I think I’m the only person in the world who liked Open Water.

There’s at least two of us

Woman in Black…just because it’s ‘jumpy’ doesn’t make it scary.

There’s a few film-makers who could do with remembering this.

The other possible relevant thing is that our TV has been playing up a bit. If a car goes past outside we lose signal temporarily. Something odd is interfering with something else possibly???

The issue with RDP is reproducible though in that that laptop drops the wireless connection at a certain point in initiating the remote connection. At this point in time the mac is still on the wireless OK

@brassneck – No, but wireless has been flaky in recent weeks both on the LAN and WAN. It may or may not be connected (pun intended).

The Mac is wireless

I’ve used that from my Chromebook to Mac before Sharkbait. Another one to try.

It used to work reliably enough, but now it’s becoming a highly disruptive PITA

I’ve used Remote Desktop Connection and Microsoft Remote Desktop. The former has, over the years, proved better, but neither are particularly reliable and I seem to have more and more problems these days. I’ll have a look at Cord thanks.

I wouldn’t like to say if I could notice a difference with all of those, but I can say I’d prefer hubs without better pickup than the ones I have.

I agree with Bob Dylan’s voice but wouldn’t his songs be just as rubbish sung by someone else?

A short collection of Dylan music that I think has been done much better than Dylan

Dylan can’t sing

You’re easily pleased.

Jaws, ET, Raider of the Lost Ark – all in my top 10 films ever 🙂 Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan were pretty good (understatement) too 😉

Only recently have I felt let down by Spielberg with War of the Worlds and also Super 8 (which I think he produced). I didn’t bother with Indiana Jones 4 nor do I want to bother.

I love my rigid single speed and was just about to join this thread and share the enthusiasm. The talk of gear ratios and beards has put me off.

It’s all about expectation. I don’t think I’ve seen a Tom Cruise film I’ve not enjoyed and Spielberg can do no wrong in my book, but WofW did nothing for me when I saw it at the cinema. Maybe if I’d happened across it on Channel 5 last night I might have been more impressed due to low expectations.

In a similar vein I had very low expectations of 2012 but was thoroughly entertained by it.

i envy those in the Peaks/Lakes and so on who have amazing riding out the door

What I do resent is having to fight the M25 to get somewhere

I was brought up in the Peak District and made a very conscious decision that living there was more important to me than career-hunting in the SE.

I often spend 30 minutes or so riding to the “good trails” and might only spend an hour or two before heading back (which is mostly downhill to be honest). I used to detest the thought of wasting all that riding time on road, but when I got over myself it opened up some really good riding. Happy days 😀

My serious input to this thread is a similar experience to the OP. I test-rode an Orange 5 and loved it. I didn’t buy it because I wanted something a little less ubiquitous.

Sooner or later we’re all going to die, or take up road biking.

😆

How many blokes watch porn and believe that’s the way it is in real life for other people?

I suspect a lot. Even before the internet people used to film whatever tickled their sexual fantasy and now it gets uploaded to the internet. A lot of it IS real life.

I won’t comment for 50 Shades specifically because I have neither seen nor read it, but I’d be extremely surprised if there was anything in it that doesn’t go on in relationships in real life for some – possibly many – people.

Yep I get out at night, especially in the crisp snowy/icy weather. Might be getting a bit gloopy now but more than happy to show you some quick and short cheeky ones from town as well as the better stuff north of the Roaches.

e.g.

Roaches snowy ride with Paul – 4 by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

Bandit first ride – 04 by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

PS I’ve heard good stuff about Consall Woods but never taken my bike there. If any locals want to show me around I’d be grateful 🙂

@Jekyll happy to show you around some time.

within max 20-30 minutes drive

Loads. From the edge of Leek to the edge of Buxton it only takes 15 minutes driving on a slow day for example. What Leek isn’t blessed with is good, legal mountain biking from Leek itself. There’s some OK cheeky in the local woods and some fab cheeky near the Roaches, but the good legal stuff doesn’t really get going until the north end of the Roaches which is 5/10 mins drive from Leek or 30 minutes pedal. From there you have access to some tremendous stuff and can fill anything from an hour or so to a BIG day out.

Most of my road riding is in the Peak District where 1000ft of climbing for every 10 miles is common. If I get near 15mph average I’m very chuffed.

<bookmarks page to see if more suggestions come forth for me to try with my stubborn Pro 2>

Never have I had a bike incapacitated for so long as I have currently. I think for future wheel builds I might avoid (Hit and) Hope and get something that can be taken apart with a spanner rather than a hammer.

I don’t commute which presumably reduces my probability of run-ins, but I recently had my first incident in many many years when a driver overtook on a country lane with plenty of available space to go round me, but instead chose to pass as close as possible without actually hitting me. It was clearly very deliberate. People are fallible and people make poor judgement calls, but I simply can’t comprehend the apparent hatred some people show towards other road users that leads them to carry out these ridiculous and dangerous acts.

baffled

We tested only Enduro bikes with between 160-170mm of rear travel.

No you didn’t

Only one bike had less travel: the Lapierre Spicy Team (150mm).

Worth a 2 hour drive?

No

We’ve been twice. First time wasn’t bad. It wasn’t too busy and the kids enjoyed themselves whilst we sat and had a cuppa. To be honest the bit they enjoyed most was the big indoor play area and we didn’t need to drive 2 hours for one of those. There’s plenty of Lego to play with and a 4D cinema which is entertaining. Think of it as a Lego-themed indoor play area rather than a high-standard national attraction.

If you’re in the areas and have Merlin passes it’s probably worth spending a couple of hours in there and maybe a quick whizz round the SeaLife centre, but it’s not worth a big drive.

Second time was horrible, mainly due to being so busy. Big queues for not very impressive go karts was the low point.

If you want to be sensible with a £1m win, it can buy you choice and security. I’d use my hypothetical win to clear debts, invest in my kids’ respective futures and make sure my old age is not going to be one of poverty and misery. If the calculations mean that I have to stay at work to do all that, so be it, but I’d hope I could find more time for the stuff currently sacrificed for work and fatherhood.

I (perhaps naively) assume that with my iPhone on me I can easily be found on my local night rides that never venture too far from civilisation. I should perhaps rethink my strategy for my more remote solo rides 😕

Wednesday night’s was a belter. Only a short one, but the halfway pub had an open fire, some lovely ale and a fiddle and squeezebox player providing the live music. Happy days.

I’m a huge fan of Trailrakers for proper muddy conditions, but that was back when I used to be a habitual tyre-swapper based on the trail conditions for each ride. Now I stick with one and accept the compromises.

A mate of mine recently ditched his Trailrakers because they were lethal on the hard-pack snow/ice we’ve had a lot of recently. They’re certainly very hard work on the road.

If it were me with a 20k road commute before I even get off-road, I’d be going for a lower profile faster rolling tyre. Why do you want to go burlier than the Mud X?

My Bianchi Mutt with Rocksolid carbon forks. It was so light and fast it just devoured climbs. It was no downhiller but I always said if I could only have ONE bike – including road – this would have been the one.

My Mmmbop was a nice HT alternative to a full susser, but was a drag on anything that wasn’t up or down.

most of the civic with the pointy bits to stab you, lack of visibility and mismash of spares bin parts to make a dash

😯

Whilst I agree that the rear visibility left a little to be desired, the dash/cockpit was the best in any car I’ve ever owned.

I think more and more self-proclaimed Top Gear fans – myself included – are finding it hard to love the program as much as they did. The tried and tested recipe for TG needs to use some better quality ingredients.

For the first time since Autumn I can finally say I’m managing to ride weekly. Only once a week, but it’s a start 🙂

I used to regularly ride at the weekend – road or MTB – and then get out for an evening ride (sometimes two!) mid-week. Along came stilltortoise Jnr 3 and that went to pot. I’m optimistic for getting back into a routine again.

I once asked a guy I was riding with how he managed to ride so often with kids to raise. His answer? “I’m selfish”.

just be honest about the kind of riding you do as opposed to the kind of riding you think you do!

This. Absolutely this. 2 years ago I went through the same process, thinking I “needed” a big burly bike for all the alpine-style riding I wanted to do. I then remembered I’d had a total of about 2 weeks riding in the Alps in the last 5 years!

I know every kid is different, but am I deluded if I think he will be good enough to ski blues by the end of the week?

No. He’ll be skiing blues by the end of the first day probably 🙂

Having seen some of the horror stories on this here forum, I wouldn’t pay for a bike without having confidence in the delivery date. In your case I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for an approximate delivery date. If they can’t even give that… 😯

Personally I think no bike is that good that you should have to wait an indeterminate amount of time before it’s ready to ride. Other options are available.

Nobody has mentioned their weight

Er, yes they have. More than once.

I’m 13 1/2 stone (probably more with sack on) and ran late twenties on the back with some Spesh Purgatory on Flow EX. They burped air too easily so now I’m nearer 30. Will try Stan’s formula…

I’d be very interested to see how he does with this. He strikes me as someone who “can” rather than someone who “can teach.”

Danny: “So, you just go sort of go flat out to the corner and sort of lean the bike over and…erm…go dead fast out of the apex.”

Student: “???”

I hope I’m way off. Good on him.

Lifeproof Fre

Not cheap, but I’ve been pleased with it. I’ve even taken it into swimming pool and taken underwater photos.

[edit] they don’t appear to have a case for an Xperia E3 tho’

Who has ever seen a horse drawn carriage on a BW in the Peak?

We moved our committee meetings to a new, more convenient venue pub and were talking to the landlady about all this. Guess what…she was a carriage driver 🙂

She commented that she really doesn’t have a huge choice of places to ride. Often she has right of way but is physically unable to get the carriage onto the route and ends up riding on the road. Maybe the reason that rare sightings of carriage drivers are on the road is because they have so little choice to ride off-road.

Peak Horsepower were also asked to respond officially to Derbyshire County Council’s plans for Rushup Edge and have shared it with Peak District MTB. Added to the existing article on website or view it directly here.

^great advice Ro5ey