Shovelled a little bit on this week, mainly due to drinking, eating a pile of rubbish on Sunday, haven’t been as good this week. Never mind though, I’ll get back onto it.

Weighed on Friday but forgot to add to the sheet so have updated this morning, not as much loss this week, this is due to drinking beer on Thursday but managed to avoid it the rest of the week. Want to make 74kg by Friday this week so have been very strict with myself since Friday, although pants weather yesterday meant no Sunday bike ride.

I know dietary requirements differ between each person and what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for others but I find eliminating bread completely helps massively, I am eating a lot of salad and vegetables though to increase what volume of food is on the plate and try to really reduce carbs after lunchtime.

@reluctantjumper Whoa! That’s a lot of carbs over the morning, as @chrispoffer says, you could do with weighing your portion sizes, the serving suggestions on the box that they measure calories on are tiny! What milk and how much milk are you having on the cereal? There’s some more calories. What are you having with the fish/chicken in the evening?

I would suggest that you need to increase your protein intake and reduce your carbohydrates as an initial step towards weight control.

And water, lots of it. I’m taking on at least 4 litres a day.

Myfitnesspal measure and record everything, if you were anything like me I was quite shocked with my intakes

Another good week for me, a further 1.5kg down :-)

A better week for me, Myfitnesspal helps me massively with calorie intake moderation, even though I still have to fight the urge to snack! Two weeks sat on my backside doing NEBOSH training isn’t helping either! Down to 78kg so 1.5kg lost this week :-)

0.5 kilo for me but had a couple of days where I wasn’t as strict as I should have been with food…

Add me to the sheet too please, weighing in weekly and almost being accountable helps me massively, that and I have admitted to myself I am too lardy!

Well it would appear that the wheels well and truly came off my wagon on Saturday…

Waking at 0530 on the landing floor at the top of the stair with no recollection of how I got there probably isn’t something I should be shouting about…

Time to have a word with myself I think! Even missed my sunday ride and I very rarely miss that even with a hangover!

I made it from Sunday to last night without one, then had three last night. I’m pretty pleased about that because it would have usually been double.

I’d say, get a mechanical non digital one, battery never flat and always works. However, if you’re like my pops, who refuses to get a decent set of glasses a digital one might make things easier!

But, how often are you using it, the amount of time you’ll save by reading a digital one quicker than taking the few seconds to read a mechanical one and not have to worry about a battery when you go to use it and the fooking thing is flat!

Carradice SQR, amazing things, mine must have done over 5 years of commuting now, not as black as it once was but still amazingly waterproof. I use the Super C SQR tour but that might not meet you minimalist requirements. I think you’ll find the slim fits a laptop a little easier as its wider. I regularly carry all my clothes for work, lunch and anything else I need.

Literally a fit and forget thing.

HTH

Bottle and a half of red, nigh on half a bottle of pink gin and 4 stella’s yesterday

Saturday night = 4 pints in the pub (San Miguel) and then 8 pint cans of Arbor Space hardware NEIPA at a social event. This was in 6 hours, started at 4, home by 10, in what I thought was a reasonable state…

I like this post and need to do the same myself, finding out how much I put away on saturday night was a bit more than a shock! Never really used to do home drinking but have become much more prolific at it since lockdown started…

Need to stop with the school night drinking as well.

I keep looking at new FS mtb even though I live in Suffolk which is flat and not rocky and I haven’t been to a trail centre for years!

dun :-)

You can do it yourself if you’ve got the right drifts, hammer and a decent touch, changed mine at least 3 times over the course of about 5 years I think.

I normally rest the hirth joint on a decent bit of timber and then remove the bearings using a hammer and drift.

Installation is a little easier as you can almost have the crank flat as you tap the bearings home.

Haven’t had to make up a tool for installation of the bearings yet just a bit of patience and making sure they are square as you install.

Rides 459
Time 533
Distance 8309
Elevation 270042

Down a bit on the last two years but that’s mainly due to more MTB and not as many long road rides. No overseas cycling trip this year either and as I live in the mountainous East Anglia elevation is not as high as I’d like.

Enjoyed my riding this year and that’s the important thing in my eyes.

12.5 mile each way, all year round (this week has been rubbish with the wind and rain) but love it and feel really guilty/lazy if I drive to work. Lucky to have showers at work which makes it much better. Up at 5ish, leave the house before 6 and at work well before 7, takes a little bit of effort to get into the routine but do love doing it. Sometimes use the run home as a bit of interval training (although not as often as I should).

As already mentioned, decent mudguards and reasonably puncture proof tyres along with dynamo lighting and carradice SQR bag for the win. A few quid of outlay to start with but pays for itself with very limited fuel bills and car running costs.

SQR mounting and the Carradice bags are great. Not the prettiest things in the world but so functional. Easy to fit and remove, don’t wobble around, hold their shape. I don’t think they can be beaten for commuting.

I’ve got some bikepacking kit but for the commute I use an SQR Carradice, completely waterproof (I’ve used mine in some proper downpours) and holds shape if you need to get a clean and ironed shirt and trousers to work every day, enough space for any other things you need to take.

I use the Super C SQR tour and I’ll be honest they aren’t the prettiest looking thing in the world but they are behind you so you don’t have to look at it but I’ve had mine at least 4 years now, gets used almost every day for commuting and still continues to work flawlessly.

You need to establish what is making the noise first, could be the primer pump charging the fuel rail to allow starting but then could also be a different pump, as mentioned above.

Get someone to turn the ignition on with your head under the bonnet and see if you can find out what is causing the noise to start with, once you have found this and given us a little more information there may be people who can offer advice. Once established what is making the noise you can see what pipes are connected to it fuel/coolant/air/vacuum and then you can decide what and whether it needs replacing, you might be able to remove and bypass it or just disconnect it and see what happens.

Fuel primer pumps, electrically driven, are usually nearer the fuel tank area though and the main high pressure pump will be engine driven.

You are asking for some armchair diagnostics with very little information to go on…

I’m definitely not an expert on Vito’s though.

18 months for my custom ti road bike. Had it 3.5 years now and still looks as amazing as the day it arrived, even after the abuse I’ve given it.

Xiaomi Mi A1 user here, cannot fault it, was cheap as chips when I got it (a good 6 months ago) and has been brilliant ever since.

I’m not a huge user of apps but fairly hefty on phone usage for work and it continues to perform.

Thanks for all the responses folks, some great thoughts here, as always.

Space isn’t an issue and am planning on staying at the house for a long time (bought as a keeper rather than a seller) but when I did look at ground source heat pumps the costs were rather high for install?? Might have to do some more research as that was a couple of years ago…

The house is already fairly well insulated with the work I’ve done, new windows, 200mm celotex in the loft space and another 150mm below the hot water underfloor heating on the whole ground floor. Need to get the cavity walls insulation done at some point so ground source could be an option??

bike hut front light, my 2007 Exposure joystick just wasn’t cutting it anymore! And some race matrix pads, the reviews from this place sounded very promising but as I’ve only moved to disc brakes in the last 2 months anything is an improvement and I’m hoping I might get a little while longer out of the OEM set…

Agreed, do love reading your annual posts about your year in the hills

Reckon I’ll go for it again this year, if nothing else to keep me occupied and not wanting to wind up the in-laws at every opportunity :-)

First meeting in a pub, had been ‘chatting’ online for a week or so previous.  One of my best mates wedding the day before our ‘first date’ I arrived with a stinking hangover, overweight (I’d spent a few years enjoying the single life) and probably looking like crap.

That was 3.5 years ago and (although I’d probably never tell her) she’s been one of the best things to happen to me and completely restored my faith that there is ‘one’ for me.  Popped the question when she organised a completely surprise 40th party for me earlier this year.  She was the more shocked one when I’d already got the ring and dropped to a knee to ask her in front of everyone.  I was going to do it that night but didn’t expect a 100 strong audience when  I did it!  She was happy :-)  The wedding is going to have to wait a bit though as I’m mid house renovation which is taking up most of my cash.

I’m definitely punching above my weight.

Home

Talkytoaster link above.  I have no affiliation by the way, just who I have used previously.  On an 810 too FWIW.

Talky toaster used to be the place to go if you want to buy them installed on a SD card.

However, if you’ve already got the card just google ‘DC Rainmaker garmin maps for free’ and there is a walk through guide which means you get them for nothing.  They are good too, used them for numerous trips around Europe.

I’m nowhere near this but just wanted to say cycle speedway is awesome fun!

Got quite a decent local cycle speedway following where I live and I have to say its great fun.

Kids love it and the grown up ones certainly have a good time too!

In true STW fashion, recommend what you have…

Crisp

MAIN

Not sure what lead times are now (it was 18 months when I ordered mine!) I’ve had mine since 2015 and still love it as much as the day I first rode it.

In actual fact the only thing I’ve changed is the wheels and consumables since I put it together.

During an Italian cycling tour this year I even took a detour and spent a few hours at his ‘shop’ talking bikes and history etc.  Great fella and could have spent ages there.

Will build to your specifications too.

Motorbike one, CBR400RR chasing a mate on his GSXR750, I was good in the twisty stuff and could keep up with him, got in a straight line and he pulled away (as expected).  Hit a bump in the road and got into one almighty tankslapper… composed myself for a split second, thinking right, I need to accelerate out of this, rather difficult when flat out in top, bouncing it off the standard installed speed limiter at about 115mph (I took it off, the limiter, later on).  I still have no idea how I did not die that day…

Somehow I managed to gain back some form of control, probably by magic of my heart beating faster than the 14000rpm the engine was doing :-D

Stock car racing one, accelerated off turn three, thinking that throttle feels lighter than it did, getting to corner, releasing throttle pedal, jammed flat out, return spring broke and jammed against the rocker cover causing the throttle to be stuck flat out (you couldn’t achieve it even if you tried!) planted the clutch and the brake, i locked the wheels in a moment of panic, it didn’t slow down much, I hit the fence (rather hard) going from somewhere between 50 & 60 to zero in about a foot, splitting a crash helmet on the roll cage and punching the front of the cab with my right hand where it couldn’t hold onto the steering wheel…  The chassis was made of 50mm box, the car didn’t give much…

The race finished, I got out, collected as much of the bits of the car as possible, put it on the trailer and went home.  Got home, about 1.5hrs away, opened the van door and collapsed in a heap as my hips had seized up :-D  Managed to get myself indoors and sit in the bath for a while (which meant I was able to walk again) but spent 3+ weeks starting my car with my left hand (damn awkward!) due to the bruising on my right hand, that was rather inconvenient :-(

Won’t go into the fighting injuries from my early adult years :-D

Commute home from work, taking the long route, single track road, downhill, very blind tight left hand bend, never any traffic, decided to see how quickly I could take said bend…

The Porsche Cayenne (yes the big 4×4 one) didn’t expect me coming round the corner quite so quickly.  He was decent enough to pull right into the verge/hedge, although this was just after I had already grabbed a handful of brakes, stood the bike up and aimed for said verge he decided he would put the Cayenne in to give me more room.  I can remember the rolling stoppie and hitting the front of the car, thinking ‘**** this is going to be expensive!’  Can’t remember the trip over the Porsche but remember getting up behind it after travelling the whole length of the vehicle…

Got up, thought, yes, I’m alive!  Walked round to the front to hardly see a scratch on the Porsche :-) looked for the bike, that was in two pieces after snapped the headtube off the top tube and down tube, not going to be riding that home!  You could see where I’d dragged my face up the windscreen using it as a ramp, almost directly in front of the passenger of the car.  At this point the driver opened the door, got out and said, “How the *uck did you get up?!?!  I thought you were dead!”  At this point I noticed my hands were hurting rather a lot and I could see stars :-(

I sat down on the verge, the driver offered me a lift to hospital, I said nah, take me home, I walk up the hospital later…  He refused, I managed to get him to put my bike in the boot and drop me round my parents, good old Mum took me to hospital, one broken left wrist and a broken right thumb.  To go with the shagged bike & destroyed cycle helmet.

Two things I’ve never forget, the drivers words to me, and the pain when the nurse straightened my thumb out, after he strapped it up once and me telling him it hurt worse than when I walked in :-)

3 days in hospital waiting for the operation to pin my thumb back together, which was actually a bonus as I have private healthcare through work and got £200 per night for being in hospital on the NHS, that paid for the new frame :-)

WD40

The mechanics trick of choice when they may have forgotten to install seat covers etc.

I’ve got a Crisp (after asking advice for frame builders on here). It is amazing! I’ve done thousands of miles on it, it just ‘fits’. Obviously everything is personal and I didn’t go too far away from anything ‘normal’ but it does do everything I wanted and more. Looks fantastic and you really have to look at it if you want to see how it is ‘special’ in comparison to anything else.

It certainly raise a few questions when people look at it, although I did have to wait a rather long time for it, 18 months!

Yes, it cost me a lot of money but I’d just split up from the ex Mrs so I went mental and got myself a ‘gift’ :D

He and still will be my cycling hero, always seemed such a humble fella and just enjoyed pedalling his bike. A truly sad day and a real loss to the cycling world. The things he achieved were phenomenal.

RIP Mike

To be honest I didn’t look at Velo Orange. The standard answers round these parts is usually SKS or PDW and I’ve tried both now and the PDW are much nicer, both in quality, materials used, mounting arrangements and most importantly no where near as fiddly to install. As the stays are more or less telescopic they look much ‘cleaner’ around the wheel as there isn’t a bit of stay sticking through past the mudguard. There is also only one set of stays per guard rather than two.

As they are aluminium they are also much nicer to work with and you don’t need three pairs of hands to hold them still whilst installing, they don’t flop around like SKS

I paid approx. £60 for mine about sept last year. Bought to replace SKS longs (which lasted a winter before failure!) They are mush better than SKS ones although you have to take a bit of time and care fitting them (as with all mudguards) to get them to fit right.

I also had to take the front one off and do some repair work by more peining of the rivets to tighten them up and stop the rattle. I only run 23mm tyres though so don’t have any issues and they do look lovely for a set of mudguards :-) I reckon they’ve done about 4000 mile so far and are holding up well.

Halo headband for me. They work much better than just a buff, the bandana one if, like me, you’re a real sweaty mess. I’ve got 5 of the things in various guises/colours.