just clarify something? My understanding of DNS is that it is something that happens at network-level, not app-level. Does Safari use a different DNS mechanism and provider than Chrome on the same machine and same network?

Wired

It’s not internet access that is the problem. I can get on the internet e.g. using Chrome, Skype, Spotify. It only appears to be native OS X apps. Oddly it is back now without me doing anything specific. Did the same yesterday and earlier in the week. I’m getting a little frustrated with the Apple experience these days.

EDIT and of course now it’s back online I can’t do any more diagnostics

I think the new implementation of iCloud Photo Library looks really promising, but I can’t try it without signing up for extra storage (and extra cost). I don’t mind paying for storage but it’d be good to hear some real world feedback on how well iCloud Photos works. The USP for me is being able to make local edits on one device that propagate to all devices. I don’t believe anyone else does this unless you edit them online, but I’d be happy to be told otherwise.

A few years back I signed up for a 100 mile sportive and spent a lot of time agonising over whether I could ride that far or not. Looking back I can see that I fussed over nothing. As a mountain biker you already have good base cycling fitness I assume, so spend the next few weeks slowly building up the distance of your road rides. Just ride your bike, then ride it a bit further, then ride some hills, then ride a bit further. Keep increasing the mileage and the climbing over the next few weeks and you’ll have no problem. I don’t think there’s any need for science; just ride 🙂

Foggy? That wasn’t foggy. Those were quire nice conditions compared to when I went last April 😯

Transition? Got to be orange. Next question

(who wants a sky blue bike in photos with a blue sky behind??!)

Bandit first ride – 11 by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

does a neighbour have a hidden network?

I don’t know but I could ask. “Do you have a hidden network? I can see it :-)”

Bt Infinity with Home Hub 3 for me.

what is cycling coming to when people expect a lift up the hill……

<isn’t sure whether trolling but decides to play it safe and not respond>

I actually quite like climbing but having done it once at BPW I wouldn’t choose to do it again. That’s not what I go there for.