Lots of good advice up there. All I need to add is to suggest having two front lights – one flashing and one always-on steady beam. Flashing is good to attract attention but makes i difficult for drivers to judge your distance/speed. The steady beam light helps with that.

Star Wars is kind of hilarious. In a technologically advanced galaxy they have guns where the projectile is so slow (and bright red) you can see it coming and dodge…

But shirley most Hollywood gunfights have guns that fire bullets that travel so slowly that hero has time to duck down behind a wall before the bullet ptwang’s against said wall (as if baddie had actually aimed to hit the wall rather than the hero)?

“Ha ha ha, have you seen the urbandictionary entry for STW???”

Yes it is good advice to put in a much better time than you anticipate. That first year I had put in my time as ‘just want to get around’ and started, literally, due to dropped chain, last. That meant I started 2 hours after those at the front and had only 90 minutes to get to the first food stop 50 km away. Having waited around so long at the start I needed to pee, then while riding my saddle came loose, but I couldn’t spare the time to stop. Got to the food stop with 2 minutes to spare to find all the food eaten/taken, peed and tightened saddle, set off to be told no, I’m out.

To quote Yoda, “The greatest teacher, failure is.” I got taught a lot that first year. Had to come back and beat it.

The Etape du Tour? Good luck! This is my third year of doing it. First year I travelled the day before, was driving for 8 hours rushing to get to the village to ‘check in’, by the time I got to where we stayed it was late, I was knackered and I still had to put the bike together. I didn’t eat right and didn’t sleep right due to fretting about sleeping in. I strongly advise to NOT do any of that.

The fitness you already have will either get you to the end or it won’t. Remember big events like the etape are 90 percent mental, the other half is physical. The secret is just don’t stop. Yes, pause to eat and drink and refill pockets and bottles, even pause to get your breathe while kidding on you’re taking a photo. But if you don’t stop then you will get there in the end.

So now I suggest your focus should be on whatever helps you relax. Get your packing done (while remembering you can buy/hire anything forgotten when you’re there). Know where you are going. Study the route – the feed stops vary from 15 km to 30 km apart so are good points to break the big ride down into more manageable chunks to help with the mental challenge (you can ride 30k, can’t you? Of course you can!) Keep an eye on the weather forecast and prep your kit accordingly – at the moment the forecast is cloudy so Val Thorens will either be in or above the clouds so we might get very wet.

On the day it is very very easy to go off too fast so remember that and try to slow down. If you’re faster then overtake on the left. On the climbs raise your head from staring at your stem every now and again and look around you as the scenery will be amazing and the public at the side of the road will be cheering you on. And enjoy it!

Which pen are you starting in? My mates and I are in pen 10.

On the Lego shop page, what’s the orange thingy on the ground beside the bike on the first picture?

The Garmin Forerunner watches can transmit your heart rate to display on your Edge. The heart rate not as accurate as a chest strap, and you’ll need to check it works with the 1000 (it does with my Edge 130).

Distance: how much longer do I have to go?
Ave speed: how much longer should it take?
Current speed: oh God, why am I now slower than earlier?
Elapsed time: I’ve only been out for how short a time?
Time of day: Can I have a lunch stop yet?
Heart rate: am I dying?
Gradient: the biggerer the number, the more justification for being so slow.

It would be the EEC Public Procurement Directives of the early 90s. I could probably still quote chapter and verse from them now, yet I couldn’t even tell you the number of the current directives.

Round 2 would have to be on Star Wars A New Hope.

If you turn a bicycle upside down, stand in front of the front wheel and then try to undo the pedals, fifty percent of the time you won’t.

Newest daftest: showing off by doing a trackstand halfway across a narrow single-log bridge. Lost balance, put foot down, nothing to put foot on, toppled over.

Stupidest daftest: as a youngster (in the days of Raleigh Grifters) my bar was coming loose so lots of fun was had by my mates kicking the front wheel to the side so I’d have to stop and re-straighten the bar. Until the time I thought I’d just kick the wheel back in line myself. Leaned forward, kicked the wheel, missed the tyre and put my foot through the spokes instead. OTB. My pals burst out laughing, then stopped and went white when they saw the blood spurting out of me.

cheese@4p

Subscriber
I just found out about the bank holiday weekend!

What?

Woo hoo!, I just found out about the bank holiday weekend!

I’m interested in it but that’s because I’m a roadie-mamil that goes up hills.

The Garmin 45 and 45S are expected to be announced next week, with the S version being ‘small’. Could be interesting.

Garmin Forerunner 45 Specs Leaked (45S too) – Summary Info

Much obliged.

Boing. Iainc, does turning off Bluetooth keep the battery to a useful life?

I’m looking for a simple GPS, mapping not necessary but elevation/gradient very handy, and like the look of the 130. But would want to trust it to have more than 8 hours life.

Ta.

Work problems are generally either “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” or “Houston, we have a problem.” And the numpties I work with make me mutter “I see dead people.”

I don’t have a car so my choice is cycle commute or use public transport. And I don’t very much like people and their habits/behaviour on public transport.

Oh bugger. RIP Mark.

I have all my tools in a saddle bag so it moves from bike to bike. Anything over and above (dependent on weather and distance and stuff) go in bum bag and/or pockets.

I suppose I kinda was looking for the same as the OP for a kinda similar reason. Whether it is me, the cold weather, how I slept the previous night, or elves moving the cleats or saddle during the night, some days my knees are fine clipped in and other days they’re not. Some days they would just never seem to be right, other days they’d start off fine/moany and during the ride become moany/fine. (No, I’ve never had a bike fit.)

Anyway, my personal solution is Shimano M089s and dual platform pedals. Okay, so they’re MTB shoes but they’re roadish looking. I can clip or not, depending on how things feel. And I’ve not died yet.

I scored a Pollok Park parkrun PB of 23 minutes a few years ago, but I haven’t been anywhere close to that time since. It is such an anomaly (all other times around then were 24 to 26 minutes, I’m back up to between 27 and 28 minutes now) that I can’t help thinking there was a glitch in the space-time continuum matrix that morning.

Thank you’s and biscuits all round for the answers chaps.

The closest thing I ever found similar to the EBC Couriers are the Vitus commuter bikes. The Dee 29 VR is cheap, 1x, flat bar and has disks.

Now at 98 out of 99 so thank you to all of you.

Now I don’t know what I don’t have.

Got 80 so far. But not got anything related to BigFoot, Pinhead, the blue ghost baby, the dustbin,….

Answers or clues gratefully received.

If you’re a southsider, the Tesco at Silverburn always used to have them.

Thanks for all the replies.

I’m guessing from the tone of the question though that the 10kg the OP mentioned isn’t because he’s been squatting in the gym!

Ah, well, weirdly, it is! I’d been training for the Etape du Tour this year and what with hill reps and squats and dodgy steaks went up from my usual flyweight of around 70kg up to the more paperweight 80kg. I don’t know which is my actual fighting weight but I am fitter now than I have been in years.

Yes I’m looking at keeping/increasing power while losing/maintaining weight, but as said at the top, the “my bike’s lighter than yours” thread got me thinking about throwing money at the bike, which then became a “would I notice the weight loss from the bike with this extra girth around my thighs?”

I’m not actually even sure if I am looking to be talked in to or talked out of spending money.

really? how?

In the Connect app, Settings then Smart notifications. You choose which apps are allowed to send notifications.

The Bond James Bond Aston Martin DB5 anyone?

https://www.cnet.com/news/lego-james-bond-aston-martin-db5/

I don’t know. But I do have a mused question to ask myself.

If dark clothing absorbs heat and light clothing reflects heat, and heat is energy, does that mean a black t-shirt has more ‘energy’ in it than a white t-shirt?

I remember cycling along. And I can remember waking up looking at the sky and a circle of faces.

I can understand why I don’t remember the unconscious bit, but I don’t understand why I’m also missing the bit as the accident started. It’s not like I was unconscious which caused the accident. Is it like when Word crashes it only recovers the last autosave? Is it possible to change a brain’s autosave settings?

I seem to remember the stalking gym girl thread kept up the mystery and anticipation because it lasted weeks. Plus (I think) it had lots of top tips from (was it?) Sir Hora.

The best I can do is give my own experience of Sertraline.

Was put on it last May at 50 mg. A few weeks of side effects that eventually leveled off to just constant headache, memory loss and nausea when hungry or when I had just eaten, but no impact on mood. So after a couple of months was put up to 100 mg. Whether it was the pills or the CBT’ing that I had then gone through or both, I did start getting a handle on my depression but just could not control the anxiety. The same side effects continued.

Back at the doctor just before Christmas to update them on the above – headache, forgetfulness, nausea, less feeling of depression but no less anxiety – and they put me up to 150 mg. Now I am feeling less anxious which is good, but whether it’s better or not I am now also not feeling any emotions. I feel like a doped-up zombie. I was thinking I should at least be feeling some worry about that, so I went back to the doctor. The upshot is she thinks 6 months or so with no emotion might be good for me so I’ve been kept on that level.

I will have to wait and see what happens next.

Nope, that wasn’t the Death Star I had. Mine was all cardboard.

‘Twas this

was there ever a toy version of the death star?
Not the full thing. Just a couple of rooms iirc (throne room?)
It had a turbolaser that “blew up” when you pressed a button, too.

Is that the one that had a trash compactor with movable wall?

That’s good then. I had a TomTom multisport a while back and it was the best for the price.

Wasn’t there news that TomTom were abandoning the watch market?

Seems so

https://en.discussions.tomtom.com/spark-and-spark-3-runner-2-and-runner-3-473/tomtom-leaving-wearables-tomtom-really-1028359

That might me pause buying one, although can’t see any more recent news than that from last July.

Thank you everybody for the replies!