I’ve seen stuff looking a bit like that cylinder turn up on a few motorbikes on Instagram recently, I wonder if it’s a smaller version of the Oversuspension style resonant damper: https://hhrperformance.com/i-31637461-supreme-technology-oversuspension-for-the-bmw-s1000xr.html

woo levels appear unclear.

I learned slightly too late that you need to be really careful pushing bearings in and out of the carbon rocker, like don’t assume the whole rocker is strong enough to withstand a bearing press.

I am fascinated by the idea of these, since seeing the demo at Tweedlove a year or so back. I’d potentially be curious to try one out if I could ignore the price.

What I can’t work out is how it would be affected or not by a light covering of suspension oil. Rockshox recommend a bit in the air chamber, presumably over time at least some would end up in the carbon bit? Would that reduce the adsorbtion properties? Does that make it a wear part?

Not an iPhone user, but a quick Google suggests Shuggah https://apps.apple.com/sa/app/shuggah/id1586789452 should do something similar?

I’m surprised more people aren’t using xdrip+.

With the Freestyle libre 2 it’s pretty great – the sensor talks to the phone, phone feeds datafields on my Garmin Fenix watch and Edge headunit when I’m road riding. Can snooze low and high alarms for a preset period (I use 30 mins for lows, 1 hour for highs) (useful when out riding, or in meetings) including from the watch, which is _amazing_ if you are in the middle of something, and have them set them not to re-raise if the blood sugar is trending the right way.

Big plus for me is being able to calibrate the sensor readings with blood tests too, can find that the Libre numbers are comically out. Doing a few blood tests keeps it within 0.2 mmol/l ish for me.

I’m a T1D in the same sort of setup, using Libre2/Xdrip/Garmin while I’m sat on a smart turbo in front of a Win10 pc in the garage. I get a few drops on the bluetooth for the glucose monitoring stuff, but it’s generally fine, and reconnects fairly fast.
I’d actually wondered if it was my big nasty fan causing the issue by putting out some EM noise, rather than bluetooth contention.

I get the choice of linking the smart trainer via bluetooth or Ant+ though at the pairing screen, and am using Ant+ where I can.

If you’ve got a gravel bike too, the partially concrete/tarmac track up to the saddle between Dodd and Carlside is a brutal gem. Higher than Honister, and with a nice relaxed ride back down the other side.

I struggle with MIPS for night riding. Makes the light jiggle about a lot more than a non-MIPS helmet.
Ended up with a second, cheaper helmet with a permanently attached hope mount for night riding.

Libre on/in the arm, insulin pens in my carry on, along with spare cartridges. Always been fine, occasionally they confirm what it is, but they are common enough now that it isn’t a surprise.
Last flew out of Manchester in March, was OK then.

I’ve been blowing through the inner freehub bearings on these pretty quick, though there appears to have been a running change to the Freehub design to include an additional bearing (3x total). Anyone else had issues, worth the upgrade?

Like here…

Following with interest. The Dengfu R06 disc and R12 disc frames are on my budget KoM sneaking “knife to a gunfight” watch list.

The offline mapping does work ok, though it wont let you do massive areas at once
MENU>Offline Maps>Offline Maps>Add a custom offline map
then select the area you want and press Download.
beyond a certain zoom level it blocks the option, but I seem to be able to download chunks of about 20km x 30km at once.

One last question, does the OS map sub allow you to plan, export and import using .gpx files etc?

Yes, route planning works ok. You can even plot a route on mobile, and load the GPX onto your Garmin device all on the phone, which was useful over Christmas.

Yes, though they seem to have just updated the web map thing:
https://explore.osmaps.com/ it seems to be missing some of the nice bits and bobs from the old system, like being able to overlay Benchmarks.

As Scuttler says, unlikely to be spotted by most overworked IT depts, unless it’s from abroad.

Easy test would be log in via mobile hotspot or whatever while working at actual home on a day at some point before you go. Will assure that the system would work at her end, and also give an indication of whether it gets spotted.

I’d vaguely remember “the assumed wisdom” when I laced up some Light Bicycle rims for DH racing a few years back that carbon rims and ali nipples did something weird and corrosive together, and that it was a bad idea (use brass instead).

Old wives tale, or has DT ignoring this, or got a neat technical solution?

There was some signage on the Supermorzine chair when we were there last year about ebike weights and removal of batteries, but I have to admit I didn’t pay much attention to it.
You might want to call the lift company.

I’m using one.
At first I lost a few swimming and on door jams, but started covering them with a 8 inch-ish strip of kinesiology tape. I’m now using a Miaomiao too, to feed the data to my phone and watch, and the tape keeps the whole thing in place really well. The tape I’m using (cheap Amazon stuff) lasts about as long as the sensor does.

Haven’t failed a sensor or Miaomiao with extended swimming or surfing sessions so far.

Pretty sure it’s behind the yellow plug. 👍

Yup, I’ve fallen foul of this. Wandered all the way to the local bikeshop in the pouring rain to pick up some more, then pulled the yellow plugs and swore. Wonder if olives used to get lost from the boxes, so started supplying them in a more secure location.

I can’t think of any races off the top of my head where my abiding memory is of a spectacular bonk

Think more local. Some amazing grassroots stuff I’ve been involved with where a last gasp hail mary effort has exploded spectacularly and hilariously.

It won’t be long until it’s in every smartwatch, I suspect the UCI are trying to get ahead of it

A friend of a friend was looking at trying to measure blood sugar using lasers 10 or so years back. It wasn’t going all that well :(

I’m still hopeful for a smart tattoo with ink that changes colour with blood sugar. Cake meter/fuel gauge is the dream, but I guess could end up like those bars on the side of Duracell batteries.

I’m not sure it’s in their business interest really, they can own the vertically integrated stack and rent access to “cloud features” they come up with later.

Xdrip+ seems to integrate well for me, my BG shows up in Garmin Connect after rides, as an additional chart alongside HR etc.

The really cool bit of Xdrip+ for me is being able to calibrate the Libre readings with fingerprick tests, which does seem to make it much more accurate. It’s been used by people with pumps to “close the loop” I believe too. I can see why Abbott aren’t keen on getting that involved with that at the moment, I imagine the regulatory testing required to do that officially would be a real drag.

I’m a T1 Diabetic (28 years in), been using the Libre/MiaoMiao/Xdrip/Garmin setup for a couple of years, for enduro racing, crit racing, TT etc, as well as general control. It’s brilliant. A proper gamechanger.

I see the “sporting” arguments about this vs the entertainment of watching people blow up attempting one last surge for glory, against the trickle down benefits of tighter garmin/libre integration.
What worries me though is the almost comic amount of single use plastic waste generated by each sensor. The applicator is huge, the sensor is plastic, contains a battery and a circuit. Every 2 weeks (well, whisper it, but there is an app that lets you restart some of the sensors for an additional 10-14 days) that’s a chunk of planet killing plastic off to landfill.
It’s gross really. I’m pretty happy if all the mamils and the pros and the instagrammer self-declared “Type-0s” don’t add to that heap of waste as the artic burns and the sea levels rise.

Assuming you could find a couple of people with the same wheel/axle/drivetrain standards, it would be a great way of testing tyres in a couple of conditions.

3 or 4 people, 3 runs each per tyre

Probably something a bit like this? https://www.strava.com/activities/47099094#9113919766 though follow your nose in Lanthwaite.

We sometimes ride in from Cockermouth, and add in the greenlanes from Lorton -> Mosser -> Loweswater on the way, and then back via the track under Whiteside and Dodd.

Why not skip Whinlatter, and ride in Lanthwaite woods (there’s a couple of legit-ish descents and some nice techy singletrack), and throw in the loop round Loweswater, up Fangs Brow and back along the bridleway along the top of Holme Woods?

It’s a classic local loop.

An old spoke shaped into a V with a couple of small bends in the ends. Just enough tension to hold the chain roughly in place to allow mucking around with getting the magiclinks attached without getting dirty hands.

Couple of velcro straps that came free with a remote control car (battery straps apparently). Ideal for holding the brake levers closed for occasional bubble bleeds without wasting zip-ties.

Pair of those big steel Pedros tyre levers. Great for recalcitrant tubeless tyres, but the curve is also ideal for reseating brake pistons before swapping in new pads.

I’ve gone ghetto and (edit, beaten to the punch) _also_ rigged up one of these cheap t-amps in my garage, to run two old hifi speakers. Use a little bluetooth to 3.5mm dongle most of the time to play the audio from my phone. All in cost about 30 quid. Nice and loud, hasn’t broken after (checks amazon order emails) 8 years of a couple of hours a week.

The Pirate Audio hats for Pi are another option though, I think one of them can drive speakers directly?

If I remember right, ODI grips are/were a sideline out of an injection moulding company that does Christmas decorations etc.

I like mine. I’ve ridden it round the mtb trails at Whinlatter, and podiumed at a local Crit race on it (swapped tyres, obvs). It would be hard for me as a mountainbiker to justify a “proper” road bike, given the Tempest seems to work so well for everything up in the Lakes.

With a bit of care, you can run all of the cables for the back of the bike through the internal routing port for the brake line. Way more aero that way, or at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself.

Here we go:
https://www.tredz.co.uk/Assets/Images/UserPages/advice-tab/turbo-trainers/Tredz-bolt-thru-axle-guide-v2.pdf

Use something like this: https://robertaxleproject.com/lightweight-thru-axles/ to figure out the thread pitch.

There is a printable one around somewhere that I can’t find, but gives a PDF to print out and line up to figure out the thread pitch.

I’ve been playing Blockhead Theatre with my GF (not a gamer, but played a load of Prince of Persia on her Dad’s PC as a kid) through lockdown.
It’s brutally difficult in the later stages, but it’s quite funny and progresses nicely.

Overcooked 2 was less successful. Nearly caused a raging argument.

We’ve stuck a couple of hours into Biped, which is kind of fun.

I’m keen to give Hyper Light Drifter a go.

If you prefer the (relative) simplicity of the “classic” Civ games, well worth having a look at the open source FreeCiv: http://www.freeciv.org/

Got rules/tilesets that mimic the Civ1/2 play styles, and a lot of others.

I used to play it on the train down to London from the Lakes quite a bit, good way to kill 3 hours.

The Buwizz app links up fairly well with a bluetooth gamepad. I’ve been using an 8bitDo SN30 to donut the 42077 rally car around, it works fairly well, though obviously another potentially faffy step for kids.

Been keen to build something tracked racer like out of parts.

It got a bit lonely in lockdown.

This turned into a bit of a lockdown project…

Who needs a stand? It’s all about balance!

Bonus points if you can get yourself in the pic :D

By next March every sound or lighting engineer, graphic designer, photographer, events co-ordinator or cameraman is going to be driving an Amazon van or stacking shelves. Or, like Fatima the ballerina, we could work in cyber. If we’re lucky.

That’s leads me to wonder about something I’ve been curious about – how much content do the BBC/Sky/streaming services have in the pipeline, vs the speed at which new content can be produced with current restrictions etc. Realise that likely there is post-production work going on on a lot of stuff that was shot pre-March, but this is a pipeline that needs to be kept fed I guess.
Forgetting all the other terrible stuff going on, lockdown has been made more tolerable by some interesting series to watch.
Ignoring the all getting together on Zoom stuff, how do you keep the media content consumption beast fed? Animation carried out via home-working? The snarky answer I guess is something around a load of that backlog of movies that haven’t come out this year being released direct onto media services, or re-cut into mini-series (like a reverse Das Boot).

Side note, is anyone else having more crashes and instability on their Garmin watches recently? My Fenix 5 has started locking up or randomly restarting sometimes, particularly when trying to follow routes.

I’d love to use any other brand, but a big selling point for me as a T1D is having an Xdrip blood sugar readout as a widget and as a data feed during activity. I haven’t found a way of doing anything similar for the other sports watches yet.

Ah, that thread has the link I couldn’t find…

Mag review