Some thoughts over on this thread Carbon bars – yay or nay

I’ve recently moved from carbon bars to aluminium and if anything I find the ally bars more comfortable. Granted I’m only two rides in so hardly statistically that valid yet :-)

Glad you wrote that Poah, It’s not just me who thinks carbon bars are more buzzy.

jes – I went back to aluminium because I snapped a carbon bar (and because they’re cheaper). I was of the understanding that aluminium *shouldn’t* break so catastrophically.

The weather wasn’t as good as hoped, but the trails were in pretty good shape up in Wensleydale. I had a couple of great, short rides in and around family stuff. I wish I had as many bridleways on my doorstep as up there.

MTB Above Askrigg by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

When I got back into MTB in the mid-noughties, I bought some shorts, a long-sleeved zip top and some shoes, all made by Polaris. Even with my modest mileage, they are in remarkably serviceable condition after all these years. The shorts are in regular use. Impressed.

Good point made by oikeith regarding quality of suspension. My 2013 Bandit came with a Fox CTD shock which blew through the travel at the slightest provocation. I played with spacers and air pressure with very little success. I eventually gave up and had it PUSH tuned. Massive (and very positive) difference and a lot cheaper than buying a longer travel bike.

Answering a slightly different question – but with hopefully a helpful answer – my last bike purchase was a 140mm/130mm Transition Bandit. I had thought about getting a bigger bike, but felt it would be overkill for most of my riding. The Bandit is ACE and is the closest I’ve ever got to “one-bike-to-rule-them-all”. Sometimes I crave a big wheeled, shorter travel mile muncher, but I’ve never felt under-biked. Granted I’m not a full-on downhiller, nor someone who spends much time at the local dirt jumps, but I’ve happily ridden the bike at Farmer John’s and Macc Forest DH. I’d be more than happy taking it to the Alps for some “all mountain” (or whatever we call it these days) riding.

Sometimes when I go a little faster than usual, the bike shows it still has plenty more to give. 26″, double chainrings and 4 years old and I fall in love with it a little more on every ride.

A friend had a Flux and moved to a Cannondale Trigger (?) and much prefers it.

And I like the fact that the Reverb is fully hydraulic. So far so fit and forget, where my cable actuated post (which admittedly is a bit cheap and old) keeps needing new cables.

I *used* to agree. I had to replace my Reverb (I scratched it…badly) but my new one got stuck down on my first weekend away, with the remote leaking oil. Not a happy chappy.

Agree with the above that a sub 2 hour time should be possible for a non-faff/non-stop session for most mortal riders.

If you’re not confident on very rocky sections – especially those with tight corners entering into them – you might want to avoid the black sections on The Monkey Trail (which is easily done).

Does this count?
Lakeland hike-a-bike May 2016 by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

I’m the unofficial photographer on my trips because no one else can be bothered. I asked my mate to get a photo of me in the Brecon Beacons and this is the result. I’m not even the first rider!

Pen Bwlch Glasgwm, Brecon Beacons by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

Stayed here. We did a great ride from the doorstep and other “classics” were a short drive away. So convenient having a garage to store the bikes.

Gilwern AirBnB accommodation

That was the best SIARFC segment of this series; Tinie Tempah was a great guest, but looked mighty p***sed off with his time :lol:

Aside from that, the rest of the show never quite sustained the excitement levels generated by the opening Bugatti segment, but it was still very entertaining.

Does anyone else think they’re following this thread and adjusting the content of the show each time? It feels like it :lol:

Spent all day Saturday rebuilding a garden wall, so was delighted to get out on the road bike on Sunday (first time since before Christmas!). 8 miles in and the freehub went :-( Not happy.

On a positive note, I have a long weekend in the Brecon Beacons this weekend. Yay! :-D

Talking of loose and unpleasant limestone crags, I used to live with Harpur Hill quarry behind my garden and I still never chose to climb there :lol:

Some of you will remember Naheem (Sid) Siddiqi

yes indeed. He used to pop into Jo Royle (where I worked as a youngster) and drop off his hand-made route guides to the latest loose and unpleasant limestone crag he’d just bolted :lol:

Watching some of these videos makes me miss climbing, but it’s another activity fallen* by the wayside as life reprioritises.

*(pun not intended)

Road bike broke
MTB in pieces
Need new hobby

Neustift in the Stubai Alps for family walks in the mountains and *hopefully* a bit of cycling.

You are comparing two different systems though.

Fair point

they all run identically using 365

Is that a fact (i.e. are there really no feature gaps between any of them) or is it just based on what you use? Genuinely curious. For instance, a few people at work use the voting feature in Outlook for Windows, but that’s not in Outlook for Mac as part of Office 365. Based on what you’re saying, that feature won’t be in Outlook 365 for Windows either, which is a step back from what was in Outlook for Windows before.

Rode it from Staveley in May last year in some cracking weather, but I could see the potential for sections being horrible after lots of rain and not much Sun. Much of Green Quarter Fell and Cocklaw fell will be a grassy, muddy bog and as tomaso points out, Kentmere will be “interesting” too.

I’m sure a local will come along and confirm shortly, but you can see from this pic how grassy Green Quarter Fell is. There’s a good chance that will be very hard going when wet and muddy.

Lakeland hike-a-bike May 2016 by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

Toasty gives a nice summary actually, and reflects many of my opinions. I use an iMac, MacBook, iPhone and – occasionally – an iPad. I also use a Dell Windows 10 laptop and a Chromebook. Without a shadow of a doubt the Apple stuff is a joy to use and my preference, but not because of the OS necessarily; it’s just tasty hardware. The only one that has never given me any grief is the Chromebook. That’s the one that “just works”. I will also confirm that Apple stuff is as frustrating as hell when things don’t work as they should, which happens.

Let us know how she gets on

Sounds like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place Neal. Not sure any amount of advice on this thread is going to help you ;-)

Sounds like we’re not going to get to the bottom of the anti Windows 10 thing. Instead, let me give you some MacBook experience.

I have a 2015 MacBook; the 12″ retina display one that is really light and small.
Good stuff: it’s really light and small.
Bad stuff: it’s really light and small.

As a portable device in laptop form factor it is fab! My brother in law had an iPad with clip on keyboard and my MacBook is lighter. However, I think it is too small and light to use for hours at a time sat in an office at a desk. Unless portability is hugely important, get something bigger.

Office 365 works fine on either and no difference at all to anything

Take these statements with a pinch of salt. I use Office 365 on my Mac daily and use Office something-or-other on my Windows 10 laptop and there are differences. Some are trivial, some are a PITA (for me). YMMV.

I read this thread and can’t help but think that an iPad Pro, even with keyboard and stylus, is the wrong tool. As some have said above, it’s not really clear what the problem is here other than your wife doesn’t like Windows. If it was me, I’d be digging a little deeper into the reasons. If it is simply that she desires an Apple device, that’s fine and I completely get that, but in my experience I’d recommend a MacBook rather than an iPad. Even within Apple’s own software suite there are differences in functionality between iOS and MacOS. For instance I bought a MacBook for my mobile device because the iOS version of Photos was lacking in some important functionality that was in the MacOS version.

{EDIT} – I regularly need to plug my device into HDMI for presentations, which is simply not possible with iPads and new MacBooks unless you have a dongle. Worth remembering.

I loved it. Really, really loved it. As for Sabine’s piece, I reckon 5lab has it about right^

SIARFS still isn’t quite working for me, but Tamsin had a good stab at making it more entertaining than previous ones. I really rate Matt le Blanc on the feature pieces, even the muck spreader :lol:

Jeremy who?

Thanks all. Will check them out tomorrow. Might be a case of grabbing what’s available; going in a fortnight!

Only read the OP and none of the other responses, but the simple answer is no. My wife and I were both lucky enough to grow up in some very peaceful countryside with lots of space and fresh air. The closer we can get to that for our kids, the better. Living on a main road? No thanks. It’s a shame, because the style of house I like is often on the main roads where I live.

It has, and will continue to be, a deal breaker.

I think MLB has settled into the role nicely. That said, I think the studio pieces are the weak link in the show and hope they can instead keep splashing the cash on stunning looking road trips. It has potential to be a whole series of Top Gear Specials and fab car tests, with just a soupçon of studio stuff.

sounds good but I can’t predict what I’m going to want to listen to.

Just save it all offline then. Premium streaming services have not taken away the ability to have your entire music collection in your pocket. The capacity of your smartphone, on the other hand…

It’s considerably less faff than recording your vinyl onto a C90 then trying to decide which cassettes to take on your travels, which was the height of mobile music when I was a kid.

If you’re not riding stuff like BPW that often, how about hiring/demoing enduro or even DH bikes instead? It will give you chance to learn what you like and what you don’t and you might just find that it’s a cheaper and more practical option in the long run than buying something that sits gathering dust for most of the year.

Loved that. Smiled *almost* all the way through. The SIARFC bit was the only slight disappointment, but largely because the rest was so entertaining. Even Harris was less puppy dog than last week.

The car is the star again in this reboot, which is kind of the point.

Well put. This series of Top Gear feels like they have the balance right. There were a couple of moments were I feared old Clarkson-era habits were creeping back in (for the worse), but were kicked into touch in the edit.

“What do you want?’

“We want this”

“We don’t want you to have that, so we’ll ignore you and do what we want”

A recurrent theme in life

My experience of a new baby has been not much opportunity to do uplift days etc, but more time for shorter rides on local trails. My vote is therefore for lights

Great advice and advice I will reinforce. The bike (and equipment) you need is the bike that will make you smile whenever you can find a moment to ride on terrain you have locally, be it roads, woods, towpaths, BMX track, velodrome… Don’t buy a new bike that will be a “special occasions” toy.

…in the odd hour session I can grab here or there.

My odd hours grabbed here and there are either spent on the country lanes on the road bike or in the local woods on my mountain bike. An enduro bike would be an poor choice for both of those.

I’ve not followed this story very closely. Anyone got a summary of where it’s up to?

There’s some really good resilient riding in north Staffordshire and just over the Cheshire and Derbyshire borders. The suitably name Three Shires Head is rocky and 2 of the 3 rights of way into it don’t get muddy. It’s easy to link up with riding near Macclesfield forest and Wildboarclough (e.g. Cumberland Clough) for a good wet weather option.

This is a nice short route that can easily be extended to include Three Shires Head, although the drop into Three Shires from the north *will* be muddy. clicky

The steam train to Pickering for a visit to the castle is a nice way to spend a few hours, especially with kids (Goathland station was used as Hogsmeade station in the Harry Potter films). Loads of fab mountain biking on the Moors. I’ve a soft spot for Staithes up the coast as a very peaceful place to while away some time, but appreciate it might not be for everyone.

Is it just you? Family? Kids? Give us a few more clues.

I notice no one’s mentioned Apple Music. If you’re into the Apple ecosystem that’s a good choice. If not, I’m not sure it has any significant advantages over the others.

Putting your music into the cloud, means you’re renting back music you’ve already paid for, which you’ll lose if you don’t keep up the payments.

In the early days of unsubscribing from Apple Music some people reported that they lost the music that they originally had prior to Apple Music . IIRC this was to all intents and purposes a defect. It should only remove the music you’ve stored for offline use that you didn’t previously have on your computer. I can see why this puts people off though.

I carry a phone for my convenience, not everyone else’s.

Nicely put